Gerrit W Gong | We Each Have a Story | April 2022 | Saturday Afternoon General Conference

We Each Have a Story
By Elder Gerrit W. Gong

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Please come find your family, all your generations, and bring them home.

Friends, brothers and sisters, we each have a story. As we discover our story, we connect, we belong, we become.

My name is Gerrit Walter Gong. Gerrit is a Dutch name, Walter (my father’s name) is an American name, and Gong of course is a Chinese name.

Experts estimate some 70–110 billion people have lived on the earth. Perhaps only one has been named Gerrit Walter Gong.

We each have a story. I love “the rain on my face [and] the wind as it rushes by.”1 I wobble-waddle with penguins in Antarctica. I give orphans in Guatemala, street kids in Cambodia, Maasai women in the African Mara their first very own photo of themselves.

I wait at the hospital as each of our children is born—once the doctor has me help.

I trust God. I believe “[we] are, that [we] might have joy,”2 that there are times and seasons to everything under heaven.3

Do you know your story? What your name means? World population grew from 1.1 billion people in 1820 to nearly 7.8 billion in 2020.4 The year 1820 seems to be an inflection point in history. Many born after 1820 have living memory and records to identify several family generations. Can you think of a special, sweet memory with a grandparent or other family member?

Whatever the total number of individuals who have lived on the earth, it is finite, countable, one person at a time. You and I, we each matter.

And please consider this: whether or not we know them, we are each born of a mother and father. And each mother and father is born of a mother and father.5 By birth or adoptive lineage, we are ultimately all connected in the family of God and in the human family.

Born AD 837, my 30th great-grandfather, First Dragon Gong, started our family village in southern China. The first time I visited Gong village, the people said, “Wenhan huilaile” (“Gerrit has returned”).

On my mother’s side, our living family tree includes thousands of family names, with more to discover.6 We each have more family with whom to connect. If you think your great-aunt has completed all your family genealogy, please find your cousins and cousins’ cousins. Connect your living memory family names with the 10 billion searchable names FamilySearch now has in its online collection and the 1.3 billion individuals in its Family Tree.

General Conference Saturday Afternoon Session April 2022

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