[MUSIC PLAYING] We are Mark and Kristina Mortensen. We served in the Texas Houston Mission. Shortly after we were called, I remember having this clear impression that we needed to be where the people were, as opposed to hoping that they would come to us. And the only place that I could think of where the people were and congregating in meaningful numbers were on college campuses. And I didn't really have anyone to look to, so I just started calling college campuses. Our vision was to meet people in their need and to appeal to them in the things that interested them. We were going to seek out not only college campuses, but public libraries, homeowners' associations, clubhouses--any places where people congregate. We were going to initiate offering a free family history class and have the missionaries there to help people as they got stuck. We taught all the missionaries how to teach family history within FamilySearch specifically. And they were not seeing the relevance. In their minds, this was not missionary work. You've got to find a way to help the missionaries become confident and converted to the role of family history as it relates to the work of salvation. For us, that was making their participation in the temple conditioned on them getting involved and finding their own names. That one change changed our mission. We have to equip them with the tools to succeed. They have to be comfortable with how to teach family history within FamilySearch specifically. One of the great benefits of having the missionaries find their own family names is that they know how. And they know how wonderful it is to find that name. It was amazing to see the zeal among the missionaries once they became passionate about family history. They have a wealth of knowledge and a wealth of experience and are eager to share it and to teach it to others. And often we would get reports back from the missionaries. They would say that as they were kneeling down next to someone, that they would say one of a couple of things. One would be, "Why do you do this?" And so we would train them to say, "We would love to answer that question, but it probably is going to take a little longer than we have right now. Could we arrange to meet with you after class or come by your home and help you with that answer?" We told the missionaries when they began teaching them, "Make sure they focused on the question," as opposed to going back to the beginning and talking about what a lot of times missionaries want to revert to, which is the Restoration. We challenged them to focus on the question, which often meant to ask the inspired questions about the plan of salvation, about identity, and about purpose and about family and the eternal natures of families so that we could get to those things and then work backward to explain how we know those things. Making sure family history was an integral component of the teachings, it helped the missionaries understand the plan of salvation. And it changed how they taught other people, their investigators, about what they could do after they were baptized for their own family members. After we taught the recent converts about baptism for the dead and the temples, we would say to them, "Who do you think is going to perform that ordinance?" And often they would say things like, "Hopefully, someone really good." And we would say to them, "What would you say if we told you that they were waiting for you?" [MUSIC PLAYING]

I don't want anyone to think that because we were incorporating family history into the work, that somehow there was this gigantic increase in convert baptisms. There was an increase, but the real fruit that we saw was in retention. The retention of the converts dramatically increased. And the conversion of the missionaries to the doctrine of Christ changed dramatically. They had a personal experience with the spirit of Elijah. It just changed them. They felt the importance and the urgency of the work. The obedience of the mission changed. The culture of the mission changed. And the happiness was remarkable. [MUSIC PLAYING]