Our Stake has been challenging everyone lately to do more genealogy. Since I am Primary President I started thinking about how the Primary children could take part in family history work. They really can't do much internet searching or indexing, but I really felt that they could be part of it in some way.
After thinking about it for some time and further promptings during October's General Conference of last year, I challenged the primary kids to bring me 100 family names ready for temple baptisms.
I was a little leery of setting this goal. I didn't want to set up the children to fail, but my councilors assured me that they would help by submitting their names and that 100 names was an achievable goal. So, I made a thermometer-like chart to measure the progress. I also filled a jar with 100 pieces of candy that I gave out, a piece for each name. (The children liked moving the thermometer up, but they really loved the candy.)
Then the miracles started happening. I shouldn't have been worried - Heavenly Father wants His children to succeed even more than I do.
Families were inspired to start searching their genealogy or to come back to it again. Sometimes even the kids themselves helped find new names; Elizabeth went on to my Family Search account and just started clicking until she found some green arrows indicating work had not been done yet for that person. One of my councilors submitted her 25 names that she just hadn't gotten around to doing yet. Mom found names on the Gibbons side that the girls were able to turn it. It was amazing to see that thermometer creep more and more toward 100. We reached our goal in the middle of March.
When we got to 100 names, I promised the children that we would celebrate in some way. I envisioned a trip to the San Antonio Temple, but I wasn't sure if it would be possible, so I didn't announce it at first. We have over 75 active children in our ward and most of those are under 8. I wasn't sure if it would be too much of an endeavor to take them all on a 2-3 hour drive to San Antonio.
Once again, things worked out. The Lord wants His children at the temple, even if it is just to visit the temple grounds. We sent out sign up sheets and the response was great. We ended up having over 35 children come.
One of the members of my stake presidency just told me, "Be diligent and constant, but allow the Lord to do His work." This is one of those times that the Lord did His work and I was blessed to be a part of it.
The pictures below are from the temple trip that we did yesterday.
3 comments :
My first thought was, "You are amazing, Gwen!". Then I realized that it was the Spirit that led you to do all this. We are so proud of you and the work you are doing in helping our grandchildren and others come to the Lord. We love you!
So great! What a fun trip! Thanks for sharing.
This is the coolest!! Way to follow the Spirit, put your trust in the Lord, and witness miracles as you do so! I am a firm believer that as we trust in the Lord, He will always do His part, and then we will be blessed to see miracles that strengthen our faith. Remember to thank Him for the miracles you saw! :D This is just so cool- thank you for sharing, Gwen!
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