12-14 December 2017 Interviews with President Leavitt and training on Temple and Family History with Sister Leavitt, Sister Foxx and Sister Willis (CES missionaries who also do their own temple and family history work at the Family History Center next to the Johannesburg Temple).
Temple and Family History work can help missionaries with their missionary work.
1. Introduce a new convert to their branch or ward Temple and Family History Consultant. They acquire a friend who teaches them how find their own family names to take to the temple.
2. The new convert feels the spirit and gains a more personal knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. They are nourished by the good word of God.
3. The new convert can be baptized in the temple for their deceased ancestors as soon as they are interviewed by their branch president or bishop and acquire a limited-use temple recommend to do baptisms for the dead and confirmations. Activity in the church is increased as the new convert does baptisms for the dead and confirmations or submits their family names to the temple, and continues preparing to obtain a temple recommend to receive their own temple ordinances a year from their own baptism. They can also complete their ancestors other temple ordinances. They are fulfilling a responsibility to do Temple and Family History work.
At Zone Conference, each missionary was given a My Family booklet to fill out as much as possible to reach back to a deceased ancestor.
At interview training, the missionaries watched a video clip of President Hamilton introducing a new App (Family Tree Lite) and website (lite.fs.org) to enter and submit names to the temple. It is a version of Family Search that uses very little data. They also saw video clips of members of the Quorum of 12 expressing the blessings from Heavenly Father to those who participate in Temple and Family History work. We talked about being able to have those wonderful blessings in their own lives and in the lives of those they teach.
Then, after discussing the merits of how participating in Temple and Family History work can benefit new converts, less-active members, members, investigators, themselves, and maybe be of interest to non-members whom they contact, the missionaries signed into lite.fs.org. They saw how simple and easy this program is to use. They experienced what this program can and cannot do. When they had time, they were able to sign into Family Search to explore more ways to help with their own Temple and Family History work. With the help of Sister Willis and Sister Foxx, all learned what they can do in their situation to prepare to take names to the temple.
The following pictures are of some missionaries being trained at the mission home.
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| Elder Lopuliak, during an earlier visit to the mission home, untangled all the lights and put some on the tree after the tree was unpacked, assembled and decorated by a youth from Dobsonville who was visiting the mission home. |
