While using the FamilySearch app recently, I discovered the “compare-a-face” activity. After uploading a photo, the computer shows what percentage of similar facial features one has with one’s ancestors. My photo showed a 76% match between my face and that of my maternal grandmother, Hildegard Anna Maria Duessler Bates.
In fourth grade, I wrote an essay on how my grandmother was my hero. She grew up in Germany and endured World War II while simultaneously trying to get her education and working as a nurse for the Red Cross. She later wrote in her journal that she was grateful to Heavenly Father for shielding her from many perils during that time.
After the war, she was hired as a secretary for a Presbyterian chaplain in the U.S. Army in Marburg, Germany. Through that job, she met my grandfather, U.S. Army Sgt. Gordon Leon Bates. He offered to teach her about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and read the Book of Mormon to her.
She later wrote in her journal: “The joy this brought me is too great for words. At that time it all seemed too good to be true. Yet with all my heart, I knew it was true. … The principles of the restored gospel appealed to me immediately. It seemed as though I had believed them all my life.”
After receiving permission from the local mission president, my grandpa baptized my grandma on July 10, 1948, in the Lahn River.
I have several photos of that day. My favorite is one of her smiling broadly — she was truly radiant.
Two weeks after the baptism, my grandparents were married in the St. Elizabeth’s Church in Marburg and looked forward to being sealed together in the temple when Grandpa was discharged from the Army and they could move to the United States. During that time, my grandmother took hold of the gospel of Jesus Christ with both hands and quickly became a bold missionary to her neighbors, friends and family in Germany.
Looking back at photos of my grandmother, I can feel her resilience. I recognize the sacrifices she made to raise a family in the Church. I see her dedication to keeping her covenants. And I admire the desire she had to share the restored gospel with others.
In Alma 5:14, Alma asks those he’s teaching if they have received the image of God in their countenances. And later in verse 19, he repeats the question, “I say unto you, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?”
I never considered this scripture in a family history context, but looking at pictures of so many of my ancestors, I can see their testimonies of Jesus Christ and of the Restoration of the gospel. They lived that testimony, and it was reflected in their faces — just like it was in my grandmother’s.
Her life of selfless service, dedication and love created a countenance that shone with the image of God.
At the end of my grandmother’s life, a brain tumor took away much of her ability to communicate and function. My grandfather patiently listened to her dictate her personal history so that their children and grandchildren would have her testimony.
My own testimony has been strengthened by reading the histories of many of my ancestors.
President Russell M. Nelson spoke in April 2024 general conference about the gift of priesthood keys and the history of how those keys were restored to the earth.
When the prophet Elijah appeared on Easter Sunday, April 3, 1836, he “fulfilled Malachi’s promise that before the Second Coming, the Lord would send Elijah to ‘turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers,’” President Nelson taught.
“Elijah conferred the keys of the sealing power upon Joseph Smith,” he said. “… Without priesthood keys, none of us would have access to essential ordinances and covenants that bind us to our loved ones eternally and allow us eventually to live with God.”
As I look at the photos of my ancestors and see myself — and their faith — reflected in their countenances, I desperately want to be bound to them. Knowing this is possible because of Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice gives me a deeper gratitude for a covenant relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
