Missionary

 The missionaries come in like a wave at the MTC, and then go out again. One day the cafeteria is so crowded at lunch that some missionaries wait a long time to get their plates. The next day the tables have emptied because many have taken shuttles during the night to the airport where they have flown to far-flung places whose names they had never heard of before they got their mission call. Here they will be asked to do jobs that seem impossible were it not for the Lord as their Captain.

The wave comes in and it goes out—and in those few days at the MTC we are transformed.

Mondays and Wednesdays, the MTC fills up again when the seniors come and then the young elders and sisters. Signs on the curb show them where they should stop their car and let their loved one out. They are the newbies and we are the MTC old-timers because we have been here nearly two weeks. They will have a tour of the campus and get a crash course on the names of the buildings, while we already know our S-1’s from our T-3’s. We had discerned that you had to get to the cafeteria fast to get a BYU mint brownie. Yep, we knew the ropes.

We have been in the MTC nearly two weeks before we fly.

We talk to three sister missionaries and ask the question that everybody asks everybody else here. “Where are you going?” Sometimes the answers are just breathtaking, like these girls gave. “Oh, we’re going to Germany Frankfurt to speak Turkish on Zoom calls,” they smile. “Then every six weeks or so, we fly into Turkey to support the members. That was Scot’s mission in Germany and he always longed to go back to Turkey to teach his beloved fellow Turks.

We turn and see a young elder, “Where are you going?” “Kiribati,” he answers with confidence. “And what language will you be speaking?” we ask. His answer, “Kiribati.” He will be teaching in the largest atoll in the world, which is still only 313 square miles. On the other hand, the islands extend about 2400 miles from east to west.

This all sounds very exotic and brave for someone who is only 18 or 19, but frankly it sounds like a challenge to take on at any age—including the senior missionaries who are supposed to be beyond such fearful moments when confidence wanes.

“Shall I take my ax?” asks one senior elder who is driving a truck to his mission. “If you take it, you’ll use it,” was the answer, and I instantly envisioned building cow stalls or a winding wooden fence.

Yet, we saw on the wall at the MTC an unnerving photo of men standing along the bank of a dirty jungle river, each armed with axes or sticks or anything that might stop a crocodile from fatally disrupting a baptism.

I marvel at each consecrated missionary who has freely chosen to step beyond his or her comfort zone to step into a big unknown. They are facing new smells, new food, new scenery, new culture—and many times new language—and still they go, taking a step into the wilderness where courage and faith are found. It is surely this consecration that makes the MTC feel so much like a temple.

Our second week in the MTC was for the MLS missionaries. When we ask members if they have heard of MLS missionaries, they often give us a blank look. There are at least 83 different kinds of missions that someone can serve and seniors often have specific assignments like temple and family history, humanitarian, communications, or seminaries and institutes. Not MLS missionaries. Their acronym stands for Member, Leader, Support.

I can say it, but what exactly does that mean? Is it temple and family history, gospel teaching in classrooms, humanitarian, welfare services, supporting young missionaries with love or what? Scot raised his hand fast and got the right answer. It was “yes.” Though his answer was just a bit cheeky, it was right. It could be any of the above depending on your mission president’s needs.

Our teacher said, “Now I suppose you all have received the letter from your mission president telling what you’ll be doing and what meetings you need to attend in the first two weeks.” We looked at each other blankly. Then we realized that was tongue-in-cheek. We weren’t going to receive that letter.

What the teacher was conveying was that we were headed out on a mission that was unscripted, and we would have to depend on the direction of the Holy Ghost to see what the needs were and what we were to do. Our leaders would help us, but not structure and spell out each day. To become an MLS missionary was a compliment from the Lord that said, “I trust you.”

During our classes we learned so much, including lessons on social media. Though I spend so much of my life at the computer, I didn’t realize all the capacities, for instance, that Facebook had, and I made a Christ-centered story to learn how to use it. We learned how to be creative in our videos, messenger chats and calls.

I also particularly felt a strong spirit as we were learning how to use FamilySearch to engage and connect with others. As soon as people are asked, “Do you have a relative who is special to you,” and “Can you share your story?” the Spirit comes and both the speaker and listener feel it.

Doing one of the FamilySearch activities, Scot and I here, are dressed up representing our English ancestors. We think they were better looking than we appear here! We don’t recognize ourselves!

All this was a reminder that everything we did on our mission is to testify of Christ. Christ is at the heart of our messages to others, and we would not end our time together without our bearing our fervent witness of Jesus Christ.

We would take the badge we wear that says “Jesus Christ” on it as a privilege and a responsibility and an indicator of what matters most to us—that we were representatives of Jesus Christ, that we were coming to know Him in stronger and more powerful ways every day of our lives.

For decades a striking picture of the Second Coming of the Lord stood in the Washington DC temple. On his left hand are all those who shrink from him, who are caught in attitudes of dismay, resistance and rebellion. On the right hand, to whom Christ reaches are the believers who come toward him or fall to their knees in joy and thanksgiving.

All of us wanted to have our photo taken on the side of the believers, and this is our own result. I felt a reverent spirit inside me as I reached for the Lord. It is just what my spirit always wants to do.

This second MTC week, we were invited in a clip from Elder David A. Bednar to invite diligent learning into our lives:

“From the beginning of His ministry, the Savior invited His followers to experience for themselves the truths, power, and love that He offered. He did this because this is what learning really is. It’s not just listening or reading; It’s also changing, repenting and progressing.  In the Savior’s words, leaning comes “by study and also by faith.” And faith includes acting for ourselves, not simply being acted upon.”

While we could help the change in a person, we could not be the change. When we were in a council meeting with the local members, we were to let them take the lead and not step in and grab that lead with our “very good ideas” instead. We were teaching self-sufficiency and not dependance upon us.

We were also taught how to be particularly sensitive and kind to the young adults we worked with and the friends who heard the lessons. We did role plays of teaching the gospel three different times and one of those times we had to choose a Young Adult to teach us what we could do to be more effective in loving and teaching their generation. We could quickly see in a quiz we took that matched up to Gen Z’s answers, that we, as seniors, were very different than they are.

Chad Webb, an administrator of Seminaries and Institutes of Religion for the Church, said, “Research shows that those who are struggling with faith are not generally stepping away because of doctrine. They are stepping away because they are asking their questions in the context of personal experiences that cause them to see these issues through a certain set of lenses—often through the lenses of not fitting in or through heartbreak or unmet expectations. If we answer their questions without empathy, without understanding the context, we may not provide the help they need. Even worse, if we are dismissive, judgmental, or defensive, we will lose their trust and the opportunity to have a positive influence in their lives.”

One lesson we prepared was filmed for our later use. We were to use the foundations we had received that week to prepare and deliver the lesson. Each of us was given a room number, a time, and a brief context of the person we were to teach. We were to teach at exactly 6:45 in room T3-340Z. Our friend whom we were to teach was named Joshua. We were not told whether the person we taught was a member, pretending to investigate or a real investigator. This much was given to us:

Joshua is from Oklahoma. He is a full-time touring musician. He is completing an audio-engineering program at UVU. He grew up in a semi-Christian home, but doesn’t feel like he belongs to any religion right now. He wants to be able to find some peace about death.”

We hadn’t been in that room one minute before we forgot that this teaching was being filmed and it might be a Latter-day Saint in front us of instead of an investigator. All three of us were moved by what we taught about the kindness of Jesus Christ in overcoming death for us. We shared personal stories about deaths in our family that have deeply grieved us, and he, too, had a story about losing his brother. The Spirit was so strong, I wanted this lesson to go on and on. It was that spirit of love and consolation that only the Savior can give. Thirty minutes went all too fast.

Later we asked our young teacher if she knew if Joshua was a member, and she didn’t know him. Our hearts said yes, but his talking about his brother was not a role play and our sharing was not a role play either. We had shared with him the scripture from Alma 40 that Scot’s mother had read to his father minutes after he died. They had not missed a day of scripture reading in their lives together, and she was crowning this day with these last verses together.

We loved Joshua.

Sister Andrea Muñoz Spannaus 

Sister Spannaus, second counselor in the General Young Women’s Presidency, gave the devotional at the MTC this week reminding us of this scripture from Revelations 12: 9, 10.

“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

“And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our God day and night.”

She said that with our whole souls we had fought in this battle to cast out the dragon, and as we see the world in chaos around us for the lack of knowledge of Jesus Christ, with all our hearts we must fight on the same side we fought on before, defeating the dragon. The way to win the battle between light and dark is to bear witness of Christ and to be bold in that witness.

Time to Leave

Then, before we knew it, it was time to leave the MTC, and these two weeks would be wrapped and held like a golden package that sustained us from some secret chamber within us.

As we came out of our classes on Thursday, and knew there would be only a few hours left for us on Friday morning, the sunset gave us a sky show as a kind of benediction. We saw that we were in the midst of three temples. One of those temples was the craggy, granite peaks above us that fall into Rock Canyon. Moses, the brother of Jared, and Nephi all knew that mountains are temples. The second was the Provo Temple which had been in our lives for many decades. But the last was one we had never supposed. It was the MTC where missionaries of many ages are consecrating their lives to their Savior and His sacrifice makes it holy.

At the end, there was a rush as the eight couples in our district pulled out of the parking lot to their own destinations.

We had come to love and depend on each other with a connection made possible only by sharing the intense MTC experience, and we couldn’t believe we were headed in different directions.

We are on a text string together so we got a few messages from our friends as they departed.

That to us is what was so bonding and engaging about being at the MTC.