Missionary Map

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints many serve a mission which entails spending 18-24 months of your life proselyting and serving others full-time. Missionary work began as soon as the church was organized and continues as a pillar of the church's purpose today. Many of my ancestors and relatives have served missions and I wanted to display that visually on a map. I've mounted it on my son's wall so he can look to the men and women in our family who have served before him as an example of faith. I included immediate relatives of my child (aunts/uncles) and then grandfathers/grandmothers, and earlier ancestors beyond that as well.

You can make your own too! I bought the map on Amazon, then I found the ancestors' pictures through my family tree in FamilySearch. The hardest part for the earlier ancestors however, was finding out where they served.  I was able to figure it out by scrolling through their life histories which can often be found on FamilySearch. However, a really awesome new tool is now available which would have made my search so much quicker: Early Mormon Missionary Database 1830-1930. Enter in your ancestor's name, mission, or keyword to come up with details about their baptism, priesthood office, and missions they served in during what years.

For a Family Home Evening we talked about the person in the picture and where they served as my kids took turns attaching them to the map. Something else I want to do is to revisit this map with mission stories of these ancestors which I will be able to dig out as I read more about their life stories in FamilySearch. I hope this map will be a lasting reminder to my kids of the importance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.