By far the most difficult part of this project was getting people to participate. When we reached 50% of ward members who regularly attend church, my husband thought that was great and that was all we were going to get. But each time I got a new entry, I became more and more determined to keep trying with each person I knew unless they gave me a clear, "No." When the "announcements and flyers approach" didn't yield any more entries, I used the "one person at at time" philosophy, inspired by Barack Obama's successful Presidential campaign.
The easiest ones to get were the primary kids. We devoted one Sharing Time to having kids either draw a picture (black pen on white paper) or write their testimonies.
Surprisingly, the teenagers weren't as difficult to engage as the, um, High Priests..... For some reason my teenage kids didn't think this project was that un-cool and they encouraged and reminded their friends to send me something.
My husband and a couple of dear sisters phoned and interviewed several elderly, shut-in, and other members and jotted down their testimonies for them.
And with some people, I resorted to bribery. I baked cookie dough and hand-delivered it with instructions to bake it as soon as the whole family had written their testimonies and emailed them to me.
One of the most beautiful experiences I had was when I personally went to visit a family who was new in the ward and fairly new in the church. They dictated the most powerful testimonies to me, while their darling children drew pictures for the book. I was a little shy and hesitant about asking them but they were so pleased to share their testmonies with me and it motivated them to become more active in our ward. Another newly-baptized sister who was not sure what to write, and was pretty shy about it, finally did it after much urging. Afterwards, she said she was so glad she did and felt warm all over after sharing her testimony.
The easiest ones to get were the primary kids. We devoted one Sharing Time to having kids either draw a picture (black pen on white paper) or write their testimonies.
Surprisingly, the teenagers weren't as difficult to engage as the, um, High Priests..... For some reason my teenage kids didn't think this project was that un-cool and they encouraged and reminded their friends to send me something.
My husband and a couple of dear sisters phoned and interviewed several elderly, shut-in, and other members and jotted down their testimonies for them.
And with some people, I resorted to bribery. I baked cookie dough and hand-delivered it with instructions to bake it as soon as the whole family had written their testimonies and emailed them to me.
One of the most beautiful experiences I had was when I personally went to visit a family who was new in the ward and fairly new in the church. They dictated the most powerful testimonies to me, while their darling children drew pictures for the book. I was a little shy and hesitant about asking them but they were so pleased to share their testmonies with me and it motivated them to become more active in our ward. Another newly-baptized sister who was not sure what to write, and was pretty shy about it, finally did it after much urging. Afterwards, she said she was so glad she did and felt warm all over after sharing her testimony.
I don't like to be pushy, especially when asking people to share a testimony, but in the end only three people politely refused and everyone else thanked me profusely for asking them to do it. I reminded people that it could be even be just one sentence, from the heart, and that would be great. Some of the most inspiring testimonies were only a few sentences long.
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