by - Making 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. Here is the recipe that I used to make them.
2. Organizing Family Home Evenings with the members
We did this is my first sector. It was a hit. It lead directly to one baptism and could have lead to many more. The members in Africa are pretty new to the Church and many of them have never done a FHE. You need to help them do it. Organize the FHE with a family or a household of people on Sunday at church. You can have FHE on any day of the week, not just Monday.
3. Making 1-3 new creative ideas everyday – brain dump
I did this and it was super effective. During the companionship study that last for an hour after personal study, my companion and I would talk about crazy new ideas. In technical terms its called a brain dump where you write down all the craziest things you can think of then used some of them. We would think of ideas like knock on every house that looks super fancy or rich or whenever someone would stare at us, we would talk to them. We would use at least one new idea everyday and it was super effective.
4. Waking up early and picking up the investigators at their houses before church
If you are willing to sacrifice a little bit of sleep and wake up early on Sundays you could be effective and have more baptisms. Missionaries always engage investigators to come to church but they rarely do because they make excuses or they don’t wake up on time or other things. The best thing you can do to show that you are serious about them going to church is walking to their house and bringing them to church. Doing it gives just the slightest nudge needed to help an inactive member come back to church or be baptized. Call the person before you pick them up so that they can get ready.
5. Visiting every less active person in the ward/branch
We did this in Douala, Cameroon. By visiting all the less-active members in the branch we practically doubled the amount of people coming to church. Reactivation is just as important baptisms. If you focus on reactivating and baptizing you will have enormously more success than if you just focus on baptizing.
This is an extremely effective way to get member referrals. Learn more about it here.
7. Teaching the siblings and friends of recent converts
A common mistake among missionaries is as soon as you baptize someone, you say adios 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 this investiagor to read the scriptures and be a friend.
8. 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, read the scriptures with them, 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
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, teach his friends the gospel, I would have him bring his friends to church. In general, I would turn this wayward child into a missionary before he goes on a mission. Focusing on the one especially with the youth and it 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.
