Send us a text I've known her since high school. She was the accompanist for our acapella choir. She was really good. In 2010, she uploaded her first music video to the new channel, Youtube. She hoped it would get 100 views. In three weeks, it got over 100,000 views. Now, 14 years later, her Christian songs have been viewed over 50 million times! Enjoy this podcast episode where I interview my friend of over 50 years to find out how she does what she does. Learn why she positions herself as a...
Send us a text Today I had the privilege of interviewing performing celebrity Merrill Osmond. The location was the Washington DC Temple Visitors Center, where he and his wife, Mary, are serving a full-time mission. What a joy to hear about his lifetime of service as a member missionary! Did you know some people are called by the First Presidency to be "lifetime missionaries"? It happened to Merrill and his family of siblings when he was only 15. Listen to him tell about that experience in thi...
Send us a text I first met Lewis Bramley a year ago when he moved into the Washington DC 3rd Ward. I was struck by his beautiful Scottish accent. I was fortunate as the ward mission leader that they called Louis and his wife, Gillian, to be ward missionaries. At one of their first correlation meetings, I invited them to tell us their story. Lewis’ conversion story really touched my heart. Consequently, I’m sharing it here with the whole world! From his childhood in Scotland, to his miraculous...
Send us a text The Washington DC Temple Open House is currently going on. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit and share with five people the opportunity to visit our temple open house. It’s rare that that many missionary opportunities naturally surface in one day, so I made it the topic of this podcast. Whether at work, at the actual open house, or in an elevator, natural opportunities to help point others to the temple are all around us. Being involved in these opportunities bri...
Send us a text Hola es la palabra en ingles por hola. Así es como tienden a comenzar todas las relaciones nuevas: alguien dice hola. También es el acrónimo perfecto para guiar a las personas en la obra misional exitosa de los miembros. La H significa hola o cómo hacer esto; la O significa observar, la L significa escuchar y la a significa actuar. Seguir este sencillo acrónimo le ayudará a ser un mejor miembro misionero.
Send us a text Hola (Oh-law) is the Spanish word for hello. It’s how all new relationships tend to start out: somebody says hello. It’s also a perfect acronym to guide people involved in member missionary work. The H stands for How, (we then insert the preposition “to”), the O stands for Observe, the L for Listen, and the A for Act. How to Observe, Listen, and Act as a Member Missionary. This episode gives examples of how these steps have worked over and over for me in my da...
Send us a text She’s named after her grandmother, and that’s a good thing. Her grandmother served on the general board of the Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Association for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 25 years. Then she was called to be the president of the same organization and served there for another 25 years. Her mother was the personal secretary to Dr. James E. Talmadge for many years. She helped Elder Talmage proofread the Book of Mormon and get it ...
Send us a text Michael Seay is a realtor in the Washington DC area. He’s been a friend of mine for about 30 years. He is one of the most loving people I’ve ever met. He’s the first guy I’ve seen in my life who told fellow employees that he loves them right there in the work environment. That stunned me! He is also one of the best member missionaries that I’ve ever met. I was delighted to interview him and learn a little bit about his conversion and how he has shared the gospel with other peop...
Send us a text Music has a way of healing people. James Leith Macbeth Bain knew that. Born in Scotland in 1840, he was known to his friends as simply Brother James. He was a musician, poet, a mystic, and had a great interest in healing. In 1906 he published a book called “The Brotherhood of Healing.” His song Brother James Air was first published in 1915 as part of a New Year’s greeting. He founded the Brotherhood of Healers, where he and his fellow healers would often sing ...
Send us a text Have you ever felt like there was more out there in life for you? Maybe something was missing but you’re not sure what? Brian felt the same way. Surrounded by loving family at a young age, he was exposed to four different churches, Brian eventually found The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has never looked back. This is his story, told by himself. He has a special affinity to the Prophet Joseph Smith in that Brian, too, was 14 when he was going through par...
Send us a text She just graduated from Harvard, and she found heaven while she was there. Part of it came in meeting my nephew, Westley Cook, part of it came from learning about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while on campus, and the rest came from Harvard itself. Meet Alyssa, an accomplished chemistry major who believes in miracles. If you’ve ever wondered if God has a plan for you, knows you personally, or cares about your progress, you need to listen to this intervie...
Send us a text Enjoy this wonderful conversation I had this afternoon with my 89-year-old mother. She understands the need for temples and how to be involved in genealogical work as well as anyone I know. She is the mother of 11 children. She has 56 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. She was widowed at the age of 47 with 10 children at home and one child on a mission. She faithfully moved forward. All 11 of her children have been married in the temple. She is a ...
Send us a text Sometimes, the best podcasts don’t have any words. Instead, they have music. And music heals the soul. Recently, while visiting my mother in Utah, I sat down at her piano and started to try to play a favorite hymn of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Written by James Wallis, that hymn is called “Come, Ye Children of the Lord.” I had never played the song before. I simply sat down at her piano and tried to sound it out. It was fun! Today, during the first session ...
Send us a text I run a Facebook ad for one dollar a day, offering to give people a free copy of the Book of Mormon in my local area. I’ve run it for about 10 days and 263 people have seen it so far. One of the people who saw it commented that his “...ancestor had translated the book!” Sure enough, his relative is apparently Oliver Cowdery! The connection goes back to upstate New York and even into Canada back around the year 1800. You can imagine how excited I was to get that message! I...
Send us a text Meet Clayton and Marla Foulger, two of the best people on the planet. They had the privilege of being involved with Yitbarek and his family’s conversion. Their humble attitude about member missionary work is inspiring and instructive. Their story about Elder Eyring, while they presided over the London Mission, is priceless. Catch the spirit of these two wonderful people, and of Yitbarek and his family, as Clayton and Marla continue Yitbarek’s story about how his fam...
Send us a text The members of the Church needed a ride to the airport. He was their Uber driver. They invited him to their home, he met the missionaries, and read the Book of Mormon. He went to the visitors’ center in Washington DC, told his wife about it, and then joined the Church. With his strong testimony, he picked up two copies of the Book of Mormon in his own Ethiopian language and traveled 7100 miles home to Ethiopia to share it with his brothers. He is now the ward mission leader of ...
Send us a text Enjoy this interview with 6 full-time missionaries from the Washington DC North Mission: Elder White (St. George, Utah), Elder Larsen (Draper, Utah), Elder Cushing (Ridgecrest, CA). Elder Edwards (Tooele, Utah), Sister Watts (Gilbert, AZ), and Sister Adams (Nampa, ID) Find out why these talented young people, ages 18-21, spend 60 hours a week telling people about Jesus Christ and how they find joy doing it! Learn from other members’ efforts to be effective member mi...
Send us a text How would you like to be in the top 1% of all member missionaries in the Church? I believe there’s a simple and easy way to do that using Facebook and activities that are currently going on in your ward. Five weeks ago, I started doing weekly posts on Facebook either highlighting podcast episodes or just highlighting people in our ward who are involved in our weekly Bible study class. I pay $1 a day to boost those posts. That’s only $7 in a week! But in five weeks over 5000 peo...
Send us a text Adopted. Jewish ancestry. Abandoned. Christian upbringing. Heavy drinking. Suicide attempts. No money. Had to leave home. And he’s still only 17… Then the Book of Mormon and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came into his life—miraculously. It was a sister missionary who showed up at his door late one evening and encouraged him to continue reading the Book of Mormon that did the trick. She simply said two words: “Finish it! “ That’s all Eli Reynolds, of Chat...
Send us a text Michael Vaughan is a simple man with a simple story. He visited 22 different churches before he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When I asked him to sum up what his experience had been like, he kept it very simple: “Just come to church once,” he said, “… and see how you feel.“ Michael usually sits at the sacrament table and helps bless the sacrament every week in our ward. He’s always there. And he’s happy. Enjoy this brief conversation I had with h...