It was super busy as we had leadership council and started zone
conferences within the same week. In leadership council we prepared a
part on the responsibilities of leaders - specifically focused the zone
leaders and sister training leaders. It was fitting because there are so
many new leaders this transfer as many went home in the last.
Our zone conferences are going well so far. Elder
Garcia and I give our presentation on working with new members of the
church. It's a 45 minute presentation that we have given 7 times now so
we've got it down pretty well. That being said, everyone single one has
been different as we receive little bits of guidance and direction from
the Spirit in each one to meet the specific needs of the individual
zones.
As we prepared the presentation we got together all of the notes we took from the meetings we had with Elder
Viñas to see apply what he taught us. He spoke a lot about the "My
Family" booklets that the church is using now to jump-start family
history work with new, uneducated (me being one of them), and
less-active members of the church. We decided to take a good 15 minutes
to talk about that and Familysearch because, in the end, the information
in those booklets is supposed to be entered in Familysearch. It's
perfect for Argentina because members feel comfortable doing stuff like
that in their homes and then we can take them to the family history
centers where they can enter in the information and work with those
assigned to family history.
While preparing
and presenting I have realized more and more the importance of family
history work. There are many aspects to it in which I have been
enlightened but one of which I will share right now. New members of the
church are often full of joy for the new knowledge that they have come
to know. That joy often leads, as it did for Lehi in his vision, to the
desire to share it with their families. When the new members learn they
can share this message not only with their living relatives but give the
opportunity for the ordinances for those beyond the veil it brings a
new depth to their understanding of the Gospel and becomes an anchor for
them. Giving them the opportunity to search for family members not only
brings to surface memories or new found knowledge of family members but
bring them the desire to go to the temple and perform the work for them
there. If someone achieves that step of going to the temple to perform
the first saving ordinances of the Gospel for their relatives they are
well on their way to "enduring to the end." It's a good indicator that
they are converted and will only help them in their further conversion.
The next step would then be to continue faithful in the Gospel to, when
arriving at the appropriate time and after being a member for at least
one year, continue performing the later ordinances in the temple.
I
have often asked myself on the mission, "How do I help this new member
continue progressing and to one day arrive to the temple?"
Unfortunately, I have often discounted the importance of family history
but now I can see, very clearly, that family history has a direct
correlation between helping people get to the temple. I am very grateful
for the opportunity I have had this zone conference to prepare and
teach on this subject. It was a big aspect of the Gospel that I was
missing in my life. I am looking forward to working more on my family
history when I return from the mission.
Hope all is well for all of you back home!
- Elder Rainock
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