Great Mission Conference Today

We had a mission wide conference today with Elder David Evans of the Seventies.  Wow!  It was good.   He told about how when the missionary age was changed and only a few people knew of the changes before it was announced.   They projected the numbers and determined that they needed 58 new missions. The comment was made- “are you crazy?”  They normally call mission presidents about a year in advance, and they were wanting 58 new missions up and going in only 9 months.   The answer was “Yes with the projection of numbers and such, we need 58 more missions to function properly.”  The next question was “how?”  The classic answer-  “With faith, we have faith and do all we can do with things on our end and the Lord will make it happen.” 

 Elder Evans related how we needed to have faith on our missions.  Faith to baptize.  Almost all of the missionaries in our mission have been told by someone at sometime that they will not see a lot of baptisms.  He said he served in Japan and encouraged us to have faith and it will happen.  It was a great talk!  He also cautioned us not to do stupid things while on our missions, because the hardest part of his calling is calling mothers to tell them their son has been killed on his mission.  Hit pretty close to home with me.  Also how missionary work is somewhat like the Garden of Gethsemane.  But Christ suffered all things for everyone.   Sometimes missions can give us just a little portion of how hard it was for Him in comparison.  An eye-opening thought.  It was really good.  He also talked about seeking referrals from everyone, not just the members, but the investigators as well.  He asked why don’t you seek referrals from investigators, but you seek referrals from all new converts.  I stood up and said because we are scared of losing the trust we gained.  He asked how long I had been out, I said about 5 weeks. He said that was the most honest answer he had ever gotten out of a missionary.   He went on to explain that when we seek referrals from the investigators they get a stronger testimony of you wanting to share this with everyone and everything goes much better.  A great mission conference!