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Need ideas for working with a specific Church organization?
Choose the organization from the links below.

YMYW    Primary     Relief Society    Priesthood

Family History Centers    LDSWC Home Page

Family History Ideas for the Priesthood

• Date Night >>
• PAF on Computers >>
• Community Family History Open House >>
• Clearing Names for Temple >>

Date Night

Reserve the Family History Center near you for a Date Night for your Priesthood group and their spouses or dates if not married. Give a tour of the center so that they will know what is available. Introduce them to the programs on the computers and let them search for some family names.

PAF on Computers

Use your priesthood brethren with computer experience to make sure that everyone in the ward that would like it has PAF installed on their computer. Use others to go into homes and teach people the very basics of how to enter data into PAF. With this background individuals are more likely to want to get started and learn further.

Community Family History Open House

Having a community family history open house can be done on a ward or a stake level. It can have a missionary purpose, be for the education of the ward or stake members, or a combination of the two.

The open house can include:

Displays of what is available at the Family History Center or tours if there is a FHC in the building.

Computers connected to FamilySearch.org or the FamilySearch CDs

Mini classes on PAF 5, Internet searching, history writing, research, temple name submission, etc.

Individual consultations on personal genealogy brickwalls or on getting started.

Displays about the purpose of temple work, eternal families, and the plan of salvation

A booklet containing information on beginning research, FHCs, submitting names for the temple, and other covered areas

Pedigree charts, family groups sheets, and help in filling them out.

Anything else you can think of that will be of interest to the group. Use the talents that are available within your ward or stake.

Flyers or invitations can be distributed to the ward or stake area by the YM/YW if the area is a reasonable size. If your area is too large, try publicizing it in the local newspaper under community events or try getting a reporter to do a story on the preparations and upcoming event.

Clearing Names for Temple

Have the Priesthood set a goal to find at least one name from their family that they can take to the temple. If someone in the ward has many names to do and would like help, involve others in helping them get the temple work done . By helping others do family names, this can increase their desire to find their own names. Submitting names and doing temple work is a form of missionary work and equally important.

"However, missionary work is not limited to proclaiming the gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people now living on the earth. Missionary work is also continuing beyond the veil among the millions and even billions of the children of our Heavenly Father who have died either without hearing the gospel or without accepting it while they lived on the earth. Our great part in this aspect of missionary work is to perform on this earth the ordinances required for those who accept the gospel over there. The spirit world is full of spirits who are anxiously awaiting for us to perform these earthly ordinances for them. I hope to see us dissolve the artificial boundary line we so often place in our minds between missionary work and temple and genealogical work because it is the same great redemptive work!

Recently, I have felt impressed to share some thoughts about the work for the dead because I feel the same urgency for it that I do about missionary work since they are basically one and the same. To my knowledge, there has never been another time in this dispensation when we have had four temples at various stages of planning and construction as we now have, together with the refurbishing and rededication of others. Thus, I said to my Brethren of the General Authorities, “This work is constantly on my mind, for it must be carried forward.”

Spencer W. Kimball, “The Things of Eternity—Stand We in Jeopardy?” Tambuli, May 1977, page 1

Article may be found by using the search engine at www.lds.org

To submit ideas, send an email to FHC@ohanasoftware.com

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