My Family 15 in 15

Over the last few months, I've had a great time working on a family history project in our Area. Of course, I've had my normal assignments with the Area Presidency, but it's always fun to do something extra as well. It started in October 2014 when Mike Higgins, our Area Family History advisor gave our Area Presidency his normal update on FH work in the Area. Elder Pearson made the comment that we should do better and we should see if we could motivate our priesthood leaders to lead the way on family history work.

Of course, that just got me thinking and about a week later I gave them a presentation on what could be done. How we would concentrate on just the 15 names in a person's genealogy (not the full 4 generations, which includes the children of each of the parents in your ancestry). So, this would be just for: you, your parents, your 4 grandparents and your 8 great grandparents. We had heard that in 2014 the "My Family" booklet had been well received, but many people were not entering the data into familysearch (which needs to happen in order to get the temple work done), so that needed to be addressed as well. In actuality, I felt this first presentation to the Area Presidency wasn't very well received. I had modeled it after a program I had done in a previous ward. I then went back to the drawing board and simplified it quite a bit, updated my powerpoint and made it a lot more straightforward. And, for the next presentation, which I made it in the middle of the day instead of the very last item on the agenda (you can get pretty tired at the end of a 10 hour meeting!) ... it was very well received. Elder Pearson had the idea of calling it, "My Family 15 in 15", since we'd want everyone to get their 15 names done in 2015. Of course, we all immediately loved the name and we talked about it several times in Area Presidency meetings throughout November and December.

The next critical point was that we added "My Famly 15 in 15" to our 2015 Area Plan and our 2015 Area Goals/Training Priorities which were finalized in December.

We have six expectations in each category and the "My Family 15 in 15" goal is #1 item in the Temple and Family History Work category.

For the November Area Council meeting, Sister B and I made the pedigree charts for 204 of our Area leaders (Area Presidency, Area Seventies, Mission Presidents, Temple Presidents, and Stake Presidents). We provided a powerpoint to all 11 Area Seventies so they could then present the program in their Area Council meetings (which is attended by the Mission, Temple, and Stake Presidents). This would lay the groundwork for the program being rolled out to 165 Stake and District Councils.

With the help of our Area FH advisors in New Zealand and Australia we put together training packets that included instructions, sample emails, tracking sheets, and a powerpoint. We then rolled out the program to the stakes. We've now delivered this to 88% of the stakes in New Zealand and Australia and we've done pedigree charts for over 1,500 stake council members. We are now starting to bring the program to ward councils, and from there to the wards.

As you can see above, our goal is simple and there are just two items everyone should do:
  1) enter your 15 family names into familysearch.org
  2) and then perform their temple ordinances in 2015

This then lead to Elder Haleck talking about "My Family 15 in 15" in our 2015 Area Broadcast that was done in February:



I did a Facebook group page for "My Family 15 in 15" and this has been a great success as well. We have over 3,500 in the group and it has been so fun seeing people include a picture of themselves with their pedigree charts. Here's the link to the group:  My Family 15 in 15 Facebook Group.  Feel free to join!

We did a contest in the office as well (which was Elder Pearson's idea) and that was fun too. I had the idea of posting the pictures on the wall of our meeting room and I feel that added to the excitement. Here's a video of the pictures:



This has been a tremendous project and we've heard some wonder stories of members finding family names, processing their work and then going to the temple.

We also get stats from Salt Lake and here is our March report:

We started in January and our trend looks positive. We just need to keep it up!!! 

Another statistic we receive from Salt Lake is how many of the 15 names have been entered into familysearch.org. They give us just an overall number, so we then asked how many have 100% of the 15 names. You have to have all 15 names entered to be counted as being done (which is the first half of the "My Family 15 in 15" goal).  On January 1, this was about 15% of the area.  At the end of March 2015, it was 19%, which equals an increase of about 25,000 members in just 3 months.  So, that was great news as well.

March was a busy month ... and then Vanuatu was hit!

We had busy month in March. Getting ready for General Conference is a big process.  There are several meetings in Salt Lake to prepare for and we had about 10 video conference calls from Auckland (with various departments in SLC). Then the cyclone hit Vanuatu and that was a traumatic experience. It was the strongest cyclone to hit there in many years. We worked hard to get supplies and food/water to the various islands. Right after the cyclone hit, we had 51 missionaries that we could not make contact with. After 4 days we were down to just 17 unaccounted for missionaries. We were able to send a boat to one of the islands (that had 6 missionaries) and then a small plane to the island of Tanna that had 11 missionaries. The 5 sisters on Tanna were flown out on the first trip and then the 6 elders on the following day.

We heard some neat stories from the elders. We knew Cyclone Pam was on the way, so with 2 days notice we were able to get all the missionaries to a safe place. In Tanna, they went to a cement building on the west side of the island (it was not hit as hard there). There were many people hunkered down in this building. The police, seeing the missionaries there, asked them to provide a devotional including a song and prayer every morning and night.  From the reports back, it sounded like we was an uplifting and calming experience for all that were there.

Eliza helped me to create a blog for the parents of the missionaries. This was particularly helpful in the beginning when we didn't know that all the missionaries were safe. We had over 8,000 page views on the site.  Here it is:
  - Vanuatu Missionary Blog

Here's some pictures:

Our Vanuatu Staff Meeting - my computer is at the empty chair.

Vanuatu ... in many places 90% of the homes were destroyed.

We sent 800 food boxes to Vanuatu (assembled by a 2 stakes in Auckland)

The Elders taking off from Tanna!

It was fun hearing from Elder Eyring in General Conference this morning about Vanuatu. We gave several reports to those in Salt Lake (mostly to Elder Neil L. Andersen, our first contact, and the Presiding Bishopric).

One more neat story:
  - This came from President Brewer, the mission president on Vanuatu.
  - Initially after the cyclone hit, all cell towers were out so communication was difficult, we did have a satellite phone at the mission home, but it was tough getting through at times.
  - After about 2 days, phone service started to get fixed and we could more easily talk with those in Port Villa (where the mission home is at).
 - The mission home (where about 40 missionaries were staying) finally got electricity restored after 3 days and it was much nicer to them (as opposed to be in a place that was 95 degrees). They had to keep the windows closed otherwise the mosquitoes would come in.
 - After about 4 days we were still very concerned about Tanna, since we had not heard word from them yet and we couldn't fly in.
 - President Brewer would try their cell phone periodically (maybe 2-3 times a day) since the cell phone towers were working on the island of Efate (where Port Villa is at).
 - Then on the 4th day, he tried again and the zone leaders on Tanna answered!  We got the good news that all the missionaries were safe!!! The phone call only lasted 15 seconds, but we were happy to hear from them.
 - The president was in town at the time and noticed cell phone company office, so he stopped by. He thanked them for getting the service up and running in Tanna.
 - They were very surprised by his comment, since they reported that no one had made it to Tanna yet and they hadn't done anything. All the cell towers in Tanna were still down.
 - So, everyone felt very fortunate to have made connect even though none of the cell towers were operational!

It was great hearing Elder Pearson's General Conference talk on Sunday. I sent him a note congratulating him on doing such a good job. Here's his note back:
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Bruce

Thank you for your kind note.  We are so grateful to have you and Patsy serving in the Pacific.  

We love you both!

Elder Pearson

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It is certainly an honor for Sister B and I to be able to serve here in the Pacific Area!