Serving in 450 missions worldwide, 80,000 missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are playing a key role in community-service efforts, disaster cleanup and other projects related to the faith’s welfare and self-reliance operations.
The Church highlighted some of the efforts by these proselyting, service and senior missionaries in a July 7 article on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
In May, the Church collaborated with other organizations to host a six-day event at a meetinghouse in Pasadena, California, to provide resources and support for 2,500 households affected by the Southern California wildfires. The missionaries were there to help.
One of the organizers at the event, Kevin Cox, CEO and founder of the Hope Crisis Response Network, said he has never met a missionary who ever used the word “no” — they always tried to figure out a solution to every situation.
“The Church needs to be very proud of its missionaries,” he said. “When you send these young people out, they’re learning a lot of life lessons, but they’re also sowing such great seed. And that’s what we need in our country.”
Following the destruction of hurricanes Helene and Milton in the southeast United States in September and October 2024, Latter-day Saint missionaries were among thousands of Church volunteers who mobilized to serve neighbors in North and South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.
“The consecration of time by our thousands of members and full-time missionaries, along with the food, water and many other commodities provided by the Church, has helped our friends and neighbors across the South. It was all part of living the Savior’s two great commandments [to love God and love others], and it was inspiring. I personally saw hope and tears of joy in the faces of the grateful recipients,” said Elder Ahmad S. Corbitt, a General Authority Seventy who serves in the Church’s North America Southeast Area presidency.
In 2022, missionaries joined other volunteers in a service project with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in San Francisco, California. Together, they installed an irrigation system at the Florence Fang Community Farm, which provides fresh food to a diverse and underserved community that inhabits a food desert.
On that occasion, Elder Patrick Kearon, then a member of the Presidency of the Seventy, said the project fostered unity in the community.
“We’re here from all kinds of backgrounds, ethnicities and cultures, all working together to make this extraordinary garden a better place,” said Elder Kearon, now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “The real benefit today is working together. When society generally is showing so many fractures, this is pulling all kinds of people together, and we’re delighted to be a part of it.”
In the Philippines in April, missionaries joined a congregation-led medical mission in Barangay Mintal, Davao City, offering free physical and mental health services to the community.
The same month, missionaries and Church members in Costa Rica cleaned a children’s playground and the Catholic parish in San José.
Missionaries were essential to flood relief on Parama Island, Papua New Guinea, in October 2024. Unable to reach the village by boat due to shallow waters, villagers and missionaries spent a day transporting supplies from a barge a kilometer offshore through tide pools to grateful families.
In July 2024, missionaries assisted in cleanup work in Saas-Grund, Switzerland, after devastating storms.
“Seeing how our work improves the lives of the people here was very moving,” said Elder Tobias Kroes, a missionary in the Alpine German-Speaking Mission. “Instead of our everyday tasks, we were able to achieve something really meaningful by joining forces.”
In Rome, Italy, missionaries and local Latter-day Saints spend one day a week preparing and serving hot meals to the homeless at Parrocchia del Santissimo Redentore charity kitchen. They also prepare gift bags with sweets and other items at Christmas.
All service provided by missionaries is rooted in a desire to follow Jesus Christ’s two great commandments — love God and love your neighbor, as Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught in 2017.
“The Savior loves all of God’s children regardless of their socioeconomic circumstance, race, religion, language, political orientation, nationality or any other grouping. And so should we,” he said in April 2017 general conference, then serving as second counselor in the First Presidency.
“God’s greatest reward goes to those who serve without expectation of reward. It goes to those who serve without fanfare; those who quietly go about seeking ways to help others; those who minister to others simply because they love God and God’s children.”
