The following is excerpted from the Church News. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
President M. Russell Ballard looked over the faces of nearly 900 full-time missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, most of them young adults. As he did, the 94-year-old Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles with decades of Church leadership experience tenderly but emphatically called his listeners “my beloved fellow missionaries.”
It wasn’t just because of his past experiences as a young missionary serving in Great Britain more than 70 years ago or as a mission president in Toronto, Ontario, a half-century ago.
No, the connection is more current.
“I use the term ‘fellow missionaries’ because, guess what? Apostles are missionaries, too — full time, until we die,” said President Ballard, who was called to serve in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1985.
“And what is our message? It is the same as the message you’re going to carry to the world as missionaries of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
And Tuesday night, Feb. 28, in a devotional at the Provo Missionary Training Center that was broadcast to the Church’s MTCs worldwide, President Ballard repeatedly emphasized the importance of teaching and testifying of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ through the Prophet Joseph Smith and the power of doing that by studying and internalizing the fundamental missionary principles taught in “Preach My Gospel.”
“We are so blessed as missionaries to be able to carry this glorious message out into all of the world,” said President Ballard, thanking the missionaries “for your courage, your faith and your willingness to serve.”
To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
