During the past 40 years, H. Ray Patterson of the Provo 10th Ward, Provo Utah Stake, has consistently done temple work for his kindred dead. A career officer in the U.S. Air Force, he was stationed in various places as a pilot and flying instructor. So whenever temples were accessible, he personally did work for his and his wife's family lines. At other times he submitted names to temples where other family members who lived nearby could do the work.
After retiring from the military in 1980, he continued doing family history work. He and his wife, Sylvia, moved to Provo in 1995 to be near the temple, where he is currently an ordinance worker.Temple work has "given all of us the proper perspective of what family relationships and the purpose of life are about," he said.
"In my opinion, temple work provides the greatest confirmation of faith and testimony."
Brother Patterson received his endowments in the Hawaii Temple in 1958. He and his wife were married in the Los Angeles Temple. They have done work for their kindred dead at the Arizona and Alberta temples.
His interest in family history and temple work began when he was a young man attending BYU. He took a family history class that led him to contact a distant relative who later gave him a 600-page book of family names of his ancestors.
Doing work for these and other departed family members of his and his wife has brought many quiet spiritual rewards. One of these came in the Provo Temple while doing sealings on his wife's line. At the family sealing session were her father, James E. Hoyal; two of the Patterson's sons, David and Benjamin; and a daughter, Lorraine.
As the sealings proceeded, he experienced a deep sense of satisfaction that his wife's ancestors were accepting the sealings. All present felt a rich sense of family closeness with their ancestors.
"Temple work gives the sense of the reality of the connectedness of family relationships." he said, "And those relationships are real, no matter how far back and how far away.
