We shared a letter at our open house one year with a violin accompaniment.  The letter is "The Sullivan Balou Letter".   The music and words to the letter should be found in most music stores.  It's quite touching.

    Because we hold our mini-Open House on a Sunday night (each September), we try to have our activities short and in keeping with the Sabbath.  For the Primary children we've tried games, foods, toys, and songs of pioneers.  Last year we broke them into Sr. & Jr. age groups.  The Senior Primary children we took from room to room and had various couples or individuals in the Stake tell stories of their ancestors, or even how they met as husband and wife.  They gave the children a piece of a puzzle, so when they had gone to all six rooms they had six pieces to put together which was a picture of the temple and the saying,  "Families Can Be Together Forever."

    The Jr. Primary children were kept in the Primary room and entertained with some singing, some old-fashioned toys, and a few games (like 'This Little Doggie Won't Bite You’).  To calm them down when their parents joined them, we had a Sister tell them a story.  She sat on the floor, and they gathered around her.  The children loved it, but I was exhausted.  Most of the energy, we have found, needs to go into keeping the children busy.

     September Stake Family History Open House 2004:  Our theme this year is going to be, Building Strong Families from the Roots Up.  We'll have a half-hour Opening Session with 3 speakers, and songs from the Primary and hopefully YM/YW.  Then we'll break into the following sessions:       

    Adults:  Family History Starter Kits, which will address how to get started.  Very basic, because the feedback we've been receiving from the Consultants is that most people don't know how to start.  Every Ward has done PAF classes, and even after that, people still don't know how to start.  Yikes!

    Combining Family Groups Charts/Pedigree Charts with History & Pictures, which will show them how to organize families with their genealogical information. Still pretty basic.

    Resources Beyond familysearch.org, which will guide those already involved with family history to other resources.

    Young Adults:  We want them to do country displays from around the world.  Our Returned Missionaries and other post-high school kids will man displays in the Cultural Hall.  During 15 minutes intervals they will share with the Sr. Primary, Jr. Primary, and YM/YW kids (escorted around the room by adults) little vignettes about their countries. The adults will see the displays when their sessions are over.

    Teens:  For the first half-hour there'll be some sort of game yet to be determined.  Then they'll go view the country displays and see if they know where their ancestors came from.  We're still working on this.

    Primary:   The Jr. Primary will be similar to what we did last year.  The Sr. Primary is still being worked on.  Thank goodness it's still three months away! (this was written in June).

    Our Family History room will be open for anyone interested in seeing where their ancestors might have come from.   I don't foresee the room being swamped, but if we can spark the interest in one person, I'll be thrilled.

     Also, one of our seasoned Ward Consultants has been asked to set up in the Cultural Hall and answer any questions people might have with their research problems.  He's done personal research in the Scandinavian countries, U.S. and England and is familiar with the records.