Stories

President and Sister Oaks shared at a RootsTech conference in 2018. Here’s a link to the video. The activity starts at 20:15 https://youtu.be/NDLzaOzc60c. No electronic devices required, just thought, time and effort. Brief explanation: Make posters with a quality of an ancestor. Write it at the top of the poster. Put pictures of the ancestor under the quality. Put paper over the picture(s) so they can’t see the picture. Add the story that tells about the person and this quality. At the bottom of the page, have a square that children can write their names if they would like that quality. Then uncover the photos and read the stories.

Read one or more personal stories told in a conference talk. Then have a discussion why they shared the story. Then have the youth see if they can think of something in their own life that deals with the story. They can then share their story or write it down. Example: Elder Gong told about his father coming to visit him when he was attending a university in England. They traveled to France. France has wonderful food, but his father still wanted Chinese food. Comments might be that he missed his family and loved having his father come visit, or someone else might talk about the importance of getting an education even if it isn’t close to family. Someone might share going out to eat Chinese food, traveling experiences, etc. The main point is the value of stories. We need to learn to share the stories of our lives with others and especially with our families.

This is a good way to find those stories of your ancestors in Family Search. It is a FS app, not in the app store. Family Search Storieshttps://stories.familyfoundapp.com. You first sign in with your family search account. It will search your tree for stories, line them up on the left side of the screen and tell you how long it will take to read each one.

Research an ancestor before the activity. Then share what you have learned.

 

 

Find a coloring page online about something that has to do with one of your relatives. You can usually type in a subject and coloring page and often find a coloring page you can download. Tell the story about the relative while they color the page.

 

Collect stories from parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. I asked them to write about doing hard things or stories that might inspire the youth. Collect these letters and give them to the youth.

 

Pick one ancestor that you know. Share an experience with them. Have children draw pictures about the experience or add photos. Add these stories to Family Search stories in the Memory section.

 

Type up a few things about an ancestor on a blank piece of paper. Then have everyone draw pictures of what is written on the page. Put the pages together and make a book.

 

Have a youth activity where they put together a short play of someone’s ancestor. They can also make a short video and then have everyone show their videos. Talk about what they learned about the ancestors. (Image by Jon Tyson on Unsplash.com)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *