I had a genealogy thought on Sunday. Here's as good a place as any to share it.

The thing that has bugged me about family history is the urgency folks keep putting on it. But how could it be urgent, I ask, when it WILL all get done eventually, and dead folks ain't getting any deader?

Plus, we know that Spirit Prison is not a place separate from Spirit Paradise -- it's just a mindset, so to speak. So if somebody has repented and is just waiting for their work to be done, do we really think they're tortured and anxious every second they go without their baptism? Is that the urgency?

MAYBE. But here's my NEW theory, and I like it way more.

In order to help folks in spirit prison, they need to be preached to. But you can't preach without priesthood authority. Therefore, until we get work done, some folks are kept from helping others out of their spirit misery, because they themselves aren't members of the Church yet.

Eh? Eh? So there are these throngs of people, desperately needing the Gospel, but unless we help redeem the dead, the dead can't spread the Gospel to the other dead.

Eh?