LDS Quotes On Missionary Work & Mission Preparation
“Our goal is to achieve eternal life. That is the greatest goal in the world. We are not opposed to goals. We do not want stake and full-time mission presidents to establish quotas for the missionaries. Rather, we expect them to inspire missionaries to set their own goals, and make them high enough to challenge their very best efforts, and work to achieve them. … We look to you to teach these principles and follow up.”
| President Kimball’s Vision of Missionary Work
A young returned missionary sister from Hong Kong told me recently that when she and her companion asked an investigator if she believed in God, the woman replied, “I didn’t until I met a member of your church and observed how she lived.” What exemplary missionary work! Asking every member to be a missionary is not nearly as crucial as asking every member to be a member! Thank you for living the gospel.
“My purpose in writing this book is simply to offer my witness that being a member missionary can be a source of deep happiness. It need not be hard. You will pull wonderful friends into your life because they will be able to feel your love for them when you invite them to learn more about their Heavenly Father. And every time you take someone figuratively by the hand and introduce him or her to Jesus Christ, you will feel how deeply our Savior loves you and loves the person whose hand is in yours.”
| The Power of Everyday Missionaries
“Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is — where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge.”
“If you’re not a full-time missionary with a missionary badge pinned on your coat, now is the time to paint one on your heart- painted, as Paul said, ‘not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God.”
“Our message is so imperative, when you stop to think that the salvation, the eternal salvation of the world, rests upon the shoulders of this church. When all is said and done, if the world is going to be saved, we have to do it. There is no escaping from that. No other people in the history of the world have received the kind of mandate that we have received. We are responsible for all who have lived on this earth. That involves our family history and temple work. We are responsible for all who now live upon the earth, and that involves missionary work. And we are going to be responsible for all who will yet live upon the earth.”
| Mission Presidents’ Seminar, Missionary Training Center, Provo, Utah, June 1999;
“It [Missionary work] is by definition the most important thing you can do in the world, in time or eternity. For this reason you are engaged in the saving of the human soul. And that is the highest and holiest work in the universe. That is the thing that God Himself said was His work and glory. It is the purpose for which the Savior came to the earth and gave His life and was resurrected to open those possibilities and promises of Eternal Life. It is the purpose for which every prophet has lived and every apostle has spoken. It is the purpose for which every missionary since Adam and Eve has gone forth to declare the truth. You join those ranks! You join that brotherhood and sisterhood and it is as I said by definition, by theology, it is the most important thing you can do.”
| “The Miracle of a Mission”
“Studying the gospel and sharing it daily can be accomplished by anyone with or without an official call. Please remember that it doesn’t take a name tag to do missionary work!”
| “Questions and Answers”
The Savior chose a very dramatic moment in which to emphasize the value of missionary work. He gave to his apostles the choice of their hearts. Peter said that he preferred to depart speedily from this life and be with the Savior in his kingdom. John the Beloved chose to stay behind and bring souls unto Christ.
Imagine the importance of that beautiful moment, Peter choosing to be with the Savior in his kingdom above; and yet the Savior turned and said to Peter, “John my Beloved has chosen the greater thing.”
| The Greatest Thing in My Life
I haven’t met anyone who found the gospel later in life who didn’t wish it could have been earlier.