Four Insights for the New/Preparing Missionary

Having my mission come to a close has given me a lot of time to think about the valuable lessons I've learned. Idk if you'll be able to tell from the previous emails, but I love missionary work!!  The lessons I've learned have proven time and time again to be invaluable.  I recently received an email from my cousin who has received his call from the Prophet Thomas S. Monson to serve in Rome, Italy.  In this email, he asked for a few insights on how he could best begin his two years.  Here's a few insights I would share to him and to anyone who desires to begin their missionary service on a consecrated note.

1. First and foremost, pray for the Lord to confirm that the place that you have been called to is where the Lord needs you to be for the next two years.  Missionary service is to be a joyful experience, as it has been for me, yet I've seem too many elders who have struggled with obedience or confidence or other problems, all stemming from the fact that they haven't gained a personal testimony from the Lord in their call.  This testimony to get you through the rough times.  It will increase your joy in the good times.

Remember the words of David A. Bednar: "A missionary is not called to a place; rather, he or she is called to serve...As missionaries strive to be ever more worthy and capable instruments in His hands and do their best to fulfill faithfully their duties, then with His help they “cannot go amiss”—wherever they serve. Perhaps one of the lessons the Savior is teaching us in this revelation is that an assignment to labor in a specific place is essential and important but secondary to a call to the work. (Called to the Work, April 2017 Conference)"

2. Second, prayerfully set SMART Goals:

Specific - To give you direction

Measurable - To track your progress

Achievable - To fuel your faith

Realistic - To kill your doubt

Time-bound - To keep the pressure

Too many missionaries, fresh from the MTC, set a goal similar to this one: 'I am going to be the best missionary ever!'  It's not specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, or time-bound!  Be SMART in your goals, and they will help you in your focus.  Set long-term goals for your mission, and set short-term goals to help you achieve the long-term.  The simpler the goal is, the more power it has.  I could go on for days about goals but I'd just be boring everyone!  If you master the principles in Chapter 8 of PMG you'll have a solid foundation for becoming a PMG missionary.

3. Third, commit to be exactly obedient to the Missionary Handbook.  Be like the Nephites in the Book of Mormon. "And, notwithstanding we believe in Christ, we keep the law of Moses, and look forward with steadfastness unto Christ, until the law shall be fulfilled.  For, for this end was the law given; wherefore the law hath become dead unto us, and we are made alive in Christ because of our faith; yet we keep the law because of the commandments" (2 Ne 25:24-25).  Anything less than exactly obedient is disobedient.  If you can't cross yourself for the Lord these two years, how do you expect to cross yourself in the eternities ahead?

4. Last, engrain 'Preach My Gospel' into every fiber of your missionary service.  It hasn't been until recently that I discovered that my PMG looks more like a coloring book!  All the notes and quotes from various trainings and meetings that I've written in the margins of my PMG continue to teach me long after I first wrote them.  If you look at 'A Successful Missionary' under PMG Chapter One, all of the bullet points at the bottom of pg 10/top of pg 11 connect to at least one chapter of PMG.  If you master PMG, you master your mission.

I have gained strength in the words of Bruce R. McConkie:  ”I am called of God. My authority is above that of the kings of the earth. By revelation I have been selected as a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is my Master and he has chosen me to represent him. To stand in his place, to say and do what he himself would say and do if he personally were ministering to the very people to whom he has sent me. My voice is his voice, and my acts are his acts; my words are his words and my doctrine is his doctrine. My commission is to do what he wants done. To say what he wants said. To be a living modern witness in word and deed of the divinity of his great and marvelous latter-day work.”  I know what is declared here is true.  Striving to stay true to it takes faith and repentance on a daily basis, but overtime it is achievable!  The Lord endows his true servants with power.

You have two years to do it, and an eternity to remember it.  "This time, like all times, is a very good one, if [you] but know what to do with it." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is the work of Jesus Christ.  Nothing shall hinder it.  "Persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent... 'til the purposes of God shall be accomplished... (Joseph Smith)"  I add my witness that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, that he was called to restore the Church of Jesus Christ to the earth in these days.  Serve with all you heart, might, mind, and strength.

Elder Benson