Wow, yesterday’s Family Discovery Day at RootsTech 2025 was so inspiring! It’s my personal tradition to watch this online every year. Some time I want to make it a family event and go in person. I always come away feeling so inspired. I love knowing that I’m joining with thousands of people the world over in watching it. It just feels as communal and full of surprises as Christmas. (Here are other times I’ve blogged about RootsTech.)

Just below is a short video summary about RootsTech. It’s the biggest genealogy conference in the world. Then I have the full video of yesterday’s Family Discovery Day below that. I watched a few videos each day on Thursday and Friday too. Family Discovery Day, on Saturday, is always my favorite.

I loved hearing from Elder Holland and Elder Andersen, two apostles of Jesus Christ. Elder Holland shared such a tender story about being near death for about 4 weeks. He said that he came out of with a strong revelation that it was important for him to pray more and to tell people everywhere to pray more. That felt so encouraging. After hearing that I thought, “Yes, I do want to do that more, to remember to pray silently instead of slipping into mentally complaining or despairing.”

The Piano Guys, Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson, performed before we heard from Elders Holland and Andersen and Sister Andersen. Their music was so beautiful as always. They also shared a few family memories. I so loved that Brother Nelson showed the power of family stories in parenting. He said that with his children bedtime is often a battle. The difference between bedtime being a battle or bonding time is the bedtime stories he tells. He decided to look at his family history stories and tell them as bedtime stories to his children. Then he shared one of these stories, about his ancestor Eliza, who lived in England. Within a few months of each other, both her parents died, so she and her siblings were orphaned. She had to go to work in a button factory to support the family. She was feeling so poor and bereft, walking down the street, wondering where to go or who could help her. She prayed silently to God for help. A kind neighbor, Mary, reached out to her and invited her to church, to a meeting of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She found the hope she needed in the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. She got baptized and joined the ward orchestra. Then she found a handsome cello player in the orchestra, and they got married. As a couple, Eliza and her husband moved to Utah. They were walking down the street with just the clothes on their backs, not knowing where to go. The same friend who found Eliza on the streets in England found her again in Salt Lake City. She took them into her home and helped them get started in their new land.

He invited all of us to be like that. He said that he hopes all of his children turn their lives to God. He said that he has told them that when they do that, they may find themselves walking down their street, not knowing what to do. He encouraged them to pray and look for those Marys in our lives. And be those Marys for other people. I loved that, as well as the performance on the organ by Richard Elliott that sounded just like the Piano Guys. It’s amazing that an organ can sound like different instruments and that Brother Elliott can play the organ so well.

Elder Andersen’s wife, Kathy shared a few beautiful, touching stories about her family’s introduction to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. She said that her grandparents saved money so they could travel from Florida to the Logan Temple so they could have their 13 children sealed to them. Elder Andersen joked that Utah was too cold so they didn’t stay in Utah and went back to Florida.

Then when Sister Andersen was four years old, her father and mother wanted to have the same temple blessing of being sealed and having their children sealed to them, so they traveled from Florida to Utah as well. Sister Andersen’s grandmother was worried that the family car wouldn’t make the 5,000-mile trip so she loaned them her car. I won’t tell the rest of the story; you’ll have to watch it. I felt touched by the Holy Spirit when Sister Andersen told that story, as well as another story of this same grandmother. She said that her grandmother went through a divorce at a time when that was rare. Years later she endured a tragic car accident that put her in a coma. Her father cared for his mother-in-law so much that he visited her every day in the hospital, to check on her, every day for years. Wow, what a devoted son-in-law! May we all live to engender such devotion towards each of us as family members.

It was fun to see videos of Elder Andersen on a dairy farm, talking about his childhood memories of living on a dairy farm. I love that he concluded by saying that our family history memories are precious. We can keep them alive by starting with “what you know” such as photos, dates, names and places. He said we can put them into familysearch.org, and then enjoy them for a long time.

You can get started today with what you know. Go to familysearch.org and create your account. It’s free, and you don’t have to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to join.

Want more of RootsTech? Go here to watch the archived videos from this year and past years.