Report on the
South Jordan 2007 Fair from Jeanne Jensen:
We had tremendous success with a large
crowd of over 500 attending the opening keynote address by Brad
Christensen. We counted 344 in the chapel, approximately 50-100
in the cultural hall, 100 in the overflow, and 35 on the stage.
We began with a multi-stake youth choir who sang an original rendition
of "Did You Think to Pray," under the direction of Cary
Ripplinger. They set a beautiful mood for the Fair.
Brad was very entertaining and delightful in his
presentation. He said that his group had been assigned to
interview members of the Church for the past 3-5 years to find out why
only 5% of the Church membership do Family History Work. He
received the same answers we always get:
1. It's too frustrating.
2. My work is all done.
3. I'm going to do it later--when I'm older.
He said that his assignment was to design a program that would assist
and motivate more participation.
He showed the new FamilySearch program--the pedigree that opens up, the
time line that shows all of the events in the person's life, the map of
the places he/she has lived, merging individuals, and the simplified
Temple Submission program.
Even though he went 5-10 minutes overtime, he told us that it was okay,
since his watch had stopped! Everyone I've talked to since
Saturday has said they could have listened to him all day.
Our first hour classes were a mad house! In our beginning
computer class, we had more in the room before we arrived than would
fit, and none of them had tickets. We honored the ticket-holders
first, then allowed others to sit in. We had over 60 in the
class, and turned away over 20.
Many of our classes were overcrowded with standing-room only because
the quality of the instructors was so high.
We had 8 classes each hour, or 40 in all, with a wonderful sack lunch
served at noon. All of the lunches were served within 10 minutes
when the crowd arrived. Each individual had a colored ticket to
correspond with the type of sandwich he/she ordered. They would
turn in the ticket, pick up the sack lunch (including sandwich, chips,
and large cookie), then pick up a bottle of water and either a banana
or orange.
I was told that throughout the day the quality of the classes was
exceptional.
The displays in the cultural hall under the direction of Shyrlane
Catmull of River Stake were spectacular, depicting a time line of
family history from the earliest times to the present. She even
had cardboard manniquins (manikins) dressed in period costumes, a
cemetery, and the new indexing equipment.
The cultural hall had every wall covered with primary picture
pedigrees--350 in all. They were so colorful and so interesting.