In the last two
years, I have come to understand as never before how close the Savior is to His
work and to His servants who are called by Him to lead and to preside. I am
also learning how much our Father in Heaven loves each of His children. He is
our Father. We are His work and His glory. His greatest hope is for each of us
to come home and to live forever with Him as families. I know these things to
be true.
With this understanding, it’s clear that
our Father and Savior are inviting us to assist them in inviting others to
receive the blessings of the gospel. The need is more urgent because time is
running out. The Lord has spoken through His servants the prophets to tell us
that He is hastening His work, and to invite us to participate.
Elder David A. Bednar recently taught
the following about the hastening of the Lord’s work:
Elder Bednar suggested that members ask themselves if they as individuals…will choose to keep pace with the Lord’s hastening. “Or will we insist on doing things the way they have always been done, or the ways we are accustomed to or comfortable with?”
I am grateful for the clarity of Elder Bednar’s teachings. At times it seems overwhelming to consider how I can personally help to hasten the Lord’s work. But these words of a prophet remind me that it isn’t my responsibility to hasten His work. It’s my opportunity and yours to help the Lord to hasten His work. That understanding makes all the difference.
The Lord is able to do His work. As Nephi taught, God “is mightier than all the earth.” Moroni taught that He is “a God of miracles.” In the past year we have each seen that this is true. If called upon to bear testimony of the Lord’s hand in our lives and in the lives of those we love, each of us could testify that God is a perfect and personal Father. I bear my testimony that He has been so kind to me and to my family, so tender with us, so patient. He has been quick to hear our cries and to answer our prayers. I love Him, and feel loved by Him as never before.
My greatest desire – our greatest desire as those called to preside over this remarkable stake – is for each member and each family to feel of that love and to know that they are the children of a loving Heavenly Father, who wants us all to come home.
With this as our focus, we humbly express the Lord’s vision for the Pleasant Grove Manila stake as follows:
- That we as a stake in Zion become a mighty missionary stake with a missionary heart – the mightiest missionary stake in the Church.
- That we send an ever-increasing number of worthy, prepared and powerful missionaries - both young and seasoned - to help the Lord to hasten His work throughout the world.
- That we prayerfully seek out all of the Lord’s lost sheep and invite them to come and again partake of the blessings of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
- That all eligible members receive all saving ordinances for themselves, including temple ordinances, and then diligently seek to extend those blessings to others, both the living and the dead.
- And that all who teach and learn the gospel do so by the power and under the direction of the Holy Ghost.
In April 1959 President David O. McKay first made the statement that has since become a integral part of our Latter-day Saint vocabulary – “Every member a missionary!” Today, as the Lord’s servants we invite every family in this stake to become a missionary family. This is how the Lord’s Manila stake will become a mighty missionary stake of Zion.
Every family a missionary family. What does this mean, and how will this change us?
Imagine if you received a letter in the mail tomorrow calling your family on a fulltime mission? What would change in your home? What would you start doing? What would you stop doing? How would you prepare for your call to serve?
Brothers & Sisters, we have received this call. It is the call to help the Lord to hasten His work. If the purpose of God’s plan is to bring families home to Him, then what better way for Him to accomplish His work than through your family and mine?
President Spencer W. Kimball taught
that “Sharing the gospel brings peace and joy into our own lives, enlarges our
own hearts and souls in behalf of others, increases our own faith, strengthens
our own relationship with the Lord, and increases our own understanding of
gospel truths.”
“The Lord has promised great blessings
to us in proportion to how well we share the gospel. We will receive help from
the other side of the veil as the spiritual miracles occur. The Lord has told
us that our sins will be forgiven more readily as we bring souls unto Christ
and remain steadfast in bearing testimony to the world, and surely every one of
us is looking for additional help in being forgiven of our sins.”
“I wish we could more effectively and
faithfully establish in the hearts of all members of the Church the
understanding that if a person is old enough to be a member, he is old enough
to be a missionary; and he doesn’t need to be set apart especially for that
calling. Every member has the obligation and the calling to take the gospel to
those around him. We want every man, woman, and child to assume his rightful
responsibility. It is very important. For this is the message of the gospel: We
receive blessings from the gospel, and then we go out and share those blessings
with others.”
Please understand that this vision of
every family becoming a missionary family is not a program. It’s not a slogan.
It is a way of living and a way for us to become disciples of the Savior. This
is how the Lord has always asked His children to share the gospel – from one
family to another. The Church of Jesus Christ is where saving ordinances are
provided to those who have accepted loving invitations to come unto Christ –
but those invitations are most powerfully given and received from family to
family.
Here are few of the many ways that
thinking of our family as everyday missionaries will bring a mighty change in
our hearts:
- Family and personal scripture study will become even more critical as we seek to understand the Savior, His gospel and His atoning sacrifice. Both what and how we study will be affected.
- Our family prayers will include the names of those we love that need the blessings of the gospel, with pleas for inspiration for how to help them.
- Preach My Gospel will become a guide for our family’s missionary service. If the home is the new MTC, then Preach My Gospel will become our new family home evening manual.
- Family home evening will take on added importance as a sacred setting for teaching the doctrines and practicing the skills related to sharing the gospel.
- How we teach our children about work and about managing time will change, including paying more attention to what parental examples we set in using time, especially our free time. Prospective missionaries are paying more attention than we may realize.
- The temple and family history work will become more important to our families, both in the frequency and the intensity of our temple worship and in our efforts to extend temple blessings to family members.
- Teaching and learning will become more meaningful as we seek to invite the Holy Ghost to preside over all teaching and learning in our homes and Church callings.
Are such changes easy to implement? Of
course not. Will they be easy to sustain? No. But with the help of the Lord,
they can lead to greater personal and family conversion, and out of our changed
hearts will come powerful motivation and increased ability to invite others to
come unto Christ. The hastening of the work must begin within my heart and
yours before we can help others to know the Savior. I want to do better – to
become better. I want to become a “man of Christ” who can be entrusted with the
hearts of the Good Shepherd’s lost and wandering sheep.
I
believe I know what some of you may be thinking. “Another thing I’m supposed to
do?” “More action items to add to an already overwhelming list of action
items?” “One more reason to feel guilty or inadequate or that I’m a failure?”
Becoming an everyday missionary family isn’t about doing more, dear brothers
and sisters. You do so much good and are truly an inspiration to me and my
brethren in the stake presidency.
Becoming a missionary family is about changing the way we think and how
we view our gospel and family activities. It’s about adding value and purpose
to gospel behaviors we’re already doing. Family home evening, family study and
prayer, temple attendance. Home and visiting teaching. Serving in our callings.
These and many other Latter-day Saint activities can easily be infused with a
missionary focus. Doing so requires a willing heart and faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ.
In
summary, this faith is the most critical element of all. If left to our own
best efforts, we will fail. But through our faith in the Savior, we can do “all
things.” Ammon taught “I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am
weak…but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things.”
If this
is the Lord’s work, then he will help us to do what he asks us to do. As Nephi
testified, “I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of
men save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing
which he commandeth them.” Mormon declared that through faith in Jesus Christ
“there should come every good thing.” His son Moroni taught that “whoso
believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in
the name of Christ it shall be granted unto him, and this promise is unto all…”
The Savior himself promised that “Whatsoever thing ye shall ask the Father in
my name, which is good, in faith believing that ye shall receive, behold, it
shall be done unto you,” and that “If ye will have faith in me ye shall have
power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me.”
In the
spirit of this kind of faith in Jesus Christ, I share three simple invitations:
First, I invite you to watch the video “I’ll Go Where You Want Me To Go” on the
Hastening of the Work website and to discuss, as a family, what you saw and felt.
Second, I invite each member and each family to memorize and then regularly
review the missionary purpose from Preach
My Gospel. The third invitation comes in two parts. First, I invite moms
and dads to council together about ways they can help their family to become a
missionary family. And second, I invite each family to have a family home
evening or family council to discuss ways they can be an everyday missionary
family.
