Why Do We Send Missionaries Out Into the World?

(First, let me apologize for this being late. We are on the road and I wasn't as on top of things as I was hoping to be. That said, Enjoy!)

Life is exciting right now. It's summer and that means vacation time! For us that is looking like a month-long road trip in four phases. Phase 1 is complete and now Phase 2 is underway.

Phase 1 was going to see my family. The stars aligned and my step-sister got back from her mission the same week my brother graduated from high school, so we got to go to both parties. And, bonus for me, I got a double interview opportunity.

I usually like Before and Afters. This was more of an After and Before. RaeAnn is the After as she just got back from her mission in New Zealand. Tyler is the Before because he has his call to the London South Mission and reports in August.

Now why do we send missionaries out into the world? Elder Dallin H. Oaks gave an excellent answer back in a message to mission presidents in 1992:

The purpose of our missionary work is to help the children of God fulfill a condition prescribed by our Savior and Redeemer. We preach and teach in order to baptize the children of God so that they can be saved in the celestial kingdom instead of being limited to a lesser kingdom. We do missionary work in order to baptize and confirm. That is the doctrinal basis of missionary work.

This is the broad purpose of missionary work. But it is the experience of so many individual missionaries that they do not end up baptizing great numbers or any converts at all. Is their time in the field still worth it?

The answer, of course, is yes.

[Baptisms] are not the only measure of a successful mission. Equally important are helping to fellowship new members of the Church, encouraging less-active members toward full activity in the Church, giving Christian service, planting for a future gospel harvest, helping companions, and deepening your own conversion. 

(emphasis added, Ensign link here)

Oftentimes the mission is more like a crucible for the missionary themselves, regardless of whatever else happens. This is where the refiner's fire is turned up a couple notches and the boy or girl that goes in is not the same person on the other side.

In point of fact, if I were to go back in time and meet my husband before his mission I would not know that boy because that was not the man I married. From what I can tell, the mission made Charles a kinder, stronger man and the leader he is today.

RaeAnn is fresh off her spiritual high of an experience. I tried to jog her memory of what she had previously expected her mission to be like. Mostly, she was jumping into the unknown. She knew it was going to be a lot of hard work, but she didn't really know what that was going to look like.

"At first it felt more like banging my head against the wall. We were doing things, but it didn't seem to be going anywhere. You can't immediately see any fruits from your labors. But I learned that it's more than immediate results. Of course something so eternally significant will be hard. I learned I could feel satisfied with my work as long as I was doing what God expected me to."

 So she was able to learn patience, greater trust in God, and gain a stronger testimony for herself. There are things that will stay with her and give her strength through the rest of her life more than the fact that she helped one person get baptized near the very end of her mission.

Tyler on the other hand is still the pre-mission boy and gave me facetiously short answers. I asked him about his expectations in general and how he thinks he'll change.

At first he just said that he expects to spend two years in England and to get taller. I wasn't about to let him get away with that. He was a bit more serious the second time around.

He anticipates he'll be two years away from home teaching the gospel. And he expects he'll come back with a firm testimony of the Spirit and "some killer calluses on [his] feet".

I'll have to get more from him in two years when he gets back.

While serving a mission was not the path I chose for myself, I still see the value in serving. I feel my duty is to be raising the next generation of missionaries and that is its own refining experience, as I talked about last month.