Cover image via Gospel Media Library.
When we were called to serve as mission leaders, we were prepared to be responsible for the spiritual welfare of the missionaries. We were excited to help them grow their testimonies and bring others to Christ. However, we never anticipated how much was required to meet the temporal needs of the missionaries.
Meeting spiritual needs is the most exciting part of missionary work. It is fulfilling for young missionaries; it is fulfilling for senior missionaries, it is fulfilling for mission leaders. Witnessing someone feel the spirit and changes their lives it strengthens our own testimonies and brings tremendous joy. However, missions are successful not only because somebody can teach the gospel with power; missions are successful because selfless, consecrated senior missionaries are willing to do whatever needs to be done to assist the work. Missionary service is a lot like helping out at a ward party. Everybody is excited to work in the kitchen, fellowshipping, laughing together and preparing the meal, but somebody has to gather the garbage and drag it out to the dumpster.
A senior mission may be well-defined if called to work in the temple or in a family history center, for example. However, a senior missionary called to do member and leader support may be surprised at the variety of ways their services are needed. The church website states that there are over 30 ways to serve a senior mission, however, the Proctors, who are serving in Puerto Rico reported in Meridian Magazine that there are “at least 83 different kinds of missions that someone can serve.” Their estimate must surely be based on the variety of ways that senior missionaries can support their mission president. Following are some ways we found that seniors blessed our mission when we served as mission leaders.
Be humble. Most senior missionaries have a lifetime of experience as members of the church. They have served as everything from scout master to high counselor from nursery leader to Relief Society president. They know the gospel inside and out, they have taught gospel doctrine, they have likely served a mission as a youth. They could hold any position in a ward and probably fulfill it with greater expertise than those they meet on a mission. However, a mission is not about showing off one’s own expertise. It is about helping others develop their expertise.
Like the apostle John said when referring to The Savior, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” We want those we serve to improve their skills, and that doesn’t happen when we do everything on our own. We don’t want young missionaries, or new members to be discouraged, or to give up and let the senior missionaries do all the work. We want them to have the satisfaction of growing and learning. We take the same approach with our children. We can do lot of things better than they can: we can cook, we can drive, we can make a bed. But we might want to keep all this a secret so they will be willing to do new things on their own.
Be flexible. Needs change rapidly in the mission field and the need a senior missionary expects to meet before leaving home may actually change once they arrive in the mission field. We were desperate for senior missionaries in the Dominican Republic, but in the three years we served only one couple was actually assigned to work in our mission. However, senior missionaries who had been called to other positions saw a need and came to our rescue. One brother was called to serve as an attorney in the area office, but when another attorney showed up with the same assignment, he asked if he could help in our mission.
It turned out that our missionaries lived in over 70 apartments in the mission and we only had contracts to rent a fraction of them. This dear brother updated scores of contracts and closed several apartments the mission had been paying for even though no missionaries were living in them. He created a spread sheet with the effective date of all the contracts, and when they needed to be renewed. He also made valuable notes as to the state of the apartment so we wouldn’t re-lease apartments that did not meet the Church’s standards for missionaries. He was literally a God-send to our mission.
Be discerning. There may be needs in a mission that no one has been assigned to meet. Nevertheless, senior missionaries who jump in and meet those needs make a world of difference in the mission. One the angels who came to our rescue was a brother who had been called to serve as an Area Medical Advisor, but he found he wasn’t as busy as he wanted to be. When he discovered that many of our missionaries were sleeping on mattresses on the floor, he took it upon himself to buy lumber and make frames for the beds. His wife learned that it was a requirement that all the apartments had window coverings that could provide privacy. Many of the apartments in the mission didn’t have anything covering the windows so she helped sew curtains for the naked windows. Another couple who worked as temple missionaries during the week asked if they could help in one of the branches on Sunday. They ended up teaching piano lessons, teaching temple prep class and visiting less-active members in a distant branch. They enjoyed their service in the branch so much that they extended their “temple mission.”
Be consecrated. It’s one thing to pay money to go on a mission, but it’s another to do the same thing on a mission that people paid you to do when you were home. Doctors, lawyers, counselors may use the same expertise they spent years developing and getting paid for and on a mission they do it for free. This type of mission is practice in living the law of consecration. Everybody is equal. Everybody chips in to help, and everybody gets the same salary. We all do what we can to help.
Within days of our arrival in The Dominican Republic the area president tasked us with providing hot water for every missionary. We didn’t tell him that some of the apartments didn’t even have running water, let alone hot water. Nor did the apartments have electricity to heat the water, if it was available. If the apartments had power lines in the first place, they were often cut and re-routed so the neighbors could have power. As a consequence, the power company turned off the power. Not only did this prohibit the heating of water, it also resulted in spoiled food in the refrigerators, and no fans to keep the mosquitoes away at night. The temporal needs of our missionaries were dire and we were the only adult couple serving in the entire mission. We had no senior missionaries to assist us.
Through a series of miracles the Lord provided us with a brother who had the very expertise we needed. He had owned and renovated properties in the United States and he was skilled at scheduling and completing repairs. He could have been doing the same thing at home that he was doing in the mission and making money for himself and his family yet he chose to make this sacrifice so our missionaries could be healthy and safe.
Missionary work is teamwork. Missions without senior couples are like a football team who sends out a running back to carry the ball with nobody to block for him. Like in football the guy with the ball gets the recognition, but the lineman and the blocking backs are the ones who clear the way to make the play.
JeaNette Goates Smith served with her husband, Bret, in the Dominican Republic from 2017-2020. She is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the author of four books for families. The couple have four children and 14 grandchildren, two with Down Syndrome. Find more information at www.smithfamilytherapy.org.
