PROVO, Utah — Mission leaders and missionaries are called to take part in the most important work happening on earth in this dispensation: the gathering of Israel.
But in order to fulfill this great charge, “it will be crucial for you and the missionaries who will serve with you to understand and focus your efforts on ‘our purpose’ over the next three years of your service,” said Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
His remarks came on Friday, June 21, during the 2024 Seminar for New Mission Leaders. The Church’s annual missionary leadership conference was held at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah.
Elder Soares focused on expanding missionaries’ vision of what finding people to teach means. Quoting from the “Preach My Gospel” manual, he said nothing happens in missionary work until missionaries find people to teach.
Most missionaries arrive in the field with willing spirits and great hopes of finding people who will accept the gospel, he continued. Mission leaders, then, must strengthen this enthusiasm and help missionaries obtain spiritual gifts and power to accomplish the “finding” part of their work.
“Preach My Gospel” contains an “abundance” of principles on finding people to teach, he said. And Elder Soares focused on three that must become “essential beliefs” among missionaries: exercising faith, effective use of time and using a variety of methods to find people.
Regarding the first principle, Elder Soares said missionaries must exercise a sustaining faith in Jesus Christ in order to find those who will hear the gospel message.
“Faith is a conduit of God’s divine power in missionary work and inspires diligence,” he said. “It takes the missionaries to their knees to implore the Lord for guidance and moves them to arise and act with confidence that the Lord can work wonders and do the impossible to make miracles happen.”
He continued by sharing that in the scriptures, the Lord references two groups of people who are ready to receive the gospel: “the elect” (Doctrine and Covenants 29:7) — those who will hear the Savior’s voice and not harden their hearts — and “those who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it” (Doctrine and Covenants 123:12) — those who will awaken to the gospel when they feel the Spirit through the Lord’s messengers.
It’s the duty of mission leaders, then, to build up faith and conviction among their missionaries that both of these groups exist in every place and culture of the world, Elder Soares said.
“With this spiritual support and direction, missionaries will have patient confidence that the Lord will lead them to these people or will lead those people to them,” he said. “Consequently, the Lord will also increase their capacity to overcome even what appears to be overwhelming obstacles to find people to teach.”
The second principle of finding people to teach involves effective time management. Elder Soares said missionaries need to know the difference between scheduling and planning — the former is simply filling up a day with activities, while the latter is an act of faith that transforms goals into actions.
To illustrate this principle, Elder Soares invited several recently returned missionaries to share their experiences with “planning to find.”
The final principle, using a variety of methods to find people to teach, can be metaphorically compared to dropping multiple fishing lines into the water, Elder Soares said. Mission leaders should teach, demonstrate and invite missionaries to explore all existing and “new, creative and inspired” methods to find people, as prompted by the Spirit.
Elder Soares invited a pair of former mission leaders, Elder Alvin F. “Tripp” Meredith III and Sister Jennifer Meredith, to share how they helped their missionaries use a variety of methods to find people to teach. Elder Meredith is a General Authority Seventy and serves as the president of BYU–Idaho.
Elder Soares concluded by encouraging the new mission leaders to teach the Lord’s missionaries to apply these instructions. “This is your opportunity to bring to pass the gathering of the Lord’s elect and of those who do not know where to find the truth,” he said.
