As I set out to make my service goal for this year, I thought and prayed and struggled with finding the "right" project. Then as I was reading in an old Ensign magazine, I came across this information about FamilySearch.org,
We currently have a backlog of over 3 million images for active projects that need to be arbitrated. That’s 3 million images and their respective indexes that aren’t published on FamilySearch.org because they haven’t made it through arbitration. They could be published in a matter of days if they were all arbitrated today. It’s just a matter of having enough volunteers to do the work.
That information was from April 2012. The current backlog is over 12 million now.
The article continued, "How do we fix the backlog? Easy—we just need more arbitrators."
I felt called to help! And I loved the idea of helping people find their ancestors. But considering I had only ever indexed a batch or two before and it had been years since I'd even done that, I certainly wasn't ready to be an arbitrator. Experience indexing a variety of record types is the main requirement. So this year I have worked on indexing so I can become an arbitrator. Thousands of records and lots of hours later, I can finally say I'm experienced and ready to become an arbitrator!
A couple things about indexing I had previously read about and now have a strong testimony of, are that, indexing allows us to all help one another with our personal family history and also that the names I, and others, have submitted, are not just names...they are people!! Those names are sons and daughters of God, many of whom are waiting to be found so they can enter into temple covenants and all of whom Heavenly Father wants to bless. It has been a fun project to undertake and I have felt the promised blessings and spiritual protection from participating in the Spirit of Elijah.
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Haylee
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