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Come, Follow Me is a resource offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is designed to be used in the home to support personal and family scripture study to build faith in Heavenly Father and His plan of salvation and in the Savior Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Come, Follow Me is self-contained and adequate, when used properly. Products and materials designed to supplement this resource, though they may be helpful in some instances, are not necessary for a successful home study program.
May 9–15
From Come, Follow Me :
For an overview of the book of Numbers, see “Numbers” in the Bible Dictionary.
In addition to the overview, the Introduction to the Book of Numbers gives some interesting insights. Numbers is named for the Lord’s instruction to Moses to number, or count, all the Israelite males “from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war” (Numbers 1:3).
The Book of Numbers describes counting a certain part of the population of the Israelites in what we would call an “ancient census”. Wikipedia states that a census is the “procedure of systematically calculating, acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population.” Today, there are opportunities to search census records for information about your ancestors.
"Enumeration, No Kind of Habitation was Missed, Included among the Places are Railroad Section Hands." National Archives and Records Administration. Series: Photographs Documenting the Sixteenth Decennial Census, compiled 1940 - 1941. ARC ID: 6200776
See The Countries Section of The Family History Guide and locate the “Census” Goal for any of the major countries of the world in which a census has been taken and made public. For example, the following video describes the 1921 Canadian census:
“Does your family tree have any generations that lived in the United States? If so, FamilySearch’s U.S. census records may help you discover more about your ancestors…Every 10 years, the United States Census Bureau conducts a national census.
A census record can tell you not only where and when your ancestor lived, but may also describe their occupation, other members of their household, and even small details about their life, such as previous military service or whether they owned a radio set.” US Census Records and Archives
Find Your Ancestors in State Census Records and FamilySearch Collections (see also Find U.S. State Census Records)
Have fun researching census records with help from How to Use US Census Records for Genealogy Research | FamilySearch, and Search Census Records Online and Other Resources | National Archives and search “Census Records” in The Family History Guide.
Share your discoveries with others. Preserve the information in FamilySearch Memories and in additional places of choice.
The United States Census 1950 is now released (April 2022), and is being digitized! The information indexed by computers is now being checked for accuracy through the efforts of thousands of volunteers who are also making sure the records are complete.
You can START NOW to find your family and help others discover information about their families that has been hidden away for 72 years! Learn more about the 1950 US Census: Opportunity for Church Members and the the new FamilySearch Get Involved App to be able to review computer information and check for mistakes "on the go."
Read more in How to Use US Census Records for Genealogy Research, Your Family In The 1950 Census, and United States Census, 1950.
Be sure to preserve information you discover about your family for generations to come!
Once you have located your family in census records, have fun locating their places of residence over the years using Google Earth. Find out how in this blog post.
Revelation is available to all, but God guides His Church through His prophet.
From Come, Follow Me :
What do you feel the Lord wants you to understand about personal revelation and following the prophet?
President Nelson: “I renew my plea for you to do whatever it takes to increase your spiritual capacity to receive personal revelation. Doing so will help you know how to move ahead with your life, what to do during times of crisis, and how to discern and avoid the temptations and the deceptions of the adversary.” (read more here and see the video clip below):
From President Nelson’s message :
“Our Father knows that when we are surrounded by uncertainty and fear, what will help us the very most is to hear His Son. Because when we seek to hear—truly hear—His Son, we will be guided to know what to do in any circumstance.”
"I promise that as you increase your time in temple and family history work, you will increase and improve your ability to hear Him."
See also: Leadership Instruction | Hear Him Through Temple & Family History Work and A Prophet's Temple Invitation.
The book of Numbers describes some of the lessons the children of Israel needed to learn during their 40 years in the wilderness:
What can you learn from these passages about receiving the promised blessings of increasing your time in temple and family history work, including President Nelson’s promise that you will “increase and improve your ability to hear [our Savior]?"
Being healed from the deadly bites of the fiery serpents by just looking at the brass serpent Moses made and put on a pole (see Numbers 21:4–9), could be looked at as akin to the healing we can receive from simply increasing our time in doing temple and family history work. Here are some ideas and activities that can help us increase our time in this essential and exciting work to receive the promised blessings:
President and Sister Nelson invite all church members to make a sacrifice of time to do family history and temple work (see Open the Heavens through Temple and Family History Work). An idea to make this a reality comes from an address Sister Wendy Nelson.
She offered the invitation to busy, overburdened sisters to do some temple and family history work each day for 21 days and then to watch what happened. She was concerned that adding one more thing to their list of things "to do" would make them even more burdened but the opposite was true for all who participated. Even a few minutes per day helped them to see miracles in their lives and the lives of their families. Although this challenge was given to sisters of the church, it is applicable to everyone.
Here are the links to the PDF and the video of Sister Nelson's talk:
Discuss ideas and options and make a plan! Think about routines and traditions you can create. List your goals and record how you will work toward them.
You may also want to join the Facebook group for The Twenty-one Day Family Connections Experiment to do family history for 21 days, and select a plan to follow for ideas and motivation. Read more about it here.
Check out 5-Minute Ideas for Latter-day Saints. Consider the "add-on" method as you plan family history activities. Make a routine by adding an activity to a meal, bed-time, travel time, family prayers or scripture reading, etc. See also: Need a Time Filler? Think Family History!
In addition, Week 29 (Weekly Family History Activities - A Come, Follow Me Companion, 2020) elaborates on some of these activities, and has even more fun and creative ideas and resources for ways to break family history activities into smaller segments and fit them into your busy schedule.
Share What You Find
There’s a fun and easy way to share photos, documents, and research findings with your family and friends. Check out the new Groups feature in FamilySearch for some great collaboration tools. See Project 1: Family Tree, Goal 10, Choice E.