Teachings of the Prophet Lorenzo Snow Chapter 19 -- Missionary Work: “To Reach Every Human Heart”
[Have the word “guilt” written on the chalkboard before class begins in large letters]
Today’s lesson is on missionary work! I thought a quote from Elder Ballard’s talk Put your trust in the Lord last week in general conference seemed relevant to share right now:
We know that when someone gets up to give a talk in sacrament meeting and says, “Today I’ll be talking about missionary work,” or perhaps even when Elder Ballard gets up in general conference and says the same thing, some of you listening may think, “Oh no, not again; we have heard this before.”
Now, we know that no one likes feeling guilty. Perhaps you feel you may be asked to do unrealistic things in your relationships with friends or neighbors. With the help of the Lord, let me remove any fear you or any of our full-time missionaries may have in sharing the gospel with others.
My goal for today’s lesson is to get us away from feeling guilty or overwhelmed about missionary work. [Cross “guilt” out on the chalkboard, draw an arrow and write the word “excitement”].
There’s a lot of reasons we can lose excitement for missionary work. Perhaps out life gets busy or overwhelmed, and we don’t feel like we have time to do anything. Or, perhaps our testimony has changed a little bit. For those of us that went on missions and did missionary work nonstop for 2 years, there might have been a particular focus to your testimony. The way we shared the gospel then might have been somewhat scripted, or at least focused more often than not on a particular facet of the gospel or our testimony. And now that we’re older, the things that once seemed important for us to share with others change a bit. Maybe you have doubts that you’ve never experienced before, maybe your political views have changed, maybe complicated life experiences make the world seem less black and white than it used to be, maybe you’ve had difficult trials that didn’t have easy answers. The point is, life changes. People change, personalities change, and our testimonies change too. Hopefully they are stronger than in the past, but maybe they're just different. Maybe the things or doctrines or principles or knowledge that we value now is different than it used to be. If we don’t realize this, our testimony might be flat, uninspiring, and we won’t have a desire to share it.
A goal for this lesson is that we will be able to pause and ponder what parts of the gospel really matter to us and make us happy. If we can figure that out, then it should be easier and more exciting for us to share those parts with other people. This relates to a quote in the manual on page 226:
When a man receives knowledge, he is prompted to impart it to others; when a man becomes happy, the spirit that surrounds him teaches him to strive to make others happy.
Before we discuss the things in church that make us happy, let’s warm up with a little exercise. There’s some things in life that are so good, that we’re excited to share them with our friends. You might even feel ethically inclined or obligated to let your friends know about them. You might feel obligated, but at the same time you’re excited to share. Let’s make a list of these things on the board, and I’ll go first.
Now, I’d like to make a list on the board of the things that personally mean a lot to you about the church. Things that really make you happy. Perhaps, they are things that are so great to you that you wouldn’t feel embarrassed to share them with others. Importantly, the things on this list might not be that important to everyone. One principle or facet of the gospel that is meaningful to one person might not be meaningful to another. And so, as we share with each other right now, please share why it’s personally meaningful to you. Hearing everyone's personal mini-testimony about the most meaningful parts of the gospel for them is the crux of the lesson, so I want to hear from a lot of you. Again, I’ll go first.
There is an afterlife. I’m starting to see a lot of death in the hospital. Once on an ER shift, an old man randomly coded right next door in radiology. We all ran over and started doing CPR, giving him injections, shocking him, but it was no use. Fifteen minutes later, the time of death was called. I helped lift his body unto a stretcher and cover it with a sheet. Death is kinda freaky. I’ll never walk past that area in the hospital without remembering somebody died there. It’s kinda freaky when somebody else dies, but when death strikes close to home, or seems to be coming your way, it can be terrifying. My faith in God that has come through being a member of this church has led me to believe that there is an afterlife. That faith is so comforting, and is something that I am happy to share with others.
etc [class responses]
This list is great. It gives me faith in something that Elder Ballard said in the conference talk that I quoted at the beginning of the lesson:
Brothers and sisters, fear will be replaced with faith and confidence when members and the full-time missionaries kneel in prayer and ask the Lord to bless them with missionary opportunities. Then, we must demonstrate our faith and watch for opportunities to introduce the gospel of Jesus Christ to our Heavenly Father’s children, and surely those opportunities will come. These opportunities will never require a forced or a contrived response. They will flow as a natural result of our love for our brothers and sisters. Just be positive, and those whom you speak with will feel your love. They will never forget that feeling, though the timing may not be right for them to embrace the gospel. That too may change in the future when their circumstances change.
There’s no gimmicks to sharing the gospel. We don’t have to force anything, and it’s not like that would work anyway. Just be positive! Focus on the things that make us happy, be positive, and love others! I’m hoping that this takes the stress out of everything and motivates us.
President snow says something that relates to this view of sharing the gospel on page 230
You have the fullest authority conferred upon you, but you need not talk about this at all. You will discover that there is no need to talk about it; the Spirit of the Lord will confirm it, and the people will feel that you bear it, and this confirmation and feeling will be your authority.
You will find some that think they know more than you do, but if you will do your duty as suggested, before you leave them, they will feel that you have a little more than they have, and that you have blessed them and helped them. …
Try to make yourselves agreeable to those to whom you are sent. The humility you display and the Spirit of the Lord resting upon you, will show your fitness for the position you are called to occupy. Try to understand human nature and act accordingly, in order to make everyone happy and everything agreeable. …
There is a way to reach every human heart, and it is your business to find the way to the hearts of those to whom you are called. …
I think it’s interesting that President Smith says we don’t need to talk about our authority. When he says we need to make ourselves agreeable to others and touch their hearts, this makes sense. When we say we have authority, it implies others do not. When we say our church is true, it implies others are not. This might be the right thing to say at times, but it’s kind of abrasive. I don’t know how you can say this and not pick a fight. President Smith seems to be agreeing with Elder Ballard that love and positiveness are the right way to go about this.
I know this church is an established road to happiness. I hope we can cherish the principles and doctrines that give us peace, hope, and happiness, and be happy to share this joy with others should the occasion arise.
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