The
Urgent Need for Senior Missionaries
by
Ed J. Pinegar
Elder Hales
spoke at April Conference 2001 on the need for senior missionaries.
He said, "I will speak on the urgent need for more mature
couples to serve in the mission field. We wish to express our appreciation
for all those valiant couples who are currently serving, those who
have served and those who will yet serve." [1]
Why is there
such an urgent need for couples and senior sisters? There are things
that senior missionaries do that no one else is as qualified to
do.
They can work
with mature less actives on a peer level. They provide leadership
for the branches and wards they serve in. They have a lifetime of
learning patience and charity behind them. I agree with Eldon C.
McKell, president of the Alabama Birmingham Mission. He called couples
"absolutely vital" to the success of his mission in some
areas. "They take these little branches and hold them together,"
he said. "They bring stability, character, integrity and trust.
Any mission president could use more couples." Elder Haight
seconded the motion: "Mission presidents all over the world need
the maturity, knowledge, and personal skills of retired couples
to help strengthen their missions today just as much as we needed
them in 1963. Couples add stability to a mission. They are role
models for younger missionaries, and they offer mature thinking." [2]
The list goes
on and on in all the various aspects of missionary work. Believe
me, you are needed in the mission field, for there is a work that
only you can do.
When I served
as mission president in England, we had one couple in the mission
besides our two office couples. We had eight stakes and we desperately
needed one couple for each stake. I called the missionary department
time and time again begging for senior missionaries. They expressed
their sorrow for me, but there simple weren't any available. I knew
that other missions had fifteen to twenty couples, and wondered
why couldn't I have just eight sets of senior missionaries. They
said that they would try. I prayed and fasted, and one day an apostle
of the Lord came to our mission, Elder Russell M. Nelson. We visited
and he asked how he could help. I told him of my plight and he responded
with, "I think I can help." And help he did. The Lord answered my
prayers, and we received eight couples and three sets of senior
sisters in less than six months.
The work of
those magnificent couples became legendary. They baptized, they
reactivated, and they strengthened the new converts and blessed
the lives of all the people in our mission. The young missionaries
were blessed by their strengthening presence. Our family was blessed
by their love. The stakes were rejuvenated and the wards had full-time
help in leadership and member work. Most importantly, the souls
of our brothers and sisters were lifted and edified. Over a thousand
people were reactivated and nearly a hundred were baptized because
of their glorious service. And how hard was it to activate and baptize
that many of their brothers and sisters? One couple said, "Oh President,
this is so easy. It is just like being a home teacher or visiting
teacher . . . and it is so much fun." Yep, it is fun to bless the
lives of our brothers and sisters.
President Benson
had admonished us to have more fun:
We need increasing
numbers of senior missionaries in missionary service. Where health
and means make it possible, we call upon hundreds more of our couples
to set their lives and affairs in order and to go on missions. How
we need you in the mission field! You are able to perform missionary
service in ways that our younger missionaries cannot.
I'm grateful
that two of my own widowed sisters were able to serve as missionary
companions together in England. They were sixty-eight and seventy-three
years of age when they were called, and they both had a marvelous
experience.
What an example
and a blessing it is to a family's posterity when grandparents serve
missions. Most senior couples who go are strengthened and revitalized
by missionary service. Through this holy avenue of service, many
are sanctified and feel the joy of bringing others to the knowledge
of the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. [3]
Couples who
have answered this call to service couldn't agree more. Sister Loveless,
who served in the Florida Jacksonville Mission after her husband's
death, said, "There is so much need for the seniors in the Church
to serve a mission. If you are inspired to fulfill a calling to
go on a mission, don't hesitate, because your family is blessed
because of it and so are you." [4]
Sister Loveless
is one of countless numbers who have seen what great things senior
missionaries can do. The following is a wonderful article on senior
missionaries that Sarah Jane Weaver wrote for the Church News:
A stake president
reported to Pres. Terry J. Spallino of the England Birmingham Mission
that a small branch within his stake boundaries needed something
to help it grow.
It needed,
the stake president explained, a missionary couple. "The stake president
said, ‘If we can put a couple there to work with the young
leadership and less-active members, we can meet our goals,'" Pres.
Spallino recounted. "Couples have the ability to gain trust
quickly. They are loved very quickly."
Mission presidents
around the world are receiving similar requests from local Church
leaders who have witnessed the impact that couple missionaries—who
bring years of experience, leadership, stability and strong testimonies
into the mission field with them—can have on Church work…
Couples who
are in good health, with no permanent debilitating illnesses and
who do not have dependent children at home, or are not in their
childbearing years, can serve a mission for 12, 18 or 24 months.
The missionary
department indicates a great need exists for couples who can help
train local leaders, activate members and fellowship new converts.
Some couples serve in mission offices as secretaries, financial
clerks and vehicle coordinators. In addition, some couples are also
needed to work in family history, public affairs, welfare, temples,
Church education, and a variety of Church service assignments.
Quinn and Wilma
Washburn decided in the 1950s that they would serve a mission when
they were older. Today they are in Hong Kong, serving their third
mission.
"We think
every couple should serve a mission for their own benefit, as well
as being able to help other people," they wrote in a letter
to the Church News. "Most couples, because they have
such wonderful experiences, have a great desire to go again—and
sometimes again and again."
Troy and Marian
Durtschi Butler of the Driggs 2nd Ward, Driggs Idaho Stake, are
one of those couples. Currently in Quito, Ecuador, they have also
served in Argentina, as well as in other South American countries.
Sister Butler, who worked as a nurse before entering the mission
field, said she feels indebted to the Lord for all He has given
her and wants to show her gratitude.
Today, she
is assisting the mission president's wife in handling common medical
problems, such as colds and flus. In this assignment, her training
as a nurse is useful. . . .
Colleen Asplund,
Laramie (Wyo.) 1st Ward, who is serving a full-time mission with
her husband, Owen, at historic Nauvoo, Ill., agrees.
"There
are times when we get very lonesome for our familiy," she said,
[but then] adding that her missionary experience—explaining
Church history sites and participating in a nightly musical performance
for visitors—has been a highlight in her life.
Elder Asplund
agreed. "It has been a wonderful, wonderful experience,"
he said. "We have, for the first time in our life, spent 24
hours a day, seven days a week together. We have learned so much.
We have had the opportunity here to study history and journals."
. . .
Noel Burt,
president of the Connecticut Hartford Mission, said couple missionaries
not only keep small areas of his mission running but also they keep
the mission office running. "They comment, ‘We are here to
serve the elders and sisters so that they can do a better job.'
They do just that," he said. "They work their hearts out"
("Missionary Couples Fill Variety of Roles in Furthering Lord's
Work," Church News, 14 Sept. 1996).
" Go ye into
all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Morm.
9:22). Everyone needs to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Everyone
needs to be nourished and strengthened by the good word of God.
Brother and
Sister Jacobs took this scripture in Mormon literally and sought
to teach all over the world. They were first assigned to the Eastbourne
Branch in England. They strengthened the members, brought less active
members back, and baptized more members of a part-member family.
And when they returned home from England, they continued to preach
and teach, and I had the joy of witnessing the baptism of two of
their friends from England here in Provo. They freely made their
life a mission for the Lord. They have been back to England on their
own to nourish their friends. Recently they returned from a mission
to China where they taught English as a second language. Yes, they
have gone into all the world and fulfilled the words of Matthew:
"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28:19).
What made Brother
and Sister Jacob such a force for good? Just living the gospel,
and thereby loving it and wanting to share. The Lord admonished
Peter to do the same, "But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith
fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren (Luke
22:32). You do not need to be the prophet to go out and teach with
conviction—all you need is to love the gospel, to live it,
and to have the desire to share it.
It has been
my experience that senior missionaries simply radiate their love
for the people and for the joy of teaching—nourishing people
in the word of God. Every month as a mission president I invited
the couples to our home for a "couples' meeting." They each stood
and reported their stewardship. They were spotless and blameless,
and they were full of joy in the work of the Lord. They expressed
their weakness and dependence on the Lord in the work, thus fulfilling
the words in the Doctrine and Covenants: "That the fulness of my
gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends
of the world, and before kings and rulers" (D&C 1:23).
They proved
Ether's words that in their weakness they would be humbled and the
Lord would make them strong (see Ether 12:27). They were a part
of the "marvelous work [that is coming] forth among the children
of men" (D&C 4:1).
Senior missionaries
are now all over the earth. They serve on every continent. They
often go as a lead couple to prepare the way for a nation or area
to receive the proselyting effort. They are like angels. Just as
Angel Moroni prepared the Prophet, so will you be even like unto
angels of God preparing the way and assisting in the work. "And
ye shall go forth in the power of my Spirit, preaching my gospel,
two by two, in my name, lifting up your voices as with the sound
of a trump, declaring my word like unto angels of God" (D&C
42:6).
But you can't
be someone's angel until you put in your mission papers, and then
the Lord through His prophets will assign you to the place where
you can bless lives. "And how shall they preach, except they be
sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that
preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!"
(Romans 10:15). You first agree to do His will, just as Christ did
the will of the Father, and then the you can be an instrument for
good in the Lord's hands. And yes, the feet of them that bring good
tidings, that preach the gospel and bring souls to Christ are beautiful,
and you shall be blessed.
There can be
no greater joy than helping some one come unto Christ and receive
the blessings of exaltation.
Adapted from,
Lengthen your Shuffle,by Ed J. Pinegar, Covenant Books
2002
[1] Robert D. Hales, "Couple Missionaries: A Time to
Serve," Ensign, May 2001, 25
[2] David B. Haight, "Couple Missionaries—‘A
Wonderful Resource,'"Ensign, Feb. 1996, 7
[3] Ezra Taft Benson, Come Listen to a Prophet's
Voice, 74
[4] "The Service of Senior Missionaries Leads to Many
New Friends to Love," Church News, 20 May 1995
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