I Believe in Missions

I Believe in Missions

I think this week it is appropriate for me to write about my belief in missions, having just received our mission call to serve in the temple in Oaxaca, Mexico.  I believe missions are important, no they are essential, vital, life changing, necessary, need I go on.  I hope you get the message that for me they are extremely important.  Let me try and explain why I believe they are so important.  First, there are many different kinds of missions.  There is the mission that we might serve when we are in our youth, 18 to 25 or so.  I think men and women that raise a handicapped child are on a mission.  There are senior missions.  For me, men who are called to be bishops and stake presidents are on a mission for a time.  There are service missions.  Missions for me are experiences or set periods of time where we are focused on service to others.  They can be formal with a call from the President of the Church or they can be informal, but they are about service and putting others ahead of yourself and if you do it well, the experience becomes life changing. The spiritual growth, the increased understanding of the scriptures, the pure knowledge that flows into your mind and the refining and sanctifying of one’s soul, are the blessings that come to those that serve missions.  There are other blessings that come to senior missionaries.  We are promised that not only will we be happier and that our marriage will grow stronger, but we are promised that our children and grandchildren will be blessed.  The words of Elder Holland say it best, “Those little darlings will be just fine, and I promise you will do things for them in the service of the Lord that, worlds without end, you could never do if you stayed home to hover over them. What greater gift could grandparents give their posterity than to say by deed as well as word, “In this family we serve missions!”  I love the facebook page, “Mission Calls”. I get tears in my eyes when I listen to people as they are opening their mission calls say the words, “you are hereby called to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”  I know that they are about to have a life changing experience, and I am about to have one also.

My Mission Call