Dashes of our Lives

This weekend has been our Stake Conference. I enjoyed the messages that were shared. One of the talks from the adult session last night was a message about the dashes of our lives. The sister talked about how in family history work we have birth dates and death dates that are separated by a dash. The dash represents our lives. What do we do with our dash? She shared a story about a young man in our Stake who recently died after a couple of battles with cancer. She talked about what he did while fighting this disease. A few years ago when he first battled cancer he worked on family history and found 350 names that needed their work done. This time around this sister shared the story about helping him to complete the temple work of these 350 names. This was a huge under taking in a very short amount of time and involved family and friends helping to complete 1800 to 1900 ordinances. This happened during January of this year. Since that time this young man has passed. How amazing that in the time he had while fighting cancer, he accomplished so much. She talked about what the reception must have been like in the Spirit World from those whose work he did. It was a powerful message and invites us to ponder what it is we are doing during our dash and to make sure we are doing those things that matter most.