A Letter to Discouraged Missionaries

Cover image via Gospel Media Library. 

As an adult convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I have a very special place in my heart for missionaries of every kind. This appreciation is amplified by a sinister and realistic vision of how different my life would be if missionaries had not courageously accepted the call to serve. Thankfully, many amazing brothers and sisters are willing to step away from their own lives and dedicate themselves to teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to people like me, who had no other hope of learning it.

I hear many missionaries talk about their experiences of rejection and the classic scenarios of having doors slammed in their faces. I have listened to missionaries recount their experiences of being cursed at, spat upon, mocked and berated by those with whom they have tried to share the gospel message. Because of stories I have heard (and events I have witnessed), I often wish I could write a letter directed to every disheartened brother and sister who has served, is serving or will serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Why? Because I see so many incredible missionaries burdened by discouragement and harsh self-reproof. We know that the fruits of missionaries’ labor will continue to roll on for years after the completion of their mission and will keep rolling on into the eternities. I know this to be true at the very core of my existence. My hypothetical letter to missionaries would read something like this:

Dear Missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,

Words cannot express how cherished and appreciated you are to me, to countless converts, to members across the globe and to the Lord Jesus Christ. Wherever you serve, you are there because Christ has a specific purpose for you and He trusts you to assist in His glorious work. I do not know what it is like to serve a mission. I imagine it is exhausting and challenging to serve selflessly without respite amidst constant change, relocation, and adjustment to life in a place that is not your home.

The mere fact that you are willing to live like that and volunteering to do so is evidence that you are doing a good job. Missionaries face frequent rejection, which naturally festers feelings of discouragement or failure. Do not mistakenly attribute people’s rejection of the Savior and His message as the result of missionary error. Whether you feel successful or not, you are serving as effective instruments in the Lord’s hands and He is using you to build his kingdom in so many ways that you are not able to see. We are flawed and finite humans, unable to zoom out and see the end from the beginning like God does.

I would like to share some experiences of missionary rejection from another vantage point. I know that the Lord can use anything to bring about His perfect and eternal purposes. He can even use “failed” proselytizing efforts to push the work of salvation forward. I have seen this firsthand. I was raised by people with abyssal disdain for “Mormons” and stood in complete opposition the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Mormon slander was a virtual hallmark of family discourse in our home. Later, as an adult, I met incredible missionaries who taught me about the Restored Gospel and Plan of Salvation. I became a member of this wonderful Church within weeks. These missionaries played an essential and paramount role in my conversion story. But these precious Elders were not the first missionaries that God had sent to cross my path.

As I have reflected upon my life, the Holy Spirit has called to mind experiences that seemed insignificant at time, but that the Spirit safeguarded in my mind with the purpose of bringing them to my remembrance at a later date. Many of these moments involved missionaries who planted tiny seeds of truth in my heart and mind (simply in passing) without even realizing it. In fact, at the time I did not even realize it. These were scarcely noteworthy moments by human standards and no missionary would deem themself heroic on account of them. But retrospectively I can see the Lord’s gentle guiding hand over the course of my entire life. Missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints were instruments in the Lord’s hands and representatives of Christ for decades without ever having taught me a single lesson.

When I was about six or seven years old, I remember seeing TV commercials by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. These commercials were positive and communicated the joys of family and the importance of prioritizing our families over other things of less eternal significance. Even as a little girl, I noticed a distinctly pleasant and uplifting feeling in my heart when I saw these commercials. I liked them and what they said seemed right and felt comforting. Whenever they aired, my parents would warn my older brother and I about the Church and tell us that there was nothing to be found in the Church that was not evil. They said that Jesus Christ was part of the Church’s name as a ploy to deceive gullible and unrighteous people.

These comments were (ironically) counterproductive to their indoctrination efforts because they highlighted the difference between the feelings I had when I saw the commercials and the feelings I had when my family was talking about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I didn’t dare mention feeling happy in my heart during the “evil” commercials to my parents. Nevertheless, tiny seeds were planted in my soul by these television commercials, and it was the vehement criticism of the Church by my family that inadvertently watered these little seeds.

As I grew a little older, I started noticing the occasional missionary duo walking or biking around the neighborhood. Whenever we saw them or I asked my mother what they were doing, she would recite the standard anti-mormon rhetoric. But I wondered who these name-tagged dynamic duos in white shirts were. I wondered why they were so interested in the lives of other people, even strangers. I especially wondered why they were so eager to share what they believe about Jesus with mean bullies like my parents.

Few missionaries knocked on the door of our home, and those who did were not well-received and never crossed the threshold. Though the encounters were only seconds long, they were long enough for me to notice that each and every missionary behaved graciously towards ungracious people. What these missionaries didn’t know is that even though the front door would be slammed in their faces, they were beacons of Christ to a young child who lived behind the door. This was probably discouraging to the missionaries. If it happens to you, keep your chin up. Those missionaries had no way of knowing that getting the door slammed in their face was the errand that God had in mind for them to carry out that day. They were on the Lord’s errand, just for a different audience than they intended.

Another moment seared into my mind occurred a couple of decades later. I was in my last semester of an M.A. program in Theological Studies. Like most days, I was sitting on our raggedy, lime green, velour couch, typing frantically, disheveled and surrounded by articles, books, personal notes and previous drafts of my thesis. There was a knock at my apartment door. I was in the writing zone with a deadline to meet and did not get up to answer the door. My roommate, however, opened the door. There stood two sweet sister missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They asked if they could share a message about Jesus Christ with us. The sisters seemed pleasant, and I secretly admired their dedication to their faith. I just didn’t want to set aside what seemed more important to me at the time. I had other priorities, and I was too concerned about my thesis deadline to be willing to give up the time for something greater.

My roommate, who is also my best friend, told them that we absolutely did not have time for such a message and that we did not really need it anyway. Then she rudely slammed the door in their faces with unnecessary gusto. Though she was quite proud of herself in the moment, the memory of those sisters and their offer to share a message about Jesus Christ lingered. The incident echoed in our minds through the quiet whisperings of the Spirit until the next time missionaries asked if they could share a message with us. To those sister missionaries, however, we were just a couple more jerks slamming the door in their faces that day. How discouraging for them!

My best friend and I were baptized together almost 10 years later. Several years ago, I returned to visit the town where I’d attended college. It was not until this trip that I realized that there was a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints chapel right behind my apartment complex. I had jogged past it every morning for years without even noticing that it was there. The chapel had been right there. The sister missionaries had done a great job representing the Savior. But I was not willing to pay attention at that time. I would not have listened that day, no matter how masterfully any missionaries may have presented the message of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. In retrospect, I see that the Lord had been sending missionaries my way as evidence of His hand in my life. The fact that the Lord’s designs were not apparent to me or to the missionaries at the moment of our encounter has no bearing on the sanctity and significance of those missionaries’ assignment from the Lord. He had a plan. He always has a plan. The missionaries that I finally listened to in 2014 taught the same eternal truths that all the missionaries before them would have shared if I had let them.

My best friend and I (yes, the rude door slammer who is now a wonderful wife and mother with an eternal family serving faithfully in ward callings and as a temple ordinance worker) have retraced our steps and tried to specify dates to figure out who served as missionaries in that area at that time. We have not found the sister missionaries yet, but for years we have wanted to thank them for offering an opportunity to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So, to you, Elder or Sister or Senior couple who may be reading this, take heart. Rest assured that you also have been that unsung or rejected missionary with an important and specific task that you didn’t know about! Missionaries are agents of miracles every day, most of which they will never even know about in this lifetime. The fruits of your labor will continue to roll on into the eternities. To be a missionary is to be to be an instrument in the Lord’s hands. Knowing the end from the beginning is not requisite for doing great things. You ARE the miracles that bring the lost sheep home and the propellers of the Lord’s great work. This is true whether you feel like it or not. And the more you realize it, the truer it will become. You are doing a great job. Thank you.

With much love,

Everyone you sacrificed two of the best years of your life to serve