I
am Sister Ashley Dyer, and I just returned from serving in the Brazil Natal
Mission in Northeastern Brazil. While in Brazil, I experienced first-hand a culture
with a lot of enthusiasm for sharing the gospel and inviting people to church,
so today I want to share with you the things I learned about how to participate
in the Lord’s amazing work.
One
day on my mission, my companion and I were eating lunch at a member’s house,
and afterwards we asked the member, whose name was Presidente Claudio for
suggestions about who we could teach, but he sadly told us he didn't have any. As my companion and I got ready to leave,
Presidente Claudio walked over to his daughter’s 14 year-old friend who was
over. He asked her what her name was and
if she liked “surprises.” When the girl, whose name was Rwanda, said yes,
Presidente Claudio excitedly said, “Rwanda!
I have an awesome surprise for you!
Can I go over to your house one day this week to bring it to you?” She said it was ok and gave him her
address. Presidente Claudio then asked
with a smile on his face, “Do you like chocolate?” When she said yes, he replied grinning from
ear to ear, “You are going to love this surprise.” As my we were leaving, Presidente Claudio
slipped Rwanda’s address into my bag.
Afterwards,
I thought, “Well, that was pretty awesome what Presidente did, but what’s
Rwanda going to think when we show up at her door as the “awesome surprise”
Presidente Claudio promised. Well, we
went to her house, and to make the story short, by the second lesson, Rwanda
had gained a testimony of The Book of Mormon and the prophet Joseph Smith. She knew that The Church was true and wanted
to be baptized. From this experience, I
learned two very important things. The
first is that you never know who is prepared to accept the gospel, and the
second is that the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is the best surprise you can
give anyone, even better than chocolate, and we should never be too scared to
enthusiastically give it to others.
Well,
seeing that there are so many prepared to hear the gospel, we need to open our
mouths and create conversations about it.
I will never forget what one of my investigators said after we taught her
about the Plan of Salvation. She said,
“Sisteres! You need more
advertising! Nobody knows this stuff! There are so many horrible rumors about you
that aren’t true. If the people knew
these things, you would have so many more people wanting to be baptized.” As I thought about what my investigator said,
I realized that in fact, we did need “more advertising.” We needed member missionaries.
Although
sharing the gospel as a member of the Church may seem intimidating or annoying
or unnecessary at times. It is actually
very easy, very satisfying, and also very necessary. President George Albert Smith once said, “That is your mission, my brethren and
sisters of the Church, that is your responsibility. Freely you have received and our Heavenly
Father will expect you freely to share with His other sons and daughters these
glorious truths…We will attain our exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom only on
the condition that we share with our Father’s other children the blessings of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ and observe the commandments that will enrich our
lives here and hereafter.” Our own salvation
is dependent on us sharing the Gospel with our fellow brothers and
sisters. Is that motivation enough?
During
my mission, every day my companion and I were required to speak with 20 new
people about the Church. It was
something very weird to me in the beginning.
We basically just stopped anyone on the road, told them who we were, and
invited them to come to Church. There would be those who would say they were of
a different faith; there were those who would commit to visit the Church
someday; and then there were those few who would say they would visit. Independent of the responses they gave, most
of the people didn't end up coming to church, but we felt happy in knowing that we had done our part in inviting 20 children of God to come to church that day.
In
Clayton M. Christensen’s book “The Power of Everyday Missionaries,” Brother
Christensen explains that, “even when people decline our invitations, they are
not offended as long as they can feel our honesty, our love, and God’s love
when we invite them to learn about Christ’s gospel. They typically have expressed gratitude that
we cared enough about them to want to share something so personal and important.”
We should not be afraid of rejection.
One
trick that has helped me is deliberately finding people to say “no.” Yep.
That’s right. How many of you can
say that you have successfully found someone who has declined your invitation to visit the Church every week? Because “no” is success just as much as “yes”
is. As an assignment for a young man in
one of my wards after having lunch at his house, I asked him to find 10 people
who would say “no” to his invitation to come to church the next Sunday. The people who said “yes” didn’t count. It had to be 10 “no’s”.
Success
does not have to be measured by how many lost sheep you bring to the fold. That is the role of Heavenly Father and the
Holy Ghost. It can be measured by how
many lost sheep you give the opportunity to return to the fold. The lost sheep that are prepared will come
naturally. We succeed when we open our
mouths and invite – whether the answer is yes or no, we can rest assured that
we have succeeded in doing our part as a member missionary when we can say, “I
invited someone to Church today.”
As missionaries
in the Missionary Training Center we were told there were people waiting for us
to teach who, without us, would not be able to find the gospel and who would be
forever grateful for what we had done to share the gospel with them. During my
last week in the mission field, I received a letter from one of my
investigators who is currently preparing to get married and baptized so that
she can go to the temple and be sealed together with her family forever. We had met her on the street and just invited
her to come to church. In the letter she
said, “My
Dear! How can I thank you for all you have done to introduce me to my Heavenly
Father? Even if your mission lasted 18 years instead of 18 months, there would
not be enough time for me to show you how grateful I am! I thank Heavenly
Father and the prophet for putting you in my life. I pray for you and I believe
your mission was successful. Love, Djandira.
P.S. We will meet each other one day in the Celestial Kingdom of God.” These words truly
touched me as I saw that my Father in Heaven had used me to help my
investigator come to know Him. I truly
know that there are many people who are prepared to receive the gospel of Jesus
Christ and are just waiting for us to open our mouths and share it with
them. I know that they too will be
forever grateful when they realize what we have done to help them come to know
their God.
In
D&C 18, Christ says, “Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of
God…Wherefore, you are called to cry repentance unto this people. And if it so be that you should labor all
your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul
unto me, how great shall be your joy with him (or her) in the kingdom of my
Father!”
I
bear my sincere testimony that I know that the worth of souls is great in the
eyes of God, and that our Father in Heaven loves us with an infinite love. He loves us so much that He sent His son to
die for us. I know that the power of the
Atonement is real, for I saw children of God in dire circumstances use this
power to repent and change their lives. I
know with all of my heart that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
is true, that The Book of Mormon is a true testament of Jesus Christ, and that
Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, and because of this I left my home and
friends and family here in China to go to Brazil to learn to speak Portuguese
to share this message with others.
Brothers and Sisters, it is amazing knowing you are an instrument in the
hands of our Lord, and I exhort each of you to start now. Because these things are true, and the gospel
is the best surprise you can give to anyone whether they know it or not.
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