TRADITIONS, ROOT BEER
AND FINDING
I had a business acquaintance who is in excess of 80 years
old and sill runs his own business. His
sharp mind and active life style really are impressive. He told me a few years ago while he was
driving down the freeway to visit a project site, that he began
reminiscing. He fondly remembered during
his growing up years, his father made it a tradition to take him every Sunday
down to the drug store and buy him a root beer float. He learned to love root beer floats which to
this day are his favorite beverage. As
he drove along, he began craving a root beer float and vowed to get one on the
following Sunday. Then a startling
thought came to his mind, “Hey, I am old enough to buy a root beer float
whenever I want one!” He exited the freeway
at the next off-ramp where A&W Root Beer was offered and enjoyed a root
beer float. Since then, he does not
hesitate to indulge in a root beer float just to make up for lost time while he
was living the ‘Sunday only’ tradition.
Traditions can be wonderful activities that bring good in
our lives; success, fulfillment, happiness, or whatever. But, traditions can also over time become
mindless and ineffective activities.
Before I go any further, I submit the following
disclosure. Chapter 9 of PMG, How Do I Find People to Teach?, outlines the
Lord’s way of finding “them that will receive you.” (DC42:8) All finding methods discussed there are time
honored and will always be required of missionaries. In Holland and Belgium the
traditional fall-back method in the absence of other methods of finding people
to teach outlined in Chapter 9 is going door to door, knocking and inviting
people to hear our message. The basic
principle is to stay busy all day, opening your mouth and inviting everyone you
can to hear your message. The Lord will
lead you to prepared people or He will lead them to you if you keep working. You must always implement finding methods
outlined in Chapter 9.
The tradition of door knocking is interesting. During my first mission we kept trackting
books where we recorded every door in each area of the city we worked. We recorded: rejected, not home, call back, invited in or
other special notes. We would then
return to the area to knock on the doors where people were ‘call backs’ or were
not previously home. In this manner we
would work our way through the city and essentially knock on and talk to people
behind every door. We also used street
meetings and street contacting as a means to contact and invite people to hear
our message. We did our best to broadcast
our message to as many people as possible with the idea that those who were
open to listening would agree to investigate.
With only slight differences these methods are still our tradition.
Times have changed.
People here are essentially no different, but they have become so
bombarded with noise broadcasted from every direction trying to persuade them
to buy something or do something that door to door has become a very
inefficient use of our time. The “hit
rate” or number of people interested per number of doors knocked has dropped. Street contacting is the same. These are finding activities with low statistical
probability of meeting people willing to listen. Most people would actually be interested if
they could pull information they want from us instead of being so well
practiced in deflecting broadcast information.
We have an obligation to find ways to improve our
effectiveness and in today’s world, there is a better way. A steady diet of door knocking is not ideal. Elder L. Tom Perry stated:
When I was a young missionary, we
were able to speak with contacts on the street and knock on doors to share the
gospel. The world has changed since that time. Now, many people are involved in
the busyness of their lives. They hurry here and there, and they are often less
willing to allow complete strangers to enter their homes, uninvited, to share a
message of the restored gospel. Their main point of contact with others, even
with close friends, is often via the Internet. The very nature of missionary
work, therefore, must change if the Lord is to accomplish His work of gathering
Israel “from the four corners of the earth” (2 Nephi 21:12).
The missionaries are now authorized to use the Internet in their proselyting
efforts… we invite the young and the old, the adults, the young adults, the
youth, and the children everywhere to join with us in this exciting new work …in
your area on your own computers and sharing [your] gospel messages online and
by becoming involved in missionary work yourselves. (L. Tom Perry, Hastening 23 Jun 2014)
People today want to pull specific information; what they
want and when they want it, instead of being showered with thousands of voices.
Missionaries knocking at the front door are strangers disturbing someone while
their friends come freely in the back door or contact them by the internet. This is especially true in Holland and
Belgium because the Dutch and Flemish per capita are ranked among the highest
social media users in the world.
Traditional door to door finding in the Belgium Netherlands
Mission is changing. The Church has
approved and registered a new member web site called Country Communication
Pages including a Country Facebook account and a Country twitter account. The content in these sites will be totally
controlled by members of the Stakes in the mission and the content will be in
Dutch. The Church has called an agent
Stake President to be responsible for the Country internet accounts. On Saturday, 25 Jan 2014 at Stake Priesthood
meeting, the Den Haag Stake launched this social media project to find the
one. As soon as practical the other 3
Stakes will similarly launch their campaigns.
All units will call a social media specialist to work under
the direction of the ward or branch mission leader. The members in each unit will be trained and
assisted by their respective unit specialist to: establish an LDS account, produce and place
their profiles on mormon.org, use their personal Facebook site for missionary
work, obtain as many friends as possible on their personal Facebook, learn to
place material from the Country web page, and Country Facebook page and twitter
sites on their personal Facebook page, review the material on the Country Facebook
page and click: “like” and “share”. Members
will learn how to effectively add a short testimony as a “comment” about how the
attached information has helped them personally and click “share”. A special ‘call to action’ page will be
created with the Country Communication pages so interested people have a place to
submit their name and address with a request for the free DVD, a free Book of
Mormon, a visit from the missionaries, etc.
Ultimately, the most important thing is to maximize every opportunity to
convert a click to a referral with a name and an address. Missionaries are now authorized to also
assist the members at any time to accomplish this on the internet. A member of each Stake High Council will
coordinate the efforts in his Stake.
New, smaller pass along cards with a QR code and URL’s for
the Country sites will be distributed for missionaries and members to hand out.
A few short months ago the branch mission leader in the City
of Gent, Belgium created a Facebook page for his Branch and a ‘call to action’
page. He used stories about his own life
on his blog plus articles from “mormonen.be”, as his content. He requested members in the Branch to click
“like” and “share” so the messages went out to all their friends on their
personal Facebook page and to all their friends if they continued to click
“like” and “share”, etc. His work is yielding
about 45 referrals per month. Imagine
this remarkable result happening in each unit in the 4 Stakes. Imagine missionaries completely booked with teaching
appointments and looking up referrals generated by the branch mission leader. That is for the most part what is happening
with the 3 sets of missionaries in Gent doing the same program currently being
implemented in the 4 Stakes.
This social media project will become the new
tradition. It will grow better in the
future as we learn and improve. For
example, we can do specific campaigns with gift DVD’s, we can evaluate and use
Google Ad Words to assist people who are searching to find us, etc. But, missionaries will still need to open their
mouths and talk to everyone while traveling to the referrals. You will still need to work smart and fill
your day with contacting even by knocking doors when referrals are not
home. You do this because you have faith
that the Lord has put you there for a reason.
This new tradition for finding will help you begin teaching more than 20
lessons per week and baptizing monthly.
President Robinson
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