Taking the Guilt Out of Family History Work | A How I Lead Interview with Rick Bennett

Rick Bennett currently serves as family history leader in his ward and as a temple worker at the Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple for the past ten years. He has served previously as ward mission leader, elders quorum counselor, membership clerk, Gospel Doctrine teacher, Primary teacher, and missionary in South Carolina/Georgia. He has a masters degree in biostatistics from the University of Utah and teaches at Utah Valley University and Western Governors University. For the past seven years, Rick has hosted Gospel Tangents, a podcast and YouTube channel focusing on Mormon history, science, and theology, where he interviews not only Latter-day Saint scholars and leaders, but Restoration leaders from other offshoots like Community of Christ, Strangites, Bickertonites, and even fundamentalist Mormon cousins in the Restoration Movement. Rick loves not only family history but Mormon history as well. Highlights 02:40 Introduction to Rick Bennett 04:40 Rick talks about his podcast, which focuses on Church history, science, and theology 21:30 How Rick got into family history 23:30 Roots Magic, a tool for family history 27:15 Family history tools and programs 27:50 If family history doesn’t excite you then that’s ok. Do what you can do. Take the time to record your own history and your parents’ or grandparents’ history. 30:15 Doing a ward podcast can be another way to record people’s history 34:30 Do what you want to do in family history. Some people love uploading photos or interviewing family. 37:15 Rick shares some of his family history and talks about how he has found some of his family records 42:45 Tips for improving family history in your ward Find the computer guy Connect to your in-laws by helping them with their history Get people excited about finding stories 43:20 Another way to help with family history is to take pictures of grave stones and put them on findagrave.com 49:00 Cancel Sunday school and do family history. Get people excited by going to the church history center. 56:45 Creating groups as families or wards to help give people names for the temple 1:03:00 Final thoughts and testimony Links Gospel Tangents PodcastGospel Tangents podcast interviews with Kurt FrancomWhy Your Ward Needs a Podcast Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcastListen on YouTubeGet 14-day access to the Core Leader Library The Leading Saints Podcast has ranked in the top 20 Christianity podcasts in iTunes, gets over 500,000 listens each month, and has over 10 million total downloads as part of nonprofit Leading Saints’ mission to help latter-day saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, J. Devn Cornish, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, DeAnna Murphy, Michael Goodman, Richard Ostler, Ganel-Lyn Condie, and many more in over 500 episodes. Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.