“Don’t you just love listening to the missionaries’ ‘dying’ testimonies?”

Posed to my wife and I as we presided over full-time missionaries in Arizona a number of years ago, the last three words were startling. The question came from someone who had experience in helping lead missionaries at another time and in another mission.

“Don’t you mean ‘living’ testimonies?” Sister Taylor responded.

We quickly recognized what he was talking about — and his use of missionary slang. He previously had interacted with missionaries preparing to return home at the conclusion of their missions.

Often, departing missionaries are invited to gather in a devotional-type setting — among mission leaders in the mission home or in a local meetinghouse where members might be invited — and share testimony of their service, experiences and conversions of others and themselves.

Those moments are reminiscent of when the four sons of Mosiah reunited after their 14-year missions to the Lamanites (Alma 26) and met Alma the Younger (Alma 17).

The Book of Mormon describes “they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were men of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God.

“But this is not all; they had given themselves to much prayer, and fasting; therefore they had the spirit of prophecy, and the spirit of revelation, and when they taught, they taught with power and authority of God” (Alma 17:2-3).

Those were powerful and tender expressions centered on the Savior Jesus Christ and His gospel — much like the 25 occasions we hosted groups of missionaries returning home from the Arizona Phoenix Mission. And I’m sure our acquaintance had heard similar expressions himself.

I was reminded of all the above — including the scripture — while listening to one of our young neighbors report in a recent sacrament meeting on her full-time mission. Her message was replete with anecdotes and testimonies of finding, serving, teaching, inviting and converting — and her own personal growth in the gospel.

Using Sister Taylor’s phrase, that is more of a “living” testimony — one of becoming, one to build upon, and not one to leave behind to die on the vine in the Lord’s vineyard.

To call a testimony “dying” gives way to the trappings of missionary slang, whether it be terms for service-tenure milestones (beginnings, midpoints and endings), missionaries themselves (leaders, trainers, trainees, companions) or anything else in between.

An example is when a companionship is transferred out of an assigned area and a new companionship moves in. With a myriad of reasons why that might be done, I’ve experienced that transfer as both a missionary and mission president. Common slang words used to describe such a transfer include “whitewashed” or “flushed.”

Adding to the challenges is when members and friends and families of missionaries pick up and start using — knowingly or unknowingly — such words and phrases.

In discouraging the use of slang, we told missionaries the terms suggest concerns or problems with the missionaries, the members or the area. “What do the members think,” we asked, “when they hear their area has been ‘whitewashed’ or ‘flushed?’”

We also would recount instruction from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles during a seminar for new mission leaders on the training of new missionaries. He made an impassioned, emphatic plea — that he never again hear a new missionary referred to as a “greenie.”

The missionary handbook “Missionary Standards for Disciples of Jesus Christ” says it succinctly: “Keep your language dignified and avoid using slang” (3.5.1).

I’m hesitant to give any other examples of missionary slang — while they may seem clever or humorous or innocuous, they can also be too casual, inappropriate or demeaning. We also cautioned missionaries that some words, phrases and expressions used previously in school and social settings may not be fitting for a servant of the Lord.

As mission leaders and later branch leaders at the Provo Missionary Training Center, we encouraged missionaries to have conversations and use words they would be comfortable with if in the presence of an Apostle — because, in the end, they were striving to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost.

So, a missionary’s “dying” testimony? No, I’ve never witnessed the final words from a missionary martyr.

But I’ve heard hundreds of “living” testimonies — ones that can sustain Latter-day Saints young and old as they return home from mission service. And ones that they can rekindle if they get detoured off the covenant path and find themselves looking to return, as in the parable of the prodigal son (see Luke 15:11-32).

And I’ve listened to thousands of missionaries converse appropriately — with reverence to their call and service and respect to those they’re speaking to and of.

— Scott Taylor is the managing editor of the Church News.