We have been busy learning and encouraging our youth - and a few adults - to find their ancestors names that need to have temple work done for them. On Sunday I made announcements in priesthood opening exercises and young womens: told them about this site and offered a home-baked treat to the first 5 youth who left comments. There was a rush to write down the address, and several were bugging friends to teach them how to comment on a blog. Fun!
Sunday evening our stake Family History Center director gave instruction to new, and some longterm, ward family history consultants. (One ward had 4 new people just called that day- way to go!) I finally printed out the "Family History Consultant's Guide to Temple and Family History Work". It is well organized and very helpful. Evidently fhc's need to print this out for themselves.
Our ward now has about 48 names ready for our youth to perform baptisms during their youth conference in March. Many of these are supplied by adults, but I feel our young people have been touched by the enthusiasm of those participating; and by the knowledge that each one of them, when ready, can tap into the resources on lds.org and find and prepare their own names for work. I am completely confident that we will continue to interface with the youth (possibly more on the family level) and support them in their growth. Honestly, we have such wonderful young people, who could hold them back!
Last night we had our youth family history fireside. About 8 -10 youth were present and maybe a dozen adults. A good start.
I tried to keep my presentation very simple - targeted at those who had no knowledge of finding names and processing them through NewFamily Search. We had some advanced questions, but it seemed to work ok. Think I'll make a very short survey for those who attended - see what they got from it.
We had an intro, good story from our new family history consultant. He was adopted at 2 and 1/2 years old from an orphanage in Germany. Did not know about his birth parents. One day last year he sat next to a man on a plane that was from the town were the orphanage was located.The man's brother (think I'm getting this right, or close anyway) worked with German government records for 30 years and loves to do research. Soon our brother received information about his birth family, including a family tree of 4700 names!
Next I did my presentation with a projector & laptop. We went live to the lds youth website, youth & family history pages, and through the 5 steps on the Discover page - how to prepare a name for temple work. I finished with the 'serving others' video to help create a vision for the young people on how helpful they could become to those who are not computer literate.
Then our good Bishop closed. A few hours before the fireside he created a fan (link is on youth family history web page). He was surprised to see the empty places in the 9 generation chart, thinking that all the work had been done. (He is a 4th generation bishop!) He and his youngest daughter identified a great aunt (?) who never had children, and had no work done for her. They are preparing her name for the temple.
I am thrilled to be engaged in this work. If we can assist just few people to prepare their ancester's names for temple work today, think of the significance through time. Once folks get started they will gain the skills & understanding needed to continue, and to help others. It's fun!
Here is a link to many videos you can find on lds.org about youth and family history work.
Go to lds.org, scroll down & on the left side you will find a list of related sites. One of them is the lds youth site. Go there, then look at the link for youth & family history. Click that and you will find a great way to start, or continue, your family work. There are simple videos to guide you, testimonies and experiences of youth, and ideas on how to help others. Great stuff!
My first assignment: it's a big one! My High Priest group leader & my new fellow family history consultant and I will be helping the youth of our ward to find and prepare 5 of their ancestors names to take to the temple in mid March - for the stake youth conference.
Our plan is to start with a fireside tomorrow night in our chapel. I will be navigating through the lds youth family history pages, introducing everyone to the steps necessary to find and prepare a name. (I learned about a new fun program I used to make a powerpoint, just in case we cannot get online. It's called Jing. It captures [takes pictures] of web pages. So if you can't get online, you can show the pages and present information about them. Nifty!)
Next step will be to meet with the youth individually during their activity nights. We'll bring laptops and assist them in any way needed. I look forward to this. I recently served in YW and our youth are fabulous!
Today we attended a presentation by a stake family history specialist. She is amazing -knowledgeable and a good teacher. She showed us the process her ward is using to reach the stake goals. Lots of helpful info and some great handouts - including a checklist the youth can use to help them git 'er done. When she emails these to us I will post them.
Our ward now has about 48 names ready for our youth to perform baptisms during their youth conference in March. Many of these are supplied by adults, but I feel our young people have been touched by the enthusiasm of those participating; and by the knowledge that each one of them, when ready, can tap into the resources on lds.org and find and prepare their own names for work. I am completely confident that we will continue to interface with the youth (possibly more on the family level) and support them in their growth. Honestly, we have such wonderful young people, who could hold them back!