Prophetic Priorities

[pam]

I have to remind myself at times that Grunt isn't a member.  Yet!!!   I just think he's awesome.

 

[Sunday21]

6 hours ago, laronius said:

So what did/will you tell your family this time? I'm always interested to hear people's general takeaway from GC.

My usual summary is :be nice to other people!

[laronius]

On 10/8/2017 at 6:47 PM, my two cents said:

hasten the work (missionary and family history)

I've wondered about this. About the time the whole idea of hastening the work started gaining steam the Church lowered the age of missionaries from which we saw a huge influx in missionaries. But beyond that I've been somewhat befuddled as to how we are supposed to personally respond to hastening the work. Is it simply a call to spend more time doing those things or is there something we can utilize that actually does speed things up? What exactly is that principle supposed to look like in our daily lives that is different from before?

[my two cents]

20 minutes ago, laronius said:

I've wondered about this. About the time the whole idea of hastening the work started gaining steam the Church lowered the age of missionaries from which we saw a huge influx in missionaries. But beyond that I've been somewhat befuddled as to how we are supposed to personally respond to hastening the work. Is it simply a call to spend more time doing those things or is there something we can utilize that actually does speed things up?

Both but for example - If more members would do some indexing, that would speed things up for people to find/verify their ancestors so the temple work can get done. A few months ago I listened to a talk by the previous head of familysearch who said that only 2-5% of the members do anything with family history. I find that incredible especially with how many talks, lessons, etc there have been on the importance of this work. 

As far as tools to help - there are various apps that people can utilize ... even on their phones.

[Sunday21]

26 minutes ago, my two cents said:

Both but for example - If more members would do some indexing, that would speed things up for people to find/verify their ancestors so the temple work can get done. A few months ago I listened to a talk by the previous head of familysearch who said that only 2-5% of the members do anything with family history. I find that incredible especially with how many talks, lessons, etc there have been on the importance of this work. 

As far as tools to help - there are various apps that people can utilize ... even on their phones.

Seriously! I had no idea so few people participated! There are some very keen family search people in my local temple.

[Anddenex]

14 hours ago, laronius said:

It is interesting how certain Apostles/Prophets have a theme or two they always seem to come back to. Duty is definitely one of Pres. Monson's. Another one would be "to the rescue."

True!

[my two cents]

Correction: Couldn't find where I heard that but found a quote on lds.org from another presentation Elder Brimhall did in Aug 13 - 

"But even with all of the resources made available, only 25 percent of Church members have at least registered, and studies show that in a year-long span, only 8 percent of Church members have logged on and used FamilySearch."

Hopefully it has improved since then. 

 

The 2-5% may have been referring to how many people submit names to the temple.

Edited October 10, 2017 by my two cents

[Guest MormonGator]

24 minutes ago, my two cents said:

Correction: Couldn't find where I heard that but found a quote on lds.org from another presentation Elder Brimhall did in Aug 13 - 

"But even with all of the resources made available, only 25 percent of Church members have at least registered, and studies show that in a year-long span, only 8 percent of Church members have logged on and used FamilySearch."

Hopefully it has improved since then. 

That sounds accurate. Some members (myself included) just don't care that much about genealogy. 

[Anddenex]

7 hours ago, my two cents said:

Both but for example - If more members would do some indexing, that would speed things up for people to find/verify their ancestors so the temple work can get done. A few months ago I listened to a talk by the previous head of familysearch who said that only 2-5% of the members do anything with family history. I find that incredible especially with how many talks, lessons, etc there have been on the importance of this work. 

As far as tools to help - there are various apps that people can utilize ... even on their phones.

All baptized members in our family index. I am finding encouraging and inviting all baptized members to find family names more difficult. But I agree, if it didn't take hours to find one name at times, it would be easier. I am trying to find name myself, and then once found, then gather as a family to find names; then, there is that fine line of "compelling" which I find I am probably more compelling.

[my two cents]

2 hours ago, Anddenex said:

All baptized members in our family index. I am finding encouraging and inviting all baptized members to find family names more difficult. But I agree, if it didn't take hours to find one name at times, it would be easier. I am trying to find name myself, and then once found, then gather as a family to find names; then, there is that fine line of "compelling" which I find I am probably more compelling.

That's great that your family is indexing!! To find names try the 'take a name' app (but make sure to verify the info before doing the temple work). 

[Sunday21]

7 hours ago, my two cents said:

Correction: Couldn't find where I heard that but found a quote on lds.org from another presentation Elder Brimhall did in Aug 13 - 

"But even with all of the resources made available, only 25 percent of Church members have at least registered, and studies show that in a year-long span, only 8 percent of Church members have logged on and used FamilySearch."

Hopefully it has improved since then. 

 

The 2-5% may have been referring to how many people submit names to the temple.

I am appalled...and I do not appall easily! So ahem, could we persuade these non genealogy doing lds people to hightail it to the nearest temple to do some endowments? I have about 200 that need to be done!

[laronius]

On 10/10/2017 at 4:44 PM, Anddenex said:

All baptized members in our family index. I am finding encouraging and inviting all baptized members to find family names more difficult. But I agree, if it didn't take hours to find one name at times, it would be easier. I am trying to find name myself, and then once found, then gather as a family to find names; then, there is that fine line of "compelling" which I find I am probably more compelling.

I think the difficulty lies in the lack of connection we feel towards these people. Names and dates on a piece of paper alone don't mean a whole lot to us. I think the best remedy is to learn about the lives of our ancestors. Obviously we aren't going to know much if anything about some of the names but if we learn about those we do know something about I think we invite the spirit of Elijah into our lives in a greater degree that will result in a natural desire to seek out our lost ancestors.

[anatess2]

2 hours ago, laronius said:

I think the difficulty lies in the lack of connection we feel towards these people. Names and dates on a piece of paper alone don't mean a whole lot to us. I think the best remedy is to learn about the lives of our ancestors. Obviously we aren't going to know much if anything about some of the names but if we learn about those we do know something about I think we invite the spirit of Elijah into our lives in a greater degree that will result in a natural desire to seek out our lost ancestors.

Ever since I got baptized I've wished and wished that I had the foresight to record all of my grandparents' stories.  We used to have a family gathering every weekend and my grandpa would tell us stories about this family member and that family member.  Like, how he told us about his father being such a joker while his mother was such a firecracker.  My great-grandpa decided to just get an assurance that my great-grandma was not cheating on him so he told her that he was going to play cards all night long.  After the lights went out in my great-grandma's bedroom, he climbed the 2-story window into their bedroom and whispered to my almost asleep great-grandma "I notice your husband is not home...".  My great grandma immediately noticed it's her husband, realized what he's trying to do so she screamed at him for his suspicions, punched and kicked him and pushed him out the window!

I had so many stories of those that I can't remember much of them.  I have stories that I couldn't remember who it was about from my great-great-...-great grandparents.

[askandanswer]

On 10/10/2017 at 1:54 AM, Grunt said:

I'm one of the unwashed.  They don't want me out there.

 

On 10/10/2017 at 10:10 AM, Just_A_Guy said:

Seriously, I’d ask my elders’ quorum president if I could at least tag along.  I’ll bet he would try to work something out (once he regained consciousness!).

 

On 10/10/2017 at 10:27 AM, Grunt said:

I'll have to study what an elder's quorum president is, then I WILL ask him.

The last guy who was baptised in our ward attended church and participated in all activities for about 16 months before he got baptised. He was a regular on the Thursday night rescue visits during which ward leaders and missionaries went out to visit long term less activies and he often went out proselyting with the missionaries . Before his baptism, apart from one particular habit, he couldn't be distinguished from any of the members in terms of church involvement. One of his problems that caused the delay was smoking. He finally stopped smoking long enough to be baptised, and then started again about 6 weeks later. He still smokes (and he's still trying to stop) but I think that most members accept that and don't think any the less of him. 

[laronius]

On 10/13/2017 at 10:29 AM, anatess2 said:

Ever since I got baptized I've wished and wished that I had the foresight to record all of my grandparents' stories.  We used to have a family gathering every weekend and my grandpa would tell us stories about this family member and that family member.  Like, how he told us about his father being such a joker while his mother was such a firecracker.  My great-grandpa decided to just get an assurance that my great-grandma was not cheating on him so he told her that he was going to play cards all night long.  After the lights went out in my great-grandma's bedroom, he climbed the 2-story window into their bedroom and whispered to my almost asleep great-grandma "I notice your husband is not home...".  My great grandma immediately noticed it's her husband, realized what he's trying to do so she screamed at him for his suspicions, punched and kicked him and pushed him out the window!

I had so many stories of those that I can't remember much of them.  I have stories that I couldn't remember who it was about from my great-great-...-great grandparents.

I think a lot of us have the same regrets. Even now I will come away from a family event and think why didn't I take any pictures or write anything down about it. Even the things we think are common place and nobody would be interested in can be of great value. My grandmother kept a journal for exactly one year in her life. I never really knew her so it was fascinating to read about what she did day in and day out. Just fifty years ago things were quite different from today. But when we consider how different things will be during the Millennium from how they are now just imagine how intriguing our boring daily lives will be to those of our posterity who will live in a terrestrial world. Reading our dull journal could be like reading The Lord of the Rings or some other dark fantasy, good versus evil book.

[jewels8]

I recall in the April Conference, they encouraged us to learn more about the Savior

[laronius]

On 10/8/2017 at 6:47 PM, my two cents said:

hasten the work (missionary and family history)

This has definitely become a divine mandate in recent years. In the dedication of the new Provo MTC building Pres Eyring said that this doesn't mean changing the Lord's timeline. So I take it that it simply refers to us preparing ourselves and others in a faster manner. Just out of curiosity, does anyone feel that the rate of preparation for themselves or those around them has been noticeably hastened in the past few years since the hastening officially got rolling? If so what does that look like? I'm trying to more fully implement this principle in my own life and would like some practical application.