This volume is intended to present a series of scriptures and statements [almost totally from General Authorities] that are meant to assist us as members and leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in (1) understanding and applying the word of the Lord [as given to us from the scriptures and the words of the living prophets], where it relates to conversion or reactivation, (2) encouragement to live our lives in such a manner, that we can come to know with absolute certainty what the will of the Lord is for us personally in helping to convert or reactivate our family and friends, and (3) encouragement to listen to and respond to those promptings of the "still, small voice" of the Lord as we undertake this work.
After discussing the contents of this book with Roan, we felt as the authors, that it would be important to share with you something more than just what the program is, or how it should work, but rather some of the successes we have had. I have therefor added this little section containing some of the personal experiences that my family and I have had as we personally used this program to convert non-members and help reactivate less active members over the years.
When Brother Hershell Pederson, of American Fork, Utah, first introduced the concepts of this program to a fellow stake missionary, Randy Johnson and me in 1983, we were just astounded at the results which he claimed to have had after four years of using the concepts of this program. The number of non-members in the American Fork Stake had decreased from four hundred (400) to thirty eight (38). Of sixty young men of missionary age who were inactive or unworthy to go on a mission at the start of the program, by the end of the fourth year, forty nine (49) had either gone on missions and returned, were still on missions, or were ready to turn in their papers. We assumed it was just his marvelous personality with people that had brought about this great work. We had no way to have known then that it was not just his personality (although that was a contributing factor). This was a program that would work for any ordinary member of the Church, just like Randy and myself. We immediately started to experience the same kinds of results in our stake. A few years later, as I introduced the concepts to my friend Roan McClure, he quickly found that he had similar results where he lived. It is hoped you will too.
I only have room in this volume to share with you a few of the success stories that we have had over the past several years using the program. Some of the stories took only two or three months to come to a happy ending. Others have taken five or six years. Some are still in the making and are not finished yet. You see, once we start a story of conversion with a person, we never quit. If you never quit, you can never fail. I wish I could tell you that every story has had a happy ending. Because people have their free agency, some have not responded YET, even after years of love and prayers in their behalf. But, I can tell you, with confidence, that almost every person we have ever introduced into the "Getting the water to the end of the row" program has come to know the truthfulness of the gospel in their hearts. As I say, some few have not chosen to follow the promptings they have felt YET, but I can tell you almost every single one that we have taught, has told us, some where along the way of our weekly teaching in the home, THAT THEY CAME TO KNOW THE GOSPEL IS TRUE. Some may not be able to live it's teachings at this time in their lives, but they have come to know more surely that the gospel is true.
Most of the less active members we have worked with have told us they want to come back, but they just do not know how. Almost every one of them, even if it was not the right time for them right then, have told us that are planning to come back SOME DAY. I am sure there may yet be others that we will meet and introduce into our program of love and fasting that will not respond at all, but even if they will only let the Spirit touch them enough that they will just shake hands with us so we can let them feel our spirit, we cannot say that in any of these cases, that we have failed. The Lord works in His own way and, sometimes, someone has to first just plant the seeds. If we just planted the seed in their heart, it was not a failure. The Lord will carry on from there.
Most of the people that have been converted or reactivated through this program have later told us that they did not understand what it was that they were feeling while we were fasting for them, but each of them have told us that they could feel a special feeling during the time we were fasting, (even though they did not know we were fasting for them). They have told us that the feeling made them want to be closer to the Lord, even if they were then mad at the Church or it's leaders. They all say that the feelings they felt were impressions of love and an increased desire to come closer to the Lord.
I was the Stake Reactivation Specialist in the Bennion Utah West Stake at the time I first received knowledge from Brother Pederson about using fasting and prayer to soften people's hearts. I did not find much success in introducing it to our stake leaders. That was partly my fault in not knowing how to do it. We based our program on two main references. The first was the story of Alma the younger in the Book of Mormon and the faith of his father in bringing him back to the church. Especially the part where they got a group of the priesthood leaders together and fasted for Alma the younger (see Mosiah 27:22-23). The second reference was a talk given by President Marion G. Romney. He said:
"I have had problems which it seemed I could not solve, and I have suffered in facing them until it seemed I could not go further if I did not have a solution to them. After praying AND ON MANY OCCASIONS FASTING FOR A DAY EACH WEEK OVER LONG PERIODS OF TIME, I have had answers revealed to my mind in finished sentences. I have heard the voice of God in my mind and I know His words."
Marion G. Romney
Melchizedek Priesthood Manual 1976-1977, pg. 39.
I was having a hard time getting people in our Stake to believe we could make the program work. In sheer desperation, I asked the Stake Presidency if they would pick the ten hardest cases they could find in the stake and assign them to us. We wanted to show them that this program would work. So they made us the list, and that is where we began.
We revised the program over and over from what we had seen in American Fork. It had to fit us and our personalities. We tried many different things. If what we tried did not work, we revised it until it did. The program was finally published in a little handout for the Bennion Utah West Stake leaders called, Getting the Water to the End of the Row. That title was an expression I had heard from a Regional Representative while I was a student at BYU, who was expressing his desire for us as leaders, to carry the message he had from the President of the Church down to every last member of our Stake. Those revisions, and the things Roan and I (and many others now) have learned over the years, are what we have published in this book. It has been tried in many other stakes, and by many other leaders, with similar success. Roan has greatly added to and updated the printed materials from what they were in our first little printed version. He has as well, added his own experiences to the great list of success stories my family and I have experienced in the program. I simply share some of these stories with you, that you will take courage in knowing that it is possible to get the water to the end of the row. It really does work. It worked then, and it is still working now!
The first person the Stake Presidency assigned to us as a part of the "Stake Presidency's ten hardest cases in the Stake list", was a non-member who had married a member girl who had moved into our area. Her family members were all active but his family was quite anti-Mormon. They were an old Utah family that had been generations of non-Mormons living in Utah. He was very polite and willing to even come to church with her once in a while, but he wanted nothing to do with the missionaries or being taught about the Church. We decided to talk to her about the program. We explained the Getting the Water to the End of the Row program to her, and asked if she would be willing to try it. She said to me, "Cordell, I know it is impossible to convert him." I asked her if she would be willing to try anyway. She agreed to do it. She said she would be willing to try almost anything if it would convert him. We asked her to talk with her family and some of her close friends about fasting with her. There were thirteen families in all that agreed to fast and go to the temple once a week with her. We just wanted to see if we could send him a feeling that would soften his heart and influence him to let the missionaries teach him. After four or five weeks of fasting and putting his name on the prayer roll, and all thirteen families being in the temple praying for him each week, he started to tell her that he kept having this feeling like he was in a tunnel. He said that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and he felt like the Book of Mormon was that light. After a couple of more weeks of the fasting and prayers and temple attendance by those families involved, he asked her (NOTE THAT: HE ASKED HER!) if she would invite the missionaries over. He was baptized. One year later, he took her to the temple to be married for time and all eternity. That marriage sealing was a wonderful occasion for our whole neighborhood.
he Stake Presidency assigned us a young man who was 21 years old. He had been inactive since he was about 14 and would not even stay in the room when the home teachers came visiting. He would not discuss the Church or anything spiritual with his parents. He was a good boy but just not interested in the Church. I went over and talked to his parents and asked if they would be willing to try the Getting the Water to the End of the Row program to help him want to go on a mission. His mother looked me in the eye and said, "Cordell, that is impossible. He will never go on a mission." (I got used to hearing that after a while from the families with whom we were working.) We told them about some of the successes that the American Fork Stake had with their young men (some even going on missions after they got out of prison), so the family agreed to try it. Again, they contacted all of their immediate family to join them in the weekly fasting. We found as we proceeded further and further into the program, that the immediate family was the key in fasting. Immediate family fasting had more effect than friends or neighbors because they loved the person more.
I fasted, prayed and went to the temple a few times to support this family in reactivating their son. Because there were other families in the Stake that we had began to work with, I did not continue to pay the same individual attention to this family like I had some of the first ones. Once their family started the program, we went on to other families and I did not hear back from them. I will never forget the day several months later, when I went into one of the ward buildings in our stake to give my regular high council talk for the month. There was this very boy sitting in the foyer, reading his scriptures while he waited for the meeting to start. When I saw him sitting there reading his scriptures, I heard so clearly again in my mind the words of his mother, "Cordell, that is impossible. He will never go on a mission." He did!
We were assigned another young man who was not as hard core as that, but he did not want to go on a mission either. He decided he wanted to be in a rock band instead. I spent a lot of time talking with him, but still he would not even consider going on a mission. In this case his parents were not willing to join us in the fasting, so we just got a group of people together in his ward who were his friends and leaders. He did not even resist two full months before he changed his mind. He went on his mission. I doubt his parents know to this day why he changed his mind about going on a mission, The "why" is not really important. It is only important that he was touched by the Spirit and listened to the prompting and did what he knew was right.
other 22 year-old member of our stake was assigned to us as one where there was little hope that he would ever go on a mission. We talked to his parents and started fasting and praying with them, going to the temple weekly to try to help him feel the spirit of the Lord in his life. I was doing a job at that time which caused me to see him at his work place almost every day. And so each time when I would walk into the business, I would ask him when he was going on his mission. During the first few weeks he was very belligerent. (He did not know we were fasting for him.) Each time, I would ask him when he was going on his mission, and he would blurt out, "NEVER!". After a couple of weeks, I noticed that he started to soften a little and say in a more gentle voice, "I don't want to go". A few more weeks and it softened to, "I don't think I can go". Finally his tone softened to, "Maybe, sometime." After a couple of months of asking him almost every day, one Monday morning he shocked me when I walked in. Before I could ask him when he was going on his mission, which I felt confident he knew I would ask, he said, "Brother Vail, I turned my mission papers in to the Bishop yesterday." I was thrilled beyond words. His parents were too. According to his Mission President he was a wonderful missionary.
We were assigned a man who was an atheist. He had been very threatening to the neighbors. He had grown up in a large city, in a very poor neighborhood, and it was just his way of dealing with the neighbors. I was very afraid to even approach him. I prayed and asked the Lord to help me know how I could get into his house. One wintry day my wife and I came driving by his home, and I had a very strong impression to stop at his house. My wife was really surprised at my stopping. It was very cold outside. He and his boys were playing in the snow on their front yard with their three-wheelers (one of the common complaints of the neighbors). I pulled into his driveway right in the path of where they were going over the snow jump they had made. He stopped his three-wheeler and came stomping over toward my car. I got out of the car and never prayed so hard in my life to know what to say, so that I would not get beaten up. He demanded to know what I wanted. Then the Holy Ghost just filled my mind with what to say. Within minutes I was in his house with him. After about an hour of him showing me every hobby he had, I remembered that my wife was still sitting out in the cold car, in the path of the snow jump. I told him I had to leave. Our families became very good friends after that. He was no atheist after all. He was just mad at the Lord and told everyone that he was an atheist. He moved away before we finished our work with him and his boys. We then lost contact with him. But I feel confident that the Lord was able to send others into his life to continue where we left off.
One day I went to talk with a less active member that we had been assigned. No one had ever really been able to even get into his house before. But, after fasting and praying, I went there and he let me right in. I was just amazed at how he was so anti-church. He had something bad to say about almost everyone and everything. During our conversation, which lasted over an hour, I asked him what his eternal goals were. He just about floored me. He said that one of his main goals was to be married in the temple some day. I could hardly believe my ears. After several years of working with less active people, I can now say that it is not uncommon for me to have a less active person tell me that same thing. Deep down in their heart they know the importance of the temple because they were taught it when they were active, especially if it was while they were young. The feeling does not go away.
I saw another member a few months ago when I was visiting Salt Lake City, who had been very inactive and had similar feelings about the temple. He came up to me in a store and told me that he and his wife were now active in the Church and had been married in the temple. It took almost 7 years for that story to come to the doors of the temple. I am sure that you know that it took the time and the effort of many good home teachers who continued to visited him on a weekly basis, and many visiting teachers, priesthood leaders and Bishops over the years who have loved his family and cared about him for this to happen in their lives. What a joy, to know that our planting of the seed in his heart with this program had come full circle and had borne fruit.
We had asked the Stake Presidency to give us a few of each type of less active persons in the stake as part of our first ten. They assigned us some part-member families, some less active members, some young men who had not been willing to go on missions, etc. (Once we started having such success, it turned out to be many more than ten. They just kept adding to the list.). We were therefore assigned some single people who were thought to be impossible to reactivate. I can tell you that our WEEKLY TEACHING IN THE HOME WAS THE THING THAT HAD MORE EFFECT THAN PROBABLY ANYTHING ELSE WITH THE SINGLE PEOPLE. They were normally quite convinced that no one cared about them. I remember one in particular who was assigned to us. I decided to try a new twist to the program, something that in fact was really not a part of the program. I went around the ward and asked every person I could find, who was willing, to start visiting this person. I only asked them to visit her. I did not ask them to try to teach her anything, not even too fast or pray for her. I just asked them to visit her to say hello once in a while. There were about 20 or 30 families that agreed to participate. Some of the families were even non-members or less active members themselves. It was just amazing to me. Here was this lonely person who thought everyone was against her, especially the church members. Then all of a sudden, people from the neighborhood started to visit her. Not very many people went over more than just once or twice each. It was just one visit here and one there, but because there were so many families that participated, it came to be a two or three times a week occurrence for her to be visited by someone. And this went on for several months. She became active and is still active to this day. We really never taught her. She just had her regular home teachers and visiting teachers, not our weekly teachers. She just needed to be needed, and when she felt that she was really needed, all her doctrinal disbelief's were eventually resolved or went away. I honestly believe that almost every less active person would come back to the Church if they just felt needed. Dividing larger wards into smaller wards has shown me that several times over the years.
We were assigned to a single mother and her small children. She was very bitter against the Church and had even decided not to wear her garments anymore. She wanted nothing to do with the Church. I decided that we would just go visit her every week anyway. So I took my wife with me. She had already thrown me out a few times, but never when my wife was with me, especially if we had a loaf of warm bread in our hands. (I learned that little trick from S. Dilworth Young when I was a Seventy.) It took us almost two years visiting her every week, numerous cakes and loaves of bread, and loving her unconditionally, to bring her and her children back into the Church. Several times she swore at us, and one time she even spit on me. Very often, at first, she was very upset with us as she vented her feelings about the Church, but we just kept coming back. She has now been married to a wonderful husband in the temple and has become very active in the Church. Isn't it funny how short our memories are of bad experiences once they are over and the light is shining through. Those bad things usually don't matter later. It has been more than worth all the disappointing times to now have the joy of her being our family friend, and see her active in the Church.
We met a family that had been inactive for years. They wanted to be active, but had a very hard time with the Word of Wisdom. After several years of working with the family and praying for them, I am happy to be able to report that they have been to the temple. One of their children who was having a very hard time with smoking and drugs, is now serving on a mission. This did not come overnight. It has taken over six years of work, with constant prayers in their behalf, staying in touch even though they had moved away, to finally have a happy ending to this story. We never doubted that the story would end in success. The wonderful thing about this and all of the other of our stories, is that none of them have actually ended. Why? Because their story of happiness and joy has just begun in each of their lives as they become active in the Church.
One family we taught was a man who had been excommunicated and his wife was a non-member. My wife and I visited them every week for over three months and taught them as best we could, even though we were not stake missionaries. They had been visited by several sets of missionaries, but each time the missionaries had become frustrated with them and finally given up. One thing I remember the husband telling me was what a positive effect it had on him, that for years they had always had good home teachers (faithful home teachers that came every month!) He said he never let them past the front porch, but they always came back. Acting on the seeds that those good home teachers had planted, we started to fast and pray for them. We then asked if we could visit them every week. They said yes, and they even let us in the house to do the teaching. I doubt that they learned anywhere near as much as my wife and I did during the time we taught them. No one has ever asked us such deep, profound questions as they did. Each time, as they asked a question, the Lord put the answer in our minds. We would then go home and write down the question and the answer in our notebook of gospel questions and answers. To this day, when I give talks and firesides, I still constantly use the notes that I kept of the things we learned from this family as we taught them. After about three months of visiting, we invited the full time missionaries to come back. They taught them and then the whole family was baptized.. They have now sent all of their children on missions, including their daughter. We love them every bit as much as we love my own brother and sisters. They are such a joy to us as our family friends.
Another family we were assigned, was a man who had decided to leave the Church while he was on his mission. After his mission, he had requested excommunication and then married a non-member. We started to visit them, and unbeknownst to us, they were also visiting with a very famous anti-Mormon couple on a weekly basis at the same time as they were meeting with us. I can tell you that they asked us questions about doctrines of the Church (which this other anti-Mormon couple put them up to asking) that I had never before even heard of. But every time they asked one of those questions, the answer would come into our minds. Janice and I were able to be instrumental in helping the Lord with their conversion. They finally agreed to let the full time missionaries come and teach them. They were both baptized and later went to the temple. We again filled several pages in our notebook of gospel questions and answers, with things that we learned through teaching them. The answers to questions they asked, sometimes were just profound. They were things the Holy Ghost taught them, through us, and at the same time, the Spirit taught them to us.
Ammon promised us in Alma 26:22 that we can convert thousands if we will do what he asked us to do. I believe that promise has literally been fulfilled for our family. We have been able to help the Lord reactivate or convert people who have in turn, now gone on missions or sent their children on missions. And they have, in turn, converted others who are now sending their children on missions. I have no way to ever know how many people there have been who have joined the Church in fulfillment of Ammon's personal promise in the Book of Mormon to our family.
I received a letter a few months ago from a family in California, thanking me for this very process. I met a young girl who was a clerk in a local store. I asked her if she liked to read. She said she did, so I asked her if she would like a Book of Mormon. She said yes. I never give the book to them right there. I follow Hartman Rector's advice and get them to write their name on a paper. Then I tell them I will send it to them. Then I send the paper and the Book of Mormon to the local missionaries. The missionaries then go to the door, show the person the paper they wrote their own name and address on and tell them that Mr. Vail asked them to bring the book over for him. Brother Rector said the missionaries will get in 90% of the time if we do that. She let them in. The rest is history. She was converted and we helped the missionaries baptized her. She later left her studies at the university and went on a mission to California. There she helped to convert the family that wrote me the letter thanking our family for converting her. I assume now their children and children's children will go on missions as well. This type of "generations" of converts has happened to us many times now. My own son's missionary companion at the MTC in Provo was the son of someone I helped to convert at BYU as a student 19 years earlier. The work we do goes on and on. I know that Ammon's promise in Alma 26:22 will be fulfilled in the lives of all who are willing to do what he asked us to do in that prophetic promise.
Our stake program finally came to the point where I was visiting with one of the Elders' Quorum Presidents, pressuring him in a sense, to try our new reactivation program. He told me all of his stories of woe and why he could not get into any of the homes of less active members in his quorum. He said he had even been run off at gun-point by one prospective elder. He challenged me to try to get into one of the homes and gave me a name ( thank goodness it was not the one who ran him off at gun point). When I came back the next month, I told him I had been in the home and was now very good friends with that family. We had even been on an outing with them! He said it was just because my son and a son in this man's family, were friends at school. (That was true. The Lord works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.) I therefore told him that I would show him that I could get into EVERY home in the ward. And, after much fasting and prayer, the Lord blessed me to be able to do just that. The following story is how I accomplished this.
There was a burglary in the neighborhood where we lived a few days after my visit with that Elders Quorum President. I noticed out of my window that the man who had been burglarized was going door to door and getting into every home. I did not know at the time I was watching him from my window as he went from door to door, that he had been burglarized, but I certainly noticed two homes in particular, that he went in. They were homes that, to my knowledge, no neighbor had ever been in before. Both were very anti-Mormon. As I watched him, he just knocked on the door, spoke to them a second or two, and then they just let him right in! So I went out on the street and asked him what on earth he was doing to have those two families invite him into their homes. He told me about the burglary and that gave me the very idea I had been praying would come to help me get into every home in the ward.
I started a neighborhood crime watch in our area. I was, of course, the head of it. When I went back to the Elders Quorum President the next month, I was able to report to him that I had been in EVERY home in the ward, including his of course. I had used the neighborhood crime watch program to do it. I was very proud to be able to report to him that I was now also friends with the very man who ran him off at gun point. Over the next five years, as head of that neighborhood crime watch program, I was able to go into almost every non-member, and less active member, homes in the entire stake. Many of those relationships turned into gospel friendships, and the people were brought into the fold of the gospel as well as being protected from the "bad guys".
I cannot relate the details of all the stories we have experienced, because some of them have involved confidential information that if printed, others might know who they are. Some of the lives of these wonderful brothers and sisters were such that they needed to have church disciplinary action to help them in their repentance process. I saw one of those people a few months ago when I was visiting Salt Lake City on a business trip. He threw his arms around me and wept and thanked me over and over for caring and doing what I had done to help bring him back. What he went through in that conversion process was not easy, not for him or any of us helping him, but the Lord never said it would be easy, just worth it.
My wife Janice and I have tried to visit someone every week our whole married lives. It is one of the greatest blessings that has ever come to us. We are the ones who have been taught the most over all. We are the ones who have been converted most over all. Each of the families we have helped to teach have been given a little knowledge, and we, at the same time, have received that same knowledge .After having scores of these experiences, over and over, we are the ones who have gained the most knowledge, because each family asked different questions. The experiences build upon each other. We treasure the pages and pages of notes containing things that we have written down in our book of Gospel questions and their answers. That notebook is filled with things that we have learned as we taught these "family friends". And they have become just that, family friends . That is different than just friend friends you see. They are friends who are like a part of our family now.
My family has had to move around a lot in the past several years. We have used the principles in the Getting the Water to the End of the Row program every place we have lived. We have had the same success each time. It has worked everywhere we have lived. There have been scores of people that our family have helped the missionaries to either convert to the Church or reactivate in those years of moving around. Most of those people have become like our own brothers and sisters. We love them with a perfect love. When we have sacrificed for them and made them a part of our lives for so many weeks and months of fasting and prayer and then, in many instances, teaching weekly for months and months, they have become like family members to us.
There are many more stories. Janice and I could fill this whole book with just stories of successes we have had since the principles were first introduced to us. I will simply end by telling you that we know from personal experience that this program works. We know that if you will love someone enough to reach out to them; if you will fast and pray and ask the Lord to touch them; if you will attend the temple weekly or as often as you can, then with the spirit of fasting in your heart, YOU WILL HAVE SUCCESS!. It is not really a "program" or a "reactivation method". It is the Spirit of the Lord that brings the success. Fasting weekly may not be right for you. Weekly visiting may not be right for them. You have to make your own program for each individual. I am however, very confident that you will find, just as Janice and I have found, that exercising our faith in behalf of others DOES WORK! We find that it is different every time. Each person is unique. Each person has his or her own personality. No one program will convert all people. We have learned that the Holy Ghost as promised in Moroni 10:5, has the power to reveal the truth of all things to our minds. He knows them all personally. He will if we ask, create a special "program" just for them, through you. I know that He knows the answer to any question they could possibly ask, and can reveal that answer to our minds. You do not need to fear to open you mouths (see D&C 84:85). The Spirit is the one who makes the change in their hearts. All He requires of us is our willingness to go out and meet them. Just be there, so He can use us as His instrument in this great work. He will do the rest. When it comes time to formally teach them, the full time missionaries will do that. So you can relax and just have fun.
Our family has learned by practical experience that doing the work is the key to the success of every program of the Church. NO PROGRAM WILL WORK UNLESS WE ARE WILLING TO DO THE WORK! The Lord asks in Genesis 18:14, "Is there anything too hard for the Lord?" We can tell you from our own personal experiences that there is no one too hard for the Lord when it comes to the converting of His children. Our stories which we have shared with you of success in getting water to the end of the row surely testify of that. The only thing I know of that might be hard for the Lord to do, is for Him to try to do His work through us, when we are not willing do it. Then He is bound. He loves us, as Moroni says in Moroni 8:17 "with a perfect love". We are all as little children to the Lord. We know as a family from our many experiences, that if we as His children will reach out to our brothers and sisters who are less active, or who are not members YET, that the Lord will fill our minds with what to do, what to say, and when to do and say it. He will do it in such a way that we will be able to touch them and bring them back, if they will come, into His fold.
A dear friend of mine, Arvin Bellon, said something in a sacrament meeting talk one day that left me to never be the same again. He said, "When we pray for the missionaries, we pray that the Lord will help them find people to teach." He said, "That is the wrong prayer. Why don't we pray that the Lord will help US to find someone that we can refer to the missionaries to teach?". OUR ACTUALLY BEING WILLING TO DO THE WORK IS THE VERY KEY. When we think the work is impossible, it is. We have to be willing to reach out. They will not come to us. We have to go to them. It is not an easy work, but it is a rewarding work, and it is not impossible.
This is our witness to you from me, my wife and our children. We have experienced the joy of success in gospel conversion of family members and friends around us who were non-members or less-active members. We know that you too can have that same success, to be able to bring the light of the gospel to many of your family and friends just as we have been able to do. We know that if we will try with all our hearts to keep the commandments, and then using fasting, prayer, scripture study, temple attendance and weekly teaching in the home, that the Lord does bless us with success. IT WORKS! We bear our witness to you as a family that it will work for you as well as it has for us.