GUIDElines 2000 Vol I, No 6 – September 6, 2000
I have been so happy that those who visit ZionsArmy.com have not been a bashful group. They have been willing to ask questions and tell us about other things they are doing to help in their member missionary work. It is important that people know exactly who we are and what we are attempting. With that in mind, I received the following email from Sister Orndorff, and have printed my answer below.
Well, I came to your
site hoping to find some information about your program, but I didn’t find
any. So I tried to find stories about
how being in the program helped people in their missions, but I didn’t find
any. So I tried to find stories of how
people who had gone through your program are doing now, but I didn’t find any.
It sounds like a lot of people put in a LOT of
work to develop this program. I was
hoping that this information could be shared so that HUNDREDS of young men
could benefit from all the information you have learned about what works and
what doesn’t work, etc.
I have a son who is almost 16, and our ward has
lots of other young men who could benefit.
And LOTS of other wards have young men who could benefit, also.
Is this program something you got from somewhere
else? If so, where?
If not, PLEASE put information on your web site
so others may benefit.
Thank you.
Michelle:
Thanx! for coming to our site. Your questions are good ones, and I will do
whatever it takes to answer them.
ZionsArmy.com is not an official site of the Church. The Youth Guides were official, but the
Church has discontinued Youth Missions, which included the Youth Guides. We have no intention of duplicating the
Youth Guide program anywhere. However,
what we learned, the principles of member missionary work as they relate to our
busy youth, can be shared, and that is what ZionsArmy.com is all about. I am sorry if we haven’t done a good job of
explaining ourselves.
ZionsArmy.com is a website composed of the
principles we learned in the Youth Guides.
One of those principles is that if you develop a Standard of Performance
that has within it the elements of becoming a successful member missionary, and
you abide by the Standard, and report your weekly statistics, you will be
successful. In fact, we found that you
can set HEROIC goals that will come to pass with work and prayer.
Also, there is something special about SETADATE
and the process you go through while picking one. We found that all of the mental and spiritual work was done prior
to picking the date, and the rest of what we did after that was made easier by
the fact that we were then working with faith.
F.O.R.M. is just a simple way of learning how to
start conversations. We found that our
youth were having trouble getting into a conversation and to the point where
they could invite the person to the Visitors’ Center for a tour. This helped them get over the fear of
talking, because when memorized and practiced, it worked well for them.
The Star Test is there to help you with some of
the difficult questions NYMs may ask.
It was used as the entry point into the Youth Guides. You had to pass off the Star Test questions
before you could become a Guide in Training.
It was perhaps the hardest part of the whole program. However, if you stuck it out and learned how
to answer those questions, after that most of what you learned was a piece of
cake! We found that youth needed to
know that they were learning something that was important. They were not spoon fed anything. It was hard to pass the Star Test for a
reason and that was to show that if you worked hard you could do anything.
The Presentation is based on the fact that
sometimes, no matter what you say, someone will not accept any invitation at
all to anything that has to do with the Church. Once you have determined that, if you have memorized the
Presentation (in the Youth Guides’ case it was the Garden Tour), you could give
it anywhere you needed to. It has some
basic principles about the Church that lead a person to perhaps want to
investigate more. If not, then they go
away with a little more knowledge than they would have had if you had not been
there. Our effort was to get the people
to the Gardens for a Garden Tour amid the beauty of the temple grounds. We only gave the Presentation when that was
impossible.
If you want to know more about the Youth Guides,
visit YouthGuides.com and read the articles in the Helaman Sons Letters Archive
section. It will give you a description
of the program as best I can.
You are right about stories and
testimonies. We do not have them up at
this time because I had planned to reveal the stories in their letters to me
over the next months at YouthGuides.com in The Helaman Sons Letters. I hadn’t thought of a place for testimonies
from the Alumni, but we will try to do something like that, soon. Nevertheless, testimonies will be
forthcoming. I will send your email on
to some of the Alumni and hopefully they will respond with their testimonies of
the Youth Guide program. It is a
program they came to cherish.
As you can imagine, I have no Priesthood
authority to establish a Youth Guide program anywhere in the world. Don’t intend to. Don’t want to. However,
we have been careful in this site to put up all the activities and the
principles for their use that will help anyone be successful in member
missionary work.
What did they learn that helped them? They learned that if you are compelled to
action, by giving your word that you will study the gospel 30 minutes a day,
day after day, and you follow through with that commitment, then soon you will
begin to love the gospel and the scriptures and all that goes with it. They learned that if they worked together on
a common HEROIC goal, it was easier to achieve, although the work was very hard
at times. They learned that there are
many people like them who wanted to sacrifice to do missionary work, and that
it wasn’t odd if you were in this group.
As for your son. If he is interested in using these principles, if he talks to his
Priesthood leaders and they have no problem with it, and he can get one or some
of his friends to do it with him, then together they can make a difference in
your part of the vineyard. I don’t know
what kind of training they are getting now.
If the Standard of Performance and member missionary helps at our
ZionsArmy.com site can be integrated into their daily lives, I am confident
they will have success. By the time they
get on their missions they will have read the scriptures thousands of hours,
will have talked to tons of NYMs, will have proven by their faith that SETADATE
works, and their knowledge of people and the principles of the Gospel will have
grown by leaps and bounds.
There was nothing like the Youth Guides in all
the Church. However, that program was
discontinued by the Church, and we cannot and will not resurrect it. I fully believe, though, that it was a pilot
program so that we could work with busy LDS youth and find out how to help them
become better member missionaries and prepare for their missions. With the advent of the Internet, it allows
us to share instantly with the whole world.
My hope is to share what we learned with everyone through ZionsArmy.com
and YouthGuides.com.
If you have any further questions, please ask
them and I will do the best I can to help.
Bro. P.
Here is a testimony from a convert of the Church who found the Youth Guides and joined the program shortly after her baptism. In fact, her baptism may have been the result of a Youth Guide referral.
Brother P.-
What an awesome idea! My eyes
filled with tears as I thought about all of the wonderful experiences I had in
the gardens and how much they prepared me for the other missions I have
fulfilled. Every time I walk through
the gardens I cannot help but think about how different my life would have been
without the program. My testimony grew
so much and I went from a new convert afraid to say a prayer in front of a
group to someone who sang and spoke in Sacrament meetings and many Stake
firesides.
When blessings told me it wasn’t right for me to
serve a full time mission at this stage in my life, it helped me to know that I
had served a “mission” in the gardens.
And now as I am on my Stake mission I often draw upon the experiences I
had in the gardens.
It’s amazing to me that I learned so much not
just about the gospel but about other people.
I learned to see others as the Savior does. I learned about faith in action.
I remember that before I would ever ask nonmembers if they wanted the
missionaries I would picture them in baptismal clothes. I learned a lot about the Lord’s version of
timing in my own life. I learned about
the worth of one soul. That as much as
our Heavenly Father loves us collectively He loves and knows us individually
too and that is incredible to me! When
I finally did go through the temple I already had a strong testimony that it
was and is the House of the Lord.
It’s amazing what happens when you give your
all. Almost all of my closest and
dearest friends somehow participated in missionary work with me. One of the new members in my ward that I
have the honor of working with gave a talk a couple of weeks ago and she said,
“ Do you all realize how blessed you are?
You are living in paradise compared to the rest of the world! Do you appreciate it?” That really hit me and made me grateful that
I have the influence of new converts in my life to remind me of all that I
have.
Well I better go! Thank you so much for not forgetting about the program. I don’t think anyone ever could because it
is a permanent part of who we are!
Thank you so much for all you have done for me! I learned so much from you!
Have a great day!
Debbie
It was pointed out that we reference a Weekly Report but that there isn’t one on the site. We will put it up and provide a link to it so that you can print it out for your use.
Let’s all work to grow the Church!
Bro. P.