Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Does a youth leader ever feel like they
have it figured out? This hasn't been my
experience. However, I couldn't be an effective youth
leader today without Dan Duckworth's presentation about going
from youth worker to youth mentor. Mentorship is
a key concept to understand when leading youth.
In his presentation,
Dan talks about ways to really turn the
traditional approach to leading youth on its head.
(00:24):
How can you better know your purpose? How
can you find out their life goals? How
can you build a relationship that is transformational
rather than simply filling time during the weekly
youth activity? You can watch Dan's presentation
in the Young Saints virtual library by going
to leading saints.org/14.
You'll get free access for 14 days, and
that will give you plenty of time to
(00:45):
watch Dan's presentation
a few times. Let's give youth the leadership
they deserve.
I got an email the other day from
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And then one time during an interview, he
(01:06):
heard that Leading Saints has a YouTube channel
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(02:14):
Hey, Everyone, this is Kurt Franco with Leading
Saints. I love these episodes not only with
great people and and guests, but people who
I consider a friend. And I get invited
in Brad Louder, who we actually interviewed his
wife not too long ago. We'll link to
her episode as well because she is the
youngest daughter of president Nelson and we did
a phenomenal
interview where she talked about dishonoring her her
(02:36):
mother, Dansel Nelson, and, definitely worth trying out.
We'll link to that. And you'll wanna keep
listening to this episode because I asked Brad
what it's like to be the son-in-law
to the prophet president of the church, president
Nelson.
And he tells a story of how he
asked president Nelson for his daughter's hand in
marriage and it's a sweet story, one to
stick around for. And then we jump into
(02:57):
his day job as the
senior vice president at Family
Search, and he talked about so many products
and projects going on at FamilySearch, just a
phenomenal resource. Many of you are just the
family history junkies, you know how good that
resource is. But we wanna talk about it
in context of the rising generation, not only
(03:18):
understanding the tools that are out there for
all of us to use, but how can
we weave these tools into youth activities and
make it less of, like, this heavy burden
that the we're sort of forcing on the
youth, but really engaging them and igniting the
fire within, the spirit within
about the, you know, work of the, you
know, spirit of Elijah or gathering the the
House of Israel on both sides of the
(03:39):
veil. So definitely one for youth leaders to
listen to,
missionaries, whether they're full time missionaries or ward
missionaries
to listen to, just some phenomenal tips of
engaging
the award
youth group through family history. And, I think
you'll appreciate some of the upcoming tools they
have coming out. So here's my interview with
my good friend, Brad Louder.
(04:11):
You know, welcome in, my good friend, Brad
Louder, to the the studio here. Hey. It's
great to be here. I tried to play
a joke. I told him we weren't doing
video. And then but he still came prepared.
White shirt and tie. I'm so glad I
wore a shirt white shirt and tie. Now
I think what threw you off is I
interviewed your wife, Marjorie Yes. Who is the
the youngest daughter of president Nelson. Uh-huh. And
we talked about her her mother, Dansel. Yes.
(04:32):
And, so we'll link to that. That's definitely
one for the ages. I'm glad we got
that recorded. Yeah. And there was no camera
there, so I'm picturing a similar thing. And,
so I'm so glad I shaved and didn't
wear a ratty T shirt. That was that
was close. Nice. And I I mean, I
I hope that just continues to bless your
family and grandkids and great grandkids as we
have honored dance over there. That's been a
(04:52):
huge blessing to the family, and it meant
a great deal to her father Yeah. To
have his first wife, Dansel,
his eternal mate, honored in such a sweet
and personal way. That was was really meaningful
Well, that's awesome. To the whole family. That's
awesome. So I you've told me this story,
and we can cut this out if you
want it. But being the son-in-law to president
Nelson, because how you've been 10 10 years
since you've been married? It's about 11 and
(05:13):
a half years. Okay. So at the time
he got married, he was in the quorum
of 12. Yes. An apostle. So Right. We
all have our story of asking
the father-in-law for his daughter's hand in marriage.
So what's the story behind that? Well, the
short version is Marjorie and I were at
that stage in our courtship, and we knew
that was it was impending. And so we
well, she reached out to her dad and
(05:34):
said, hey, can we come over next Monday
night, have family home evening with you? We
can work a jigsaw puzzle and have some
popcorn, which is Yes. He loves jigsaw puzzles.
Loves jigsaw puzzles. That's how he and Wendy
unwind. That's their form of recreation. And
so they accepted the offer.
We knew what our goal was. And so
we're we're literally
(05:54):
working this puzzle, and I was so nervous.
I could not put 2 pieces together. And
I'm thinking, this is not making a great
impression on my future in laws. They're think
I'm sure they're thinking, this poor guy, he
just he's So did they think Oh, not
quite. Did they think that what was coming
or not sure. I think Wendy's very intuitive,
you know,
former therapist and professor of psychology and and,
(06:18):
social work at BYU. So I I think
she could see it a mile away. And
in fact, at one point, when the puzzle
making, when I finally gave up on doing
my own section and I thought, okay, her
dad's working on this section with the fence.
I'll look for all the pieces with fencing
and I'll hand them to him. He'll pop
them in and that'll make a good impression.
And sure enough, that was successful.
(06:39):
And so I kept feeding him these pieces.
He'd pop them in, and Wendy said, plays
well with others. Check.
So, yeah, she I think she could
see what was coming. Anyway,
Marjorie and and Wendy went to clear off
the the popcorn
dishes
and and went upstairs. And so her dad
and I are sitting at this this table
(06:59):
where the puzzles were. And I said, Elder
Nelson, I have a real important question to
ask you. This is what is it, Brad?
And I mentioned that I was
just absolutely head over heels in love with
his daughter and would love his permission and
blessing
to marry her in the temple. And he
started crying. I started crying.
He said, of course, we would be honored
(07:21):
to have you in the family. And and
he said, I'm not going to live forever.
Now, this was eleven and a half years
ago, and he's already talking about He really
is going to be Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. Anyways, so he said, this means
the world to me to know that there'd
be someone to take care of my baby
daughter. So, anyway, he and I are bawling.
Marjorie and Wendy walked back in the room,
and Wendy's looking at the 2 of us
(07:41):
who are wiping the tears away going, what
is going on here?
Nice. Nice. So we told them and and
anyway, we kinda wrapped up that conversation. And
and he said, you know, before we wrap
up the evening, let's kneel together and have
family prayer because you're now part of the
family. And he said the most beautiful prayer
and included an apostolic blessing upon Marjorie and
(08:03):
me. And it was an evening I'll never
forget how kind and gracious they were. There
was no feeling of of, you know, having
to go through an extensive interview to get
the Yeah. It didn't grill you. No, it
didn't grill me.
All of my concerns and fears just vanished
because of their love and acceptance. And that's
that's who they are. They're very core. They're
(08:24):
just so loving and kind and accepting. It
was really remarkable. That's awesome. Love it. Love
it. Now you're also you're in your day
job. You're a
senior vice president at FamilySearch. Is that Yeah.
I've been there about 11 years. I absolutely
love it. It's been such a joy to
be engaged in, in this great work and
to have my, my day job be helping
(08:45):
to gather Israel, helping to be part of
this great work. It's and in fact, I
haven't shared this with a ton of people
who have occurred, but
most of my adult life, I had this
feeling like at the end of my career,
I would love to come and work for
the church and and offer some of my
talents and experience to helping build the kingdom.
And that that's something that was always in
(09:05):
my heart. So when this opportunity came up,
it just absolutely
felt like a tender mercy. It's been a
absolute joy to to be a part of
this work. And how would you describe your
job in general? Are you, like, in the
thick and thin of certain projects or Yeah.
That's a great question. You know, a lot
of the people who work at FamilySearch are
kind of on the technical side. Software developers,
(09:26):
probably maybe close to half of the people
that work there are in the in the
IT side. Essentially, it's almost like a software
company, right? It kind of is. Yeah. Yeah.
When you think of the huge amounts of
data that we have to manage and and
make searchable and provide experiences that are meaningful
while managing this giant database. I've been in
the
(09:47):
engagement division, which is
more or less the marketing
part. So, we're what we do is figure
out how do we how do we get
members involved in doing this work that in
ways that are meaningful and purposeful and joyful
and don't feel like, hey, welcome to the
salt mines. Here's your pickaxe. You know, that's
kind of the old paradigm of everybody's got
(10:08):
to be a serious researcher,
and we love the researchers, and they do
great work and are huge contributors to building
the tree
and providing more records. And, but the majority
of our patrons are people like you and
me who aren't genealogists,
the people who want to, and especially for
members of the church, it's really about, I
want to go to the temple on behalf
(10:28):
of an ancestor. Yeah. That's special. That makes
it so meaningful. So that's what we're all
about. So the, like the emails you get
with a hand, a record hand, or, Hey,
we found a green temple. Here's, here's a
great, great grandparent
who needs to have these ordinances done. Click
here to reserve these. And
so we, that's really what our team does.
And more specifically,
(10:49):
the team I lead is, is very involved
in engaging the rising generation.
And so that's my area of emphasis is
how do we get children, youth, and young
adults to embrace and love this work and
get all the blessings that come from Temple
and Family History. Yeah. So I'm curious to
before we get into that with the rising
generation, they
you know, with this the swell of temple
(11:11):
building, I mean, how does that impact family
search or is that I mean, you've always
sort of been engaged with Yeah. Genealogy. That's
really a cool question. One of one of
the biggest ways it impacts us is just
providing records
for members. Yeah. So they can go in,
find their ancestors, add them to their family
tree, and then a green temple appears. So,
(11:31):
now they can go and do the proxy
work for their ancestors. This is a huge
task for us as a department, as family
search. With the acceleration of temple building, we
have to accelerate our work in going out
and acquiring the records. That means doing deals
with archives, with government entities,
churches that have these records,
and then we digitize those. We take the
(11:52):
digital photography
and then we do the indexing, mostly computer
aided now. So we have had to accelerate
this work all around the world because of
temples coming online. So we have whole groups
of people that are dedicated to doing that
all over the world. Yeah. And that's one
of those things about this. You know, we
joke it's it's president Nelson just like, how
(12:13):
many more temples this time? Right? And I'm
always shocked. Like, he really did 20 more
temples. Wow. I think we're out of cities,
aren't we? But just how the sort of
that domino effect of Yeah. Now we need
more temple workers. Now we need or it
reengages
and rallies people around this doctrine of the
temple to engage them in the gospel. You
know? And that whether that's finding records or
showing up at a 6 AM session to
(12:34):
help out or Yeah. It's different. You know,
think about they announce a temple in Saratoga
Springs or Layton or, you know, Orem or,
you know, wherever in Utah or another one
in Saint George. That's a very different
thing for FamilySearch.
We have huge record coverage in North America
and and most Latter day Saints in North
(12:55):
America are part of the European diaspora, and
we have great record coverage in most of
Europe. So we had a temple in Layton.
We're not panicked about, how are we gonna
get records so these people can go to
the temple for their ancestors? Now, when they
announce a temple in Papua New Guinea or
Yeah. India,
that's a huge challenge for us. Interesting. Because
we have almost no records in a lot
(13:17):
of these newly announced temple districts.
So we have to figure out a whole
record strategy of who has the records, how
are we going to acquire them and digitize
them. And so that that acceleration has has
really created a unique opportunity for us to
expand the way we see our work because
it's all about supporting
(13:37):
President Nelson's vision of bringing the temples to
the people.
And so that creates a huge need and
opportunity for us to figure that out on
the record side, which is is pretty exciting
if you think about it. And we just
don't as lay members, we don't think about
it. We just show up to temple. You
got the stack of names, and here's your
name. You know? But that's and I'm thinking
like India. Like, we always talk about how
many people actually are alive in India, but
(14:00):
now think of how many people have died
in India. Right? It's just and how do
we get access to that? Huge challenge.
And a lot of in a lot of
places, these records are crumbling
or they've been damaged by, you know, hurricane
or typhoon.
And in some places like Africa,
a lot of the the family history is
oral genealogy. Oh, wow. So these are stories
(14:22):
that are passed on. So a village elder,
there's a saying that every time a village
elder dies, a library burns down.
So, we're in a rush to capture these
oral genealogies
in places like Africa and then capture those
and create, you know, digital records for those
that are connected to family trees. So members
in Africa, as a temple is announced, can
(14:45):
connect their 4 generations to these records. So,
but it's it's exciting. And the amazing thing
is the miracles.
And we see the hand of God over
and over in people showing up, in archivists
opening their doors and saying, yes. Please come
digitize our records. We want these preserved. We
wanna partner with you. Yeah. We're just constantly
(15:06):
seeing the hand of the Lord in this
work. That's cool. Anything else just generally about
FamilySearch
that would bring context or that would interest
people? Well, yeah, something that occurs to me
is is an app that probably a lot
of people haven't heard about. It's called Get
Involved.
So you can go download it, and it
gives some some opportunities to do these little
micro
(15:26):
experiences,
like what we call kind of reverse indexing
instead of traditional indexing, which is is kind
of slowly fading out. This is taking records
that the computer is learning how to index
and teaching
the computer how to read words and numbers
in different languages. Oh, wow. So you can
go in and and look and say, for
(15:48):
example, which ones of these are Franklin and
which ones aren't? Yeah. So you're looking at
handwritten records going yes, yes, no, not sure.
So we do that to accelerate the the
artificial intelligence of these machines learning
how to index and read handwriting in different
languages and different kinds of script. Anyway, there
are lots of these little experiences that that
(16:08):
someone, maybe instead of checking their Instagram for
the 40th time today, they can go to
get involved and spend 5 minutes and do
some of these activities that are super fun.
They're kind of I don't know if addictive
is the right word to use here, but
they're they're sticky. It's like you wanna keep
doing them and it's so fun. And you
could in in 5 minutes, you could knock
out a bunch of these names and really
(16:29):
help accelerate the work. So that's that's really
cool. Get involved. Yeah. And that's a separate
app. It's not part of the Separate app.
So it's also a web version. So you
can go to familysearch.org
and look for get involved, and then there's
the web version of that also. So lots
of cool little experiences and ways you can
help. Yeah. Is there anything and maybe this
isn't really what you pay attention to or
(16:50):
your department, but as far as AI and
FamilySearch or genealogy, is anything is I'm sure
something's happening there, but A lot is happening
there, and that's a different guest. Okay.
There you go. Do I look smart enough
to know AI? Hey. You look pretty smart.
But No. We have a whole team of
experts that are specifically working on that, and
that's that's really the new frontier. Yeah. And
(17:12):
all the family history and genealogy companies are
diving
headfirst into AI because of how it accelerates
the work, not just in
in accelerating
index indexing, but but are there ways that
AI can help us build trees? Can we
create an algorithm where the computer can figure
out with all of these billions of records
(17:32):
out there, this person is in your family
tree, and here's how they're connected. And that's
that's kind of the next big thing, I
think. But again, I'm not the AI guy.
So But it is I mean, AI does
some remarkable things with data. Right? Lots of
data, more data. It can do all sorts
of things and find things that And when
you have such a huge dataset. And so
that for us is a giant opportunity that
(17:53):
we've got some very smart people working on.
So Cool. So buckle up. It's gonna be
fun to see how things accelerate there. So
let's jump into the rising generation and and
engaging them with FamilySearch. Where's a good jumping
off point? Well, I mentioned get involved. That's
really fun. But let me just back up
and kinda give set the vision for this.
You know, 2018, when President Nelson gave his
worldwide devotional for the youth, he called upon
(18:14):
them
to gather Israel on both sides of the
veil. And he said, this is the greatest
work, the greatest cause that you'll ever be
involved with, And you are preserved to come
to the earth at this time to do
this great work. And he asked them, will
you be part of the battalion of the
Lord and help gather Israel? I got goosebumps
just talking about it. It was so cool.
And there was this resounding, yes, the rising
(18:36):
generation. Yeah. We're in, man. We wanna do
this. And then thought about it a little
bit. But like, what does it look like?
Show us how to do it. Give us
a little instruction and
point us to how we could actually do
this. So that's part of what we're doing
and part of what our team is is
working on is how do we really engage
them, not just engage them, but let them
lead out. So, it's kind of 2 aspects
(18:57):
to that. 1 is is, you know, if
you're a bishop, a stake president, and, you
know, youth
presidency,
what are ways the youth could really lead
the work in your ward or stake? And
maybe rather than prescribing,
hey, here's what you got to do, 1
through 5, just empower them to figure it
out. Have them go figure it out and
come back because these are bright,
(19:18):
talented, intelligent,
inspired
youth and young adults who will come up
with the solutions
and let's let them lead out. I mean,
it's just such a huge opportunity
for them to truly answer the clarion call
from the prophet Mhmm. Whom they love and
they want to follow. So let's let them
lead out. And then, you know, there are
things like the the get involved app. The
(19:40):
first thing we ask everyone to do in
the church, and especially the rising generation,
is use ordinances ready. But here's the catch.
Elder David A Bednar has taught repeatedly
sequence matters.
Now, here's what I mean by that in
this context.
He's taught us, you know, start with ordinances
(20:00):
ready. You start with the savior.
That's where you start with youth and young
adults. So, they understand the vision and the
meaning and the purpose and the why. It's
all about the savior
that we can bind ourselves to the savior
through ordinances
and covenants.
Now a lot of those ordinances and covenants
happen. We do it ourselves. We take the
(20:20):
sacrament. We get baptized, affirmed. We go receive
our own endowment.
But the majority of the time that we're
going to perform and experience ordinances and covenants
are going to be for our deceased ancestors.
And we're not only binding ourselves to the
savior when we do this proxy work, but
we're helping
facilitating
our love, beloved family members, our ancestors, for
(20:43):
them to bind themselves to the savior.
So that's where we start. And we're laying
the groundwork. And this is what we're actually
doing. We're not just going through these. It's
not a gadget. It's not a gimmick. It's
not a little tool. It's it's the why.
We start there. We put the savior at
the focus. And then we say, now go
to ordinances
ready. That's right on the app. There's
(21:05):
a button ordinance as well, temple and then
ordinances ready. Yeah. And you can say what
ordinance you want to do. If you're a
youth, you can say, I'm going to do
baptisms and confirmations.
And then you hit the go button, and
it'll come back with names ready for you
to take to the temple. Now, many of
those might be your own family names. If
there's no one in your tree that has
(21:26):
a green temple, look at members of your
ward, of your stake who have green temple
so you can serve
your neighbors
by helping bless their ancestors.
So that's the second step. Ordinances ready. Yeah.
And is there, because I know, like, in
my family, we have our group. Right? So
I can see maybe what my dad's put
in there and if ordinances
is that something a ward or youth has
(21:48):
to be proactive in creating first so that
they could see shared records, or does that
happen when automatically?
Well, it it happens automatically,
but they're we're creating tools now that where
families can collaborate. Okay. And they can share
information and share research and share. But you
can, for example,
share if you've reserved a family name for
(22:09):
temple ordinances,
you can share it with someone.
That collaboration just creates some It just makes
it so fun and more meaningful when your
your family's involved, and it's about family serving
family. Yep. So we talked about keeping the
savior at the center,
then
ordinance ready. And then what where's the next
place to go with with the rising generation?
(22:32):
Well, the 3rd step and here's our formula.
It's really simple. Number 1, start with the
savior. Number 2, ordinance is ready. It's easy.
Anybody can do it. You're going to get
a name and you're going to be able
to print it, go to the temple and
do the ordinance
or take the your phone to the family
name desk. They scan the QR code. Boom.
They print the card for you. So that's
number 2. Start with the savior. Ordinance is
(22:53):
ready. Number 3 is add what you know,
because sometimes you're going to go in there.
A lot of members in North America,
they might not be as simple to find
a family member, an ancestor who has a
green temple ready for ordinances.
So you might need to do a little
bit of work to find someone that maybe
is just one little piece of data away
from a green temple.
(23:13):
And some people in other parts of the
world, they don't even have their first four
generations in their tree. So that's a great
opportunity for them to say, wait a minute,
I haven't done the work for my grandfather.
My great grandfather.
My father passed away. So to add what
you know could be literally going in from
living memory, from what you know, and from
(23:35):
talking to family members, talking to your parents,
getting the names, the dates, putting those in
your family tree. And here's what here's the
magic of doing that. When you start to
put in
living memories, we call it these first four
generations.
That a lot of people can do from
memory or from talking to family members.
We have so many records out there, and
a lot of them are already in a
(23:56):
tree, but they're not connected to you yet.
So when you add what you know,
magically, we connect the tree to your grandfather,
your grandparents,
and now you have thousands of people in
your tree that you didn't know you had.
And you can go through and find all
these green temples of your own ancestors just
waiting for you to serve them in the
temple. Wow. Cool. So it's just that's 123.
(24:18):
Nice. So that you don't necessarily need to,
like, go and find your grandpa's birth certificate
or you just need to make sure you
have the dates and then they're you know?
Mhmm. If you do have records you can
add as a source, that's better. It's great.
Yeah. But a lot of times, it's it's
your mother knows
this information. Maybe a living grandparent knows
(24:38):
the date, the place of their parents' birth,
so that can qualify them. But but we
do like records when they're available to substantiate
as a source. Yep. And I would imagine
for especially for converts to the church who,
you know, for me, I'd I'd you know,
we I sometimes take for granted just how
much research has been done for Yeah. My
ancestors, but maybe people coming to church is
(24:59):
not there. Yeah. Yeah. And here's something really
cool that I wanted to share about converts.
So many of them, I hear this over
and over and over again, all around the
world, by the way, not just in North
America. They will prepare shortly after their baptisms
to go to the temple and to be
baptized and confirmed
for their own ancestors. Someone they feel an
affinity toward and feel like, oh, I need
(25:20):
to do this for my father who's passed
away or for my grandfather or grandmother.
And they do the work and it's a
huge blessing to them. They're absolutely thrilled to
get to serve their family that way. But
here's something magical that happens. Someone, let's say
a Templar family history consultant in the ward
or administering brother or sister, or just a
friend in the ward helps them set up
their account and start to add some names,
(25:42):
and they connect to their tree, and they're
going. And now that they're a member, they
see green temples.
That's only for members of the church because
those are the
the ready to go names for temple
ordinances.
They can see these ancestors,
these relatives,
and it shows all of their temple works
been done in there. Wait wait a minute.
Mhmm. Look at all of these relatives I
(26:03):
have who are already members of the church.
I thought I was the only Latter day
Saint in my family. That's cool. And they
just weep when they see all of these
names of people, and they feel like I'm
not only part of this church, this is
part of our family. This is part of
family heritage is this faith. Isn't that cool?
Yeah. That is cool. Nice. Oh, oh, and
something else. Yeah. While you're talking about
converts,
we have created we've got such smart people
(26:26):
at FamilySearch. I mean, I'm never the smartest
guy in the room at any meeting ever
go to.
But we've got these brilliant people who've created
this tool called Family Name Assist.
So if you're a bishop, if you're a
counselor, Bishop Rick, if you're an award council,
just pay attention. You forget the rest of
it. Pay attention to this part.
Family name assist. So, when you're a leader
(26:47):
in Clerk Resources,
and let's say someone was baptized, a convert
was baptized in your ward, you're interviewing them
for temple recommend. Yeah. And they're they're
that's like, I don't even have a family
search account. I don't, you know, I don't
know how to do this, but I wanna
take a family name. So Bishop or someone
he designates could be counselor, a member of
(27:07):
the word council, can use this tool, family
name assist,
to help them qualify
one ancestor
for
temple work.
So they could, in a matter of days
from being baptized, with a little help from
the word council or the bishop,
have a card ready to go the temple
for baptism and confirmation,
and it's someone of their choosing. Mhmm. Part
(27:30):
of the question is that a bishop or
or someone had asked, is there someone
you felt strongly about
sharing the gospel with and providing them the
blessings
of of church membership
and of baptism and confirmation?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, if it's if
it's a woman. Yes. My grandmother.
We were so close. I just love her,
(27:51):
and I just felt her cheering me on
when I was taking the missionary list. I
could just
feel her nudging me to be baptized.
And now I feel like she's waiting for
me to do this for
her. Okay. That's who we're going to do.
Oh, cool. And they, you know, in a
couple of minutes
have prepared a family name of the converts
choosing
to take to the temple. How cool is
(28:11):
that? That is cool. And that's just done
like, it's not necessarily an app, but it's
just on the desktop Yeah. Website? It's on
the desktop. It's in leader and clerk resources,
LCR. Oh, okay. That's good to know. So
a member of the the word council
can go to it and use this tool
to walk through a few simple steps. And
and this convert can literally walk out of
their temple recommending
(28:33):
me with a family name card for someone
they love and are excited to do this
work for. Yeah. So that's a huge breakthrough.
That's really that's kinda hot off the press.
Or as Marjorie's dad would say, h off
the p.
He loves the p. He's pretty h.
Nice.
And then I think that's just a good
mindset shift to think about, like, when because
we we we handle so much, like, paperwork
(28:54):
almost like, okay. You're going to the temple.
We gotta do the the temple recommend and
but to have this in mind, like, we're
not just doing a temple recommend. We're now
making sure they're in the FamilySearch
universe. Right? Let's make sure they have an
account and a name and just get that
ball rolling. Right? Exactly. In fact, if you
look at the handbook
and leadership instruction, this is referred to as
(29:16):
temple and family history work. Mhmm. So we
like to see it as one work
that
we exist
as a department of the church. The family
history department of the church/familysearch.org.
Mhmm.
FamilySearch International. We exist
for one purpose,
and that is
(29:37):
to nourish the temples with names,
to provide
qualified names
of ancestors of members
so they can serve them in the temple
and be part of that process
of being
saviors out on Mount Zion for their own
family. Yeah. That's why we exist. So everything
we do is with that in mind is
(29:57):
how do we get the records
so that members of the church can go
to the temple over and over and over
on behalf of their ancestors
so they can not only bless the ancestor,
but bless themselves. Yeah. That's powerful.
Where should we go next? What's a good,
as far as the rising generation, who's talked
about some good tools? Yeah. That's you know,
(30:19):
I'm pretty fired up when it comes to
helping bless the rising generation because I see
I see what happens when they engage in
this work. Yeah. And I I don't even
like word work. Like template family history work
makes it sound like, you know, oh, this
is going to be a piece of art.
Yeah. It's hard work. When
we do it right with the right mindset,
(30:39):
it's joyful.
And it's fun. It's engaging. It's stuff we
want to share with our friends and get
them fired up. But here's something we want
to really focus on. And this is this
is great for leaders of the church in
particular
is instead of focusing on kind of this
aspect of work and, hey, we gotta resolve
duplicates and we gotta, you know, find more
sources or, you know, whatever the kind of
(31:00):
the genealogical side is. I want leaders
to think of how's this
engaging in this
great
effort. See how it didn't say work? That
that's right. Yeah.
How does it bless the rising generation?
Again, starting with the end in mind. It's
like, what do we want for the children,
for the youth, for the young adults of
the church? And we have a list of
(31:21):
promised blessings
that have been pronounced by prophets and apostles.
And these are profound.
Elder Bednar, David a Bednar,
he promised that the youth
who engage in this great cause and are
doing this are going to receive
protection
against the increasing
effects
of the adversary. Mhmm. I mean, what bishop
(31:43):
or what youth advisor doesn't want that for
these youth?
Elder Dale g Renlund,
in when he was talking about many of
the blessings, he talked about the power that
comes to us. And one of those was
the power
to heal that which needs healing. Mhmm. I
mean, think about that. How important is that
for this generation
who are
(32:04):
just absolutely
wrestling. I just say wrestle. I like you
can tell I live in the country. Yeah.
We're absolutely wrestling
with issues of identity Yeah. And
this epidemic of depression and anxiety that is
so rampant with this generation
and for them to receive these blessings
to heal that which needs healing.
(32:25):
And along those lines,
there's a friend of mine is professor at
BYU, Doctor. Brian Hill. He's a professor of
experience design and management. And he's done that
done this really cool research. It was actually
written up in church news and published other
places. But he did this research that found
this connection between
particularly older adolescents
(32:46):
who do family history stuff, know some of
their family history, know some of these stories,
know about their ancestors
and an increased sense of identity.
I mean, how important is that? Yeah. That's
huge. To have a deeper sense of who
you are and what your place is in
this bigger family.
You know, past, present, and future. Yeah. And
(33:08):
along those lines,
a few years back
at Emory University,
Doctor. Marshall Duke
and Doctor. Robin Fybisch
did this research that was so profound,
and they found something very similar, but even
deeper and broader. And that is that
that children and youth
who know their family stories
(33:29):
are more resilient.
They're less apt to struggle with mental health
issues.
They're more capable of handling life's challenges.
And a lot of that is just having
a sense of knowing who you are. And
a lot of that is when you know
your family stories,
you have these examples of people in your
own family who've wrestled
(33:50):
life's big challenges,
and come through the other side better for
it. Yeah. And when we I or you
or our children,
our grandchildren, when the rising generation learn these
stories
of their own ancestors, of the challenges and
the trials that they had, and how they
overcame those,
rose above those.
They're fortified. They're strengthened. It's like, this is
(34:12):
who I am, man. This is my DNA.
I can get through this. Mhmm. Look what
my grandfather went through. Look what my great
grandmother went through. I got this.
And that is just so powerful. And another
piece of this research, it's so cool.
They actually came up with a, do you
know scale?
And it's 20 questions
that are predictors
(34:32):
of if children and youth know the answers
to some or many of these questions,
they are
predictably
more
fortified
and more resilient. Oh, wow. And that's nothing
tricky. I mean, stuff you can sit down
over a family dinner, Thanksgiving dinner. You're sitting
around,
you know, have your cheat sheet of the
20 questions and and ask, hey, grandma. How'd
(34:55):
you and grandpa meet? Tell me your meet
cute story. You know, what had you guys
meet and fall in love? Oh, cool. Hey,
dad.
What was your first job as a teenager?
Uh-huh. Hey, mom. What was it like going
to high school? Where did you go to
high school? Hey, did any of your siblings
or any of your family
have a really, like,
serious illness or injury that they had to
(35:16):
overcome?
Things like that. Those are the 20 questions.
So, it's nothing tricky, nothing magic, but the
magic is
that when we have these experiences as families,
it literally fortifies the rising generation.
Easy to do and so powerful. Yeah. So
that's something to that's actionable. You can just
go home and you can do it tonight.
You know, next time your family's together. Yeah.
(35:38):
Is there any thought on because,
I think especially when I was a youth,
like family history, genealogy was like this thing.
It was almost like in this event or
something you went to. Right? Like, oh, this
this week for young men's, we're going down
to the family history library and we're gonna
show you some stuff. For now, it's much
more with these different apps and things that
can it's just like a little bit here,
(35:59):
a little bit there. Right? And so I
mean, I'm just thinking about those youth leaders.
It's like, okay. Like, we wanna get involved
there, but there's all this other stuff we're
trying to do too. So any advice on
how to really just work this into the
culture of I love that. That that is
such a cool question.
So hear my thoughts on that, Kurt. I
think the more we treat it like this
(36:20):
kinda separate thing over here that we're okay.
Now we're gonna stop everything else and go
and do family history stuff. The more we
treat it like that, I think the less
we enculturate this.
I think where the winds come is when
it's a natural part of something we're already
doing.
Alright. So, let's just throw out a wild
example. Let's say it's an institute is going
(36:40):
to have a dance. And
at the dance, could you in, in the
classroom, right near where the dance is, could
you have a couple of family history experiences
where they can come
in and do like compare a face and
find out which ancestor you look like?
Or do it, do relatives around me? Yeah.
I love that. Dating someone
and find out if you can keep dating
(37:00):
or not. Right?
Oh, no. We're first cousins. Everybody knows. First
cousins.
You are now in the friend zone.
So that's what we're seeing as more successful
is when it's integrated real naturally
into the stuff we're already doing and not
turned into some
kind of special thing of now we're gonna
do. Yeah. And the idea is is we
(37:21):
want temple and family history to become
this normal and natural part of people's
worship pattern. Their personal worship pattern.
Not just adults, but especially the rising generation
that it just is, is what they do.
And it feels natural. It feels normal and
it's easy and it's fun. And they just,
they wouldn't think of going to the temple
without a family name. Yeah. That's what we
(37:42):
wanna see happen. It's just kind of in
these organic ways. Imagine this.
Sound like Carl Sagan. Imagine a world.
But imagine just
every
seminary teacher, every institute teacher, every religion instructor
at every church university,
every youth advisor, every youth Sunday school advisor,
that
every once in a while, not every week,
(38:05):
but every once in a while, they say,
hey, we have 5 minutes less left in
class. Everybody get out your phone. We're gonna
gather Israel. Mhmm.
Yeah. That's our vision is let's work it
into what we're already
doing. Let's make it simple and fun. We
have the tools to do that so that
people can
facilitate an experience at the end of a
class. Let's gather Israel last 5 minutes of
(38:26):
class. The first time you say it, they
was, wait, get out my phone and gather
Israel. Are you crazy?
Because by the way, they live on their
phones. Yeah. And we have ways for them
to do that. That's kind of our vision
of where we want to get. And, and
we're seeing it more and more and more
and more institutes
are working this into the curriculum
and not like, oh, you want to take
the family history course? No. It's in an
(38:48):
eternal
family course. There's these little curricular insertions that
are experiential.
There's some doctrine, but we know
the rising generation
resonates with experience.
They,
they need to understand the doctrine,
but let's not just preach to them and
bore them to death. Let's say, let's have
them get out their phone and show them
(39:09):
some really fun ways in a few minutes
they can help gather Israel. That's that's where
they're really cool stuff. Really helpful. And I
just love the idea of,
like, in using these apps in fun ways.
Like, I love, you know, relatives around me.
And the best thing is, like, not only
is it fun to do it in the
moment, but by the time you're done with
that, everybody has that app on their phone.
Right? You've those that didn't you get them
(39:29):
make sure they're on there. And then even
just taking the youth to the app library
and saying, alright. Search FamilySearch and, you know,
ping those 4 apps, and now they're on
your phone. And we're gonna use them here
and there. So keep them on your phone.
And then when those last 5 minutes come
up or I I gotta tell you, you
know, we talk I mentioned how Temple and
Family History of One Work. Mhmm. Missionary.
(39:51):
Sharing the gospel, That's part of one work.
And for me, the easiest
entree
for a stranger, a friend who's not of
our faith into opening a door of conversation
and trust
is giving them a discovery experience of family
history. I've had such cool experiences with this.
And,
the executive director of our department, Elder Kevin
(40:11):
Hamilton,
does this all the time. If he's on
a flight, he's at a dinner somewhere, like
some kind of function, turns the person next
to him and said says, hey, we have
this really cool app
that's got the family tree of the world
on it. Do you want to find out
if one of your ancestors on the tree?
And about 10 out of 10 people go,
yeah, are you kidding?
(40:31):
And it's the find a person
function
on the app, on the Family Tree app.
So you go to find a person
and it's simple, and I've done it a
dozen times, and no one's ever said, no,
I don't want to do this. And then
you just say, tell me the name of
a grandparent who isn't living. Oh, Oscar
Elwood Louder.
Okay. Well, I'm giving
(40:53):
my family. Yeah. So tell me the name
of a of an ancestor, grandparent, or great
grandparent who's not living. In my family. Yeah.
Harold Frankem. Okay. So I type in Harold
Frankem.
So do you know the approximate year when
he died? Because most people, if you go
back a couple generations, they don't know when
they were born, but a lot of usually,
I can remember about when he died. Yeah.
About what year did he die? I think
1984.
(41:14):
Okay. 1984.
Great.
Famous year if you're Orwellian. That's right. You
can edit that part up,
but can't miss an opportunity for a rad
joke.
Alright. So then I type in 1984
and then search. I get a bunch of
returns of possible matches,
and usually the first one on the list
(41:35):
of returns is the match. And I show
it to you and 9 out of 10
times when I do this with somebody,
they grab the phone out of my hand
because they are flipping out. They go, woah,
woah, woah, that's him.
And they push the person thing and they
go to the person page and they're seeing
the memories.
And this is literally happened to me. They're
thumbing through some of the photos, and I've
(41:56):
had a person start crying because they say,
I've never seen this wedding photo of my
grandparents. Oh, wow. And they're like choking back
the tears. Yeah. These are not members of
the church. This is someone who for the
first time is experiencing this,
and they're going, what in the heck?
How do
you how do I get this app? Oh,
you go here and you how much does
it cost? What's the subscription?
(42:18):
So it's free. Yeah. Okay. Well, you know,
the for the 1st 6 months, and then
I let you know it's free.
And then they always ask this question. What
are they gonna ask me when I say
it's free?
How is it funded or Yes. He's paying
for it? Yeah. Why in the heck is
it free? Somebody's gotta be paying for it.
So yeah.
Yeah. This is funded and sponsored by the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.
(42:40):
We pay for it completely.
And then they ask,
why? Yeah. Why would they do this? That's
got to be a big investment.
And then I say,
because
we believe
that families can be eternal.
And when Marjorie and I were married, we
were married in the temple, in the house
of the Lord, in the simple sweet ceremony
(43:01):
where we were married for time and eternity.
And because
this
is really the essence of everything we do
in our church, is to bind families for
eternities.
We want to make this beautiful
sweet
opportunity available for our ancestors,
so that I can go and do this
(43:22):
for my great grandparents.
That's why we do this. Now it blesses
the rest of the world because they find
their families. They see their family trees. We
provide these billions of records for free so
they can build out their tree, and it
blesses them.
They feel connected to their broader family. They
feel this deeper sense of identity and connection
and resilience,
(43:42):
and they feel the spirit of Elijah.
They feel the Holy Ghost
bearing witness of the divine nature of families,
people all over the world, millions. The majority
of the patrons of FamilySearch
are not LDS.
By a long shot,
most of them are what we call general
public. Mhmm. And they're being drawn there because
(44:03):
the spirit is moving on on them to
connect to their family.
So, anyway, that's just another cool thing you
can do with the app.
I do it all the time with peep
friends not of our faith. You know, I'll
be on a, waiting on the tarmac for
the plane to take off, and I'll just,
you know, they say, where do you work?
Oh, family's here. Oh, what's that? And tell
them what it is. I go, well, that's
(44:24):
cool. Yeah. And then I do that, and
it blows their mind. Yeah. And they 9
out of 10 times, they're like choking back
to tears.
That's so cool. And sometimes, and again, I'm
not a great genealogist, so don't email me
and ask me for help with your, with
your genealogy. We got real genealogists who do
that. But a lot of times when I
have these encounters with a stranger,
(44:44):
I say, would you be interested in me,
like, seeing if I could find a few
ancestors
that are lost to you or you don't
know anything about them? You do that for
me? Well, what are you gonna charge? I
said, no, I want to do just as
a friend, just as a service to you.
Yeah. So I ask him a couple of
questions like, k. Tell me, you know, some
information about your parents or grandparents.
And who don't you know? Like, what family
(45:06):
I don't you know? And I'll go back
to my computer
that night at the hotel or back at
work, and I can always find something they
didn't know.
And I'll email that to them. And sometimes
they say, can you help me set up
an account?
So I help them and I hand it
over to them, and I've already added some
names to their tree of people they didn't
(45:26):
know existed.
And they're absolutely
floored. Yeah. They're just moved
beyond explanation.
That's awesome. Love it. Any other principles as
far as the rising generation before we begin
to wrap up? Or how do we do?
Can I read a quote from president Nelson?
Yeah.
You know, you can't ever go wrong quoting
the prophet. I know. Right?
(45:47):
And what a prophet. Oh my goodness. He
is just, just beyond
phenomenal in every regard. Yeah. Here's what he
said. While Temple and Family History Work has
the power to bless those beyond the veil,
it has an equal power to bless the
living.
It has a refining influence on those who
are engaged in it. I promise that lovingly
performing ordinances for ancestors
(46:10):
will strengthen and protect our youth and families
in a world that is becoming
increasingly
evil. Please remember that you are not alone,
and you will never be alone. And I
would add that these ministering angels know who
you are.
They care for you. They love you.
They will become a vital part of the
fortification
of your home.
(46:30):
Cool.
We expect you to seek inspiration and revelation.
And as you do that in your youth,
in a world that is increasingly wicked and
ever more chaotic,
we promise you
you will be safeguarded.
You'll be guided. You'll be protected.
I promise you, this is still President Nelson.
I promise you
that as you increase your time in Temple
(46:51):
and family history work, you will increase
and improve your ability
to hear him.
Isn't that amazing? That's powerful. Words of a
prophet. Yeah. So it just so much we
can do to help fortify the rising generation.
We just need to point them in the
right direction and introduce them in a few
of the tools and let them lead out.
Yeah. Let them figure out
(47:13):
what they can do to share that with
their friends, with their peers and with, with
the older members, members of the ward.
Let's have them be the leaders. Let's have
them
be the ones that are seeking and receiving
the inspiration,
How to get a word on fire and
receiving all these blessings. Yep. It's powerful. Love
it.
Any other point principle story that we need
to cover?
(47:34):
Several years ago, this is probably
8 or 9 years ago, My youngest son,
Dalen, was serving a mission in Houston, Texas,
Spanish speaking.
Great missionary.
And I had an assignment that from work,
from FamilySearch that took me to Houston.
So I reached out to the missionary department,
asked for permission to spend a day with
(47:55):
him proselyting.
They said yes, as long as okay with
the mission president. I reached out to the
president, and he said, yes, you may do
that. Got all the necessary approvals
and made it clear that this isn't a
field trip. We're not gonna go to 6
flags and, you know,
have Pretend like we're working. Pretend like we're
we're gonna goof off. We're gonna go do
the work. And we did. We spent the
(48:15):
day teaching
their
contacts, their friends.
A couple of visits were brand new converts
whom we helped
prepare a family name for temple ordinances because
they were getting ready to go to the
temple to do baptisms.
Couple of people we were able to
jointly lay our hands on and pronounce priesthood
blessings. I mean, the whole day was just,
(48:36):
so profound and so sweet
to get to be my son's missionary companion,
to see him,
how lovingly he was ministering to these people
in and out of the church, how his
heart was just
riveted
on the cross of our redeemer and serving
his children, And to get to be a
part of that and see him and have
(48:56):
this joint experience
of prosthining together was one of the highlights
of my life. Mhmm. Well, the only regret
I had this lingering kind of gnawing thing
was I got to spend a day being
his missionary companion.
I know it's not possible,
but I wish he could have
been my missionary companion for a day in
(49:16):
Germany.
In the Germany Munich mission where I served
a 1000000 years ago, which is now the
Alpine German speaking mission. I just had that
knowing,
this was so sweet. I wish he could
have had the experience I just had. Well,
he got home from his mission,
and we'd prepared a bunch of names to
do baptisms and confirmations.
(49:37):
So we went to the Salt Lake Temple,
and I hadn't looked closely at the names.
We'd done the work and got them already.
I think we had 10 names,
and we decided,
k. You baptize
me, the first five, then we'll swap, and
I'll baptize you for the second five of
these names.
So give the name to the recorder in
the baptistery.
(49:58):
So he he baptizes me
and, for these 5, and we get to
the second or third name that I was
doing the baptisms for. And I read this
name, and I read the information,
and I started weeping
and could barely speak the words of the
baptism of prayer.
Baptized my son on behalf of this gentleman.
(50:18):
And,
anyway, as we exit the water, you know,
Dal was looking at me like, what the
heck just happened, man? There's something going on
here. And,
the one of the witnesses in the baptistry,
like, are you willing to share with us
what what just transpired? And I said, yes.
I got to spend a day with my
son and his mission, and I always wanted
(50:39):
him to be a part of my mission.
And that name
was an ancestor from
Heilbron,
Germany,
where I spent 7 months of my mission.
That very town. Wow. Cool.
And I was able to baptize
my son
for someone,
an ancestor from a town where I served
(51:00):
in my mission.
So he got to be part of my
mission for that moment. And it's just overcome
by the
not only the sweetness of that experience and
kind of completing that circle, but the tender
mercy of our heavenly father
to grant that righteous desire
was just overwhelming to me. Yeah. There's just
so much
(51:21):
grace and goodness and and so many moments
of feeling
our heavenly father's love
and feeling guided by the spirit and having
our testimonies fortified
when we engage in this great cause. So
and it's been such a pleasure, Kurt. You're
such a good man. You're so kind to
invite me. Absolutely. Any chance I get to
hang out with you, I'm gonna I'm gonna
take Yeah. Well, hey, if you get president
(51:42):
Nelson to allow me to interview him, we
can hang out the whole day. So I'm
just I'm just kidding.
Well, I'll have his people call you. Okay.
Yeah. Sure. For sure. They keep avoiding my
calls. But no. Is it just the last
question to wrap up, like, just a summary
of encouragement you'd give to youth leaders or
even the youth themselves of
of encouraging them down the the gathering of
(52:02):
Israel path with family history? Yeah.
Well, just that as president Nelson said, there's
no greater cause.
There's no greater
effort that's happening on the work on the
earth today than gathering of Israel on both
sides of the veil. And they are the
ones to lead out. And when they do
this, they're blessed in so many ways. They're
blessed with protection.
(52:23):
They're fortified.
They have a greater sense of identity.
It helps heal the things in their life
that need healing. It's just a multitude of
blessings. And as president Nelson said, there are
ministering angels that will attend to them as
they engage in this great work. And so
let's just get them involved, get them going
on it, and just light the fire and
(52:43):
let them go and let them lead out.
And as they do, they'll be blessed in
ways that we can't even imagine. And this
could be the very thing
that keeps some of them on the covenant
path who might be struggling, who might be
questioning their faith. And this can be the
thing that anchors them to the savior.
(53:06):
That concludes this episode of the Leading Saints
podcast. Hey. Listen. Would you do me a
favor? You know, everybody's got that friend who
listens to a ton of podcasts,
and maybe they aren't aware of Leading Saints.
So would you mind taking the link of
this episode or another episode of Leading Saints
and just texting it to that friend? You
know who I'm talking about, the friend who
always listens to podcasts and is always telling
(53:28):
you about different podcasts. Well, it's your turn
to tell that friend about Leading Saints.
So share it. We'd also love to hear
from you. If you have any perspective or
thought on this episode, you can go to
leading saints.org and actually leave a comment on
the, episode page,
or reach out to us at leading saints.org/contact.
Remember, go listen to Dan Duckworth's presentation about
(53:48):
youth mentorship by visiting leading saints.org/14.
It came as a result of the position
of leadership which was imposed upon us
by the God of heaven who brought
(54:10):
forth a restoration of the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
And when the declaration
was made concerning the own and only true
and living church upon the face of the
earth,
We were immediately put in a position of
loneliness,
the loneliness of leadership
from which we cannot shrink nor run away,
(54:33):
and to which we must face up with
boldness
and courage
and ability.