by 1. Making 1-3 new creative ideas everyday – brain dump
During companionship study my companion and I would brainstorm 1-3 new things we could do in missionary work. In technical terms it’s called a brain dump where you write down all the ideas you can think of no matter how crazy. We would then use some of them in our area. We would think of ideas like knock at the nicest homes in our area or whenever someone would stare at us we would talk to them. We would think of new ideas for teaching, contacting, teaching recent converts, retention, working with the members and everything else. We would use at least one new idea everyday and it made missionary work more fun and effective.
2. Organizing Family Home Evenings with the members
The members in Africa are very new to the Church and many of them have never done a FHE. You need to do it with them. Organize the FHE with a family or a group of people. You can have FHE on any day of the week, not just Mondays. Tell them to also bring along their friends and family who aren’t members. When you go bring along some drinks or some snacks for the members.
3. Waking up early and picking up the investigators at their houses before church
Missionaries always engage investigators to come to church but they rarely do because they don’t wake up on time or they forget among other things. The best thing you can do to help them out is walking to their house Sunday morning and bringing them to church. Doing it gives the nudge needed to help an investigator come to church or an inactive member come back to church. Call the person before you pick them up so that they can get ready.
4. Visiting every less active person in the ward/branch
By visiting all the less-active members in the branch we practically doubled the amount of people coming to church in Douala. Reactivation is just as important as baptisms. If you focus on reactivating and baptizing you will have enormously more success than if you just focus on baptizing.
5. Member Referral Game
This is an extremely effective way to get member referrals. Learn more about it here.
6. Teaching the siblings and friends of recent converts
A common mistake among missionaries is as soon as you baptize someone, they move on to baptizing the other people in the area. A better idea is as soon as you baptize this person, you focus on this one recent convert for a while (recent converts are at a really unstable point in their lives and need lots of attention). Read the scriptures with them, answer their questions, and ask them questions about the commandments and if they are having challenges. What you should do next is start involving this member in missionary work. Have him accompany you to teaching lessons. Have him teach (he should be good at teaching since you just taught him all the missionary lessons) and have him visit the home of investigators to read the scriptures and be a friend to them. Also after having baptized a convert, branch out to his or her family members and friends, the people that live around them. Teach them the gospel so that they will know and understand the choice that this convert has made so that they will respect and support them in this choice. So don’t leave this convert alone, teach their friends and family and those that live around them so that they can all progress together.
7. Visiting the home of every member
In Congo/Cameroon, missionary work is booming. You can teach investigators all day that you have contacted and found by your own efforts. However, every week, you should put aside some time to get to visit the members. Talk to them on Sunday, and set an appointment. Get to know them, ask them questions, see how they are going, if they need help spiritually, ask them if they are struggling with anything, ask them if they are reading the scriptures everyday, and do the member referral dialogue. When you do this, they will feel more open to talking to you about their problems than anyone else. That is why it is also really important to visit the members with leaders in the ward so that it will give the leader a reason to get out (sometimes they don’t even know where a member or recent convert lives) and it will add more substance to the visit than just the missionaries.
8. Don’t walk to appointments fast
Never walk fast, ever. If you walk slower people will want to talk to you more and you will see more opportunities to talk to people. If someone is looking at you, that is probably because they want to talk to you but they are too scared. If they are looking at you, talk to them. Always find opportunities to contact people in between lessons. Every single day do that.
9. Doing service/being kind
Missionaries should provide service, not expecting anything in return but just to be kind and helpful when people need it. When you see someone carrying something heavy, ask them if they need help. Sometimes people are doing their “chores” and they don’t want to be helped with what they are doing but then again if someone drops something, don’t just keep walking, stop and help them. By doing this you will be seen as more human and approachable people.
10. If someone doesn’t pick up the phone, call people twice or three times
I had a problem in Congo where if someone wouldn’t pick up the phone the first time that I called that I would stop trying. You should call people like 2-3 times if they don’t pick up the first time. People don’t recognize your number and they might ignore it the first time but not the second or third time.
11. Making/buying treats for the members/friends
We did this in Douala, Cameroon. To “Light the World” for Christmas, we made banana bread for all the members and less actives in our branch. It was a huge success. It’s also a nice idea to bring drinks and treats to FHEs and to activities so that people can see that you care for them.
12. Choose one young man who is partially active or inactive and focus on preparing him for a mission
In every sector, I would choose one young man who was struggling and would help prepare him to serve a mission. I would get to know him really well, I would read the scriptures with him, I would have him work with us teaching people, I would get to know his friends and teach his friends the gospel, I would have him bring his friends to church. In general, I would turn this wayward youth into a missionary before he goes on a mission. Focusing on the one especially with the youth will reap eternal consequences.
13. Don’t visit the same investigator everyday
Even if the investigator is super interested, give them time to think and ponder at what you have taught them. Space investigators out every other day. However, visit recent converts as much as possible, dedicate a lot of time in the week to visit recent converts and to talk with them, don’t just plan a lesson but talk to them and help them with what they are dealing with.
14. If anyone calls you any names tell them why you are here
A lot of times, people will call you names in the street like mundele or white person or Atangana or spy or mercenary this or that while you’re walking by don’t ignore them. Never ignore them. Walk up to them and tell them that you are actually missionaries and that you preach the gospel. This will clear a lot of confusion from them and they will respect you more.
