Your Ticket to Rootstech

When I registered for RootsTech last fall my first priority was to grab enough tickets for my children to attend Family Discovery Day.

Family Discovery Day is a free event sponsored by the Church that is designed for families and youth. Last year I witnessed thousands of families and kids come to listen to a challenge given by Apostle Neil L. Andersen. I was inspired by their enthusiasm and their eager acceptance of his message. I want my children to experience that this year.

But if you don’t live near Salt Lake you can still attend by checking with your local ward or stake to see if they are sponsoring a live streaming event of what is happening at RootsTech this coming Saturday. Here is the schedule and list of speakers.

I have no doubt those speakers will be great. But there will be other events going on that day if you can attend in Salt Lake. There will be classes for beginners and activities in the Expo Hall designed to engage the youth to demonstrate how they can enjoy the work of family history.

For example, FamilySearch is sponsoring a recording booth where for 10-minutes the youth can call an older relative and record a shared story.

One of my biggest regrets is not engaging myself enough in family history early enough in my life. I can see that my enthusiasm now is not doing much to inspire my kids. I am hoping that in attending RootsTech we can break through that a little bit. We discussed it tonight for Family Night. I know they are skeptical — but I’m convinced once they see the power for good this is in the lives of so many others they will begin to discover the great heritage we share.

The hardest part of family history is deciding to do it — to actually invest time in schedules that are overloaded already.

I see nothing but good coming from these efforts and I see nothing but benefits for those of my children and my family at large by engaging in this work. There are nothing but upsides.

If you have not been to RootsTech before and are curious about it perhaps getting a peek this Saturday via a local ward or even by catching it online at LDS.org would be a good way to get started. You can bet we’ll report on what we experience.

And if there are family members out there from the Salt Lake area already planning to attend or wanting to attend – let us know! We’d love to meet up and discover things with you.

Jeff Westover
Jeff Westover

Husband, father, Latter-day Saint, 11th generation American, and web geek currently residing in Smithfield, Utah. Please visit my website at JeffWestover.com

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