by Before the mission, I read a book called The Highly Effective Missionary. It is the best book I have ever read on missionary work.
In the book there was a game you could play with the members or investigators to get referrals. Referrals are where people introduce their friends and family for the missionaries to teach. You can play this game with anyone. Here are some ideas of people who tend to have lots of possible referrals:
1. Recent converts.
2. Part-member families.
3. Less-active members
4. Former investigators.
5. Current investigators
If you put this “game” into place, you will be given hundreds of referrals as a missionary.
The game is simple:
1. You have each person get a piece of paper and explain the game. Tell each person to think of as many people as they know that are not members of the church. They can be people from school, from work, from sports, your neighbors, anyone and everyone. The point of the game is to see who can write down the most names.
2. Tell the people that the missionaries are going to sing a hymn while they write down names. When the singing stops, the writing stops and we see who wrote down the most names. You can always sing a second hymn if they need more time.
3. After they are done writing down the names, compare who wrote the most names and congratulate them and everyone else. Then say that maybe a few of the people they have written down are ready at this time to receive the gospel but that we don’t know yet and that we need to say a prayer to ask Heavenly Father who among these people is ready. Choose someone to say the prayer. After the prayer, tell them to ponder for a few moments and to think about these names and to mark a star next to the names of as many people as they feel prompted to by the Spirit. It could be 5 or 10 or as many as they feel prompted.
4. After they have marked the people’s names, ask them to explain 2-3 of these people. This helps you to get to know them a little bit and helps them talk about their friends and think how they could specifically introduce them to the gospel.
5. Let them think of ideas of things they could do to introduce them to the restored gospel like inviting them over for family home evening with the missionaries, talking with them about a specific gospel topic or sharing some specific verses in the scriptures with them. Give them some ideas as well.
6. Next is to have them write down these invitations and when they are going to do them when the missionaries are going to follow up with the member. Every time you meet the member, ask them how their friends are doing. Ask them if they need help. Visit with them again and evaluate the results and how they can do better.
This game can lead to inspiration and lets the members and the people you are teaching become missionaries. I did it once and two members circled the names of 50 people they would share the gospel with. One less-active member circled the names of 20 of his friends he would share the gospel with and he introduced us to his friends after.
I recommend every missionary to study this game and to use it on your mission. It will work miracles.
