Ministering assignments in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are made so that all members of the Church are remembered and cared for in ways similar to how Jesus Christ blessed those around Him.
In this episode of the Church News podcast, Church News reporter Mary Richards is joined by Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson and Elder Robert M. Daines, a General Authority Seventy, to discuss how ministering is a vital way to help accomplish the work of salvation and exaltation — and how Saints can grow in their confidence before the Lord to become more like Him as they fulfill these assignments.
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
President Camille N. Johnson: As we have the opportunity to show the love of our Savior to those to whom we’ve been assigned and those that we have not been assigned to, we are ministering in the Savior’s way. And when we think about it as “What would He have us do or say?” it gives us an expanded vision of what ministering ought to be, what it ought to look like. But it need not be hard. We hope that it becomes second nature. And to have confidence right now before God, that we can have confidence if we go to Him and say, “Who can I help today? How can I be Your hands or Your listening ears? How can I be Your feet today?” He will hear and answer those prayers. And as we seek to have a ministering heart and mind, we can have confidence before God. I’m sure of that, and I know it now.
1:06
Mary Richards: This is Mary Richards, reporter at the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Savior Jesus Christ loved, taught, prayed for, comforted and blessed those around Him. Disciples of Jesus Christ seek to minister to God’s children and serve them as the Savior did. Ministering assignments in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are made so that all members of the Church are remembered and cared for. It is also a vital way to help accomplish the work of salvation and exaltation.
This episode of the Church News podcast is all about ministering — how we can grow in our confidence before the Lord and become more like Him as we fulfill these assignments. Joining me are Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson and Elder Robert M. Daines, a General Authority Seventy who is assigned to the Church’s Priesthood and Family Department.
Welcome, both of you, to the Church News podcast.
President Camille N. Johnson: Thanks, Mary. Nice to be here with you.
Elder Robert M. Daines: Hello.
2:20
Mary Richards: President Johnson, how can we best understand ministering and how we’re doing?
President Camille N. Johnson: I love something that President Henry B. Eyring [second counselor in the First Presidency] said. He said that “when you sit with someone as their ministering sister or brother, you represent the Lord. Think of what He would do or say.” And I think that is our invitation: As we have the opportunity to show the love of our Savior to those to whom we’ve been assigned and those that we have not been assigned to, we are ministering in the Savior’s way. And when we think about it as “What would He have us do or say?” it gives us an expanded vision of what ministering ought to be, what it ought to look like. But it need not be hard. We hope that it becomes second nature.
Mary Richards: Our natures change as we do it.
President Camille N. Johnson: Yeah.
3:10
Mary Richards: Yeah. Elder Daines, for those who might feel like it’s hard or they’re worried or feeling overwhelmed or not sure what to do, where do we start?
Elder Robert M. Daines: I think it’s probably different for everybody, and we should start with what feels comfortable or natural for us when the goal is to show love and concern. And sometimes that’s food. I’m usually more comfortable talking to children than to their parents. So when I’m assigned, I usually bring something for the kids, or a game or a toy or something I picked up on a trip. And I think that works for me. My wife will do something differently. But I think it’s whatever would help connect you to them and help them see in you some example of the Savior’s love, which is what President Johnson was just talking about.
Sometimes that’s hard. I’ve been thinking about the Savior’s statement that He came to minister (see Matthew 20:28), and I think, “OK, what do I learn about what my role is from looking at what the Savior did?” And the thing that struck me recently is how often the Savior’s interactions and healings were focused on connecting that person to somebody else. When He healed the leper, he said, “Go show yourself to the priest so that you can start joining in the community and you can attend with other people” (see Luke 17:14). I think that’s a lot of what I’m supposed to do. So anything that can help me connect the person I’m to minister to, either to me or to others in the ward, I think that’s a win.
The other thing, when you start seeing that, you see how often the Savior fed people or invited people to dinner. It was Easter recently, so it struck me how often in the Savior’s post-Resurrection appearances He fed people or ate with people. I’m not sure anybody recognized the Savior post-Resurrection without food, except Mary; except Mary at the tomb. Everybody else — the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the apostles in the room, the apostles on this Sea of Galilee and in 3 Nephi — there’s food there. And I’m not sure exactly what to make of that, other than I think it’s in part a reminder of how often the Savior ate and fed people during His mortal ministry.
So I think there’s a reason He said, when He was eating the Last Supper, he said, “[Do this] in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). He could have said, “Read the scriptures extra hard and think of me” or “Pray extra hard.” The image is a family meal. “Eat together, and that’ll remind you of me and the time we’ve eaten together.” So, I think eating together, inviting people over, some way of connecting others. It’s going to be different for everybody, but I think some form of service like that is a great way to take the Savior.
6:06
President Camille N. Johnson: I think the Savior’s example is one of engagement. He used food as a way to engage, and everybody eats. And so food became that method of engagement. People come together, they eat together, and then it’s about relationships. So you’ve got to start out with the “What’s the engagement piece?” And it might be food, or it might be a thoughtful note, or it might be a flower, or it might be an act of service. It’s a way to engage.
But what happens over multiple engagements is that relationships are formed, and that’s what we’re aiming for. Born of the engagement and relationship, then you have charity, that is the pure love of Christ, then your motivation is love, and that’s what we’re working towards. But no one should fault themselves if they don‘t start out with that right at the beginning. You have to start somewhere. And I think the Savior’s example that you’ve explained so beautifully is He engaged oftentimes with food.
And so, that may be your love language of sorts, to engage with food, but it might be something else. It may be a sketch that you did, or a short poem or a thought that you saw that you could share, or you tell your own personal experience in attending the temple and how it motivated you. That’s a way to engage. Engagement then, over time, multiple engagements create relationships, and that’s what we’re aiming for. And then our hearts change, and it becomes just a way of life, it’s a way of thinking. We are ministers by nature.
7:41
Elder Robert M. Daines: So, the Savior by the Sea of Galilee, He sort of gently corrects Peter by asking him three times whether he loves Him, imitating the three denials and sort of saying, “Peter, OK, it’s time to get back in the saddle,” which is, “As a little reminder, you did it three times, you denied me three times. So I’m going to give you three more chances to affirm and get back on the team.” But He starts by making him breakfast. The Savior makes the fire, the Savior catches him fish. They bring all these fish, but there’s fish already there. So I think that’s a great — it’s some way to help. You can babysit, you can take a note, you can give a compliment, you can notice when somebody’s sick. I think any gesture that says, “I’m trying to help, and —”
8:30
President Camille N. Johnson: “I notice you. I care about you. I’m interested in the things you’re interested in. Who are you praying for? Who’s on the top of your prayer list? I want to pray with you for that person.” It’s that kind of engagement.
Elder Robert M. Daines: Yeah. You make me think of my first memory of being ministered to as a teenager, a young teenager, and somebody came to our house; it was an older gentleman, and he sat in the room with us, and he was uncomfortable, but he had cheat cards in his hand, and he would look at me, and he’d say, “Um” — and then he’d look down at his note — “Rob. How is” — and then he’d look down — “seventh grade?” I wanted to kind of laugh a little bit, but that told me he was trying and he cared. And so even if it wasn‘t polished, I knew he was trying to show interest. And I think that might be the only visit I remember as a teenager.
President Camille N. Johnson: Oh, I love that. And I think sometimes we worry too much about the polish. It’s not about the polish, it’s about the getting in there, the engagement, roll up your sleeves and get to know people.
Elder Robert M. Daines: Yeah. There’s a thousand different ways. There’s as many ways to do that as there are people.
9:39
Mary Richards: Yeah. And do we worry so much sometimes about an assignment, thinking, “Oh, they’re just going to know I’m assigned to be their friend.” But we are a church of assignments, and then by doing these, it becomes second nature, like you said.
President Camille N. Johnson: Yeah. We are a church of assignments. We’re a church of names. We take a name to the temple, we make assignments by name, and that’s so that we’ll grow into this principle. I think we practice by virtue of assignment, with an eye towards just having this become the way we operate, how our hearts and our minds think. But I think it’s terrific that we have assignments. That usually motivates me to do my best work, when I have an assignment. And so, rather than pushing against those, I will embrace my assignment.
That having been said, I hope that people, when they have their ministering interviews with their elders quorum presidency members and their Relief Society presidents, presidency members, will be frank and candid about perhaps there’s a next-door neighbor they’d really like to invest in, or there’s someone else in the ward, or there’s a young family that they have a particular interest in, or they have a skill set or a life experience that would help them address the needs of a particular family, speak up and say those things.
Because in those ministering interviews particularly, this is where Relief Society and elders quorum presidencies learn what’s in the bishops’ storehouse, so to speak. The bishops’ storehouse isn‘t just about temporal, physical kinds of resources. It’s about people resources, too, and skill sets and experiences that we bring to bear to address one another’s needs. So speak up. I hope that people will express their interest in either ministering to someone or some demographic or some age group, or somebody with a particular need, and share their aptitude for that and desire.
11:31
Mary Richards: Yes. I’m so glad you brought that up today. I’ve been pondering that myself. I’m now in our ward Primary presidency as a counselor, and I was asked to go to a ward council when our Primary president couldn‘t go. And I was amazed at the way a ward council works. And I thought about these very things; when we have these names, these people we care for, then their needs are able to be discussed, brought up to the ward council. And then we look at the bishops’ storehouse, in the different things that come from the storehouse, like you said.
President Camille N. Johnson: Assets include the attributes and the skill sets of the members of the unit.
Mary Richards: Yeah. And we can meet those needs if we know them, and we know them by ministering, ministering interviews, counseling.
Elder Robert M. Daines: I totally agree, and there’s so much in President Johnson‘s answer I want to applaud.
12:21
President Camille N. Johnson: Maybe I’m a sister that goes to the temple by herself every single week, I would love to minister to someone who needs a ride to the temple, whose only barrier to getting to the temple every week is that she doesn‘t drive anymore. That’s a beautiful matching in the bishops’ storehouse of both a resource that is “I have the capacity to drive” and then a need, somebody who has the desire to be at the temple but can‘t get herself there. That’s what I’m talking about: this communication. I hope that our Relief Society presidency members and our elders quorum presidency members are astute in asking those kinds of questions, but if they aren‘t, volunteer the information.
13:00
Elder Robert M. Daines: Yeah. Amen. And if you do get an assignment that you didn‘t volunteer for or that feels uncomfortable — sometimes assignments feel like duties and a burden and it’s sort of a willpower test of “OK, am I going to be righteous or not?” For me, they’re actually more liberating than that, in a way, because I sometimes am anxious about approaching people at church or trying to reach out, and I think, “Oh, I don‘t know them well enough” or “I’m going to forget their name” or “How do I make friends?” The ministering assignment gives me an excuse. I can say, “I know this is weird, but this is my assignment, and is it OK if I come over?” It kind of opens the door a little for me. So that solves some anxiety or some social awkwardness a little bit.
13:49
President Camille N. Johnson: Think about our missionaries that wear that badge, that plaque, and it gives them an invitation to say who they are and issue invitations. It’s almost the same thing when you have a ministering assignment. It’s like you have a badge that says, “I have permission to invite myself into your life.”
Elder Robert M. Daines: And to be weird.
President Camille N. Johnson: Or to show up on your door and knock. I think that’s part of it. We get permission to be part of that person‘s life by virtue of the assignment. And I hope that our members remember that every one of those assignments comes with priesthood authority, because while I will offer my input about where I can serve best, ultimately — once a recommendation is made by the elders quorum and the Relief Society — it is the bishop who has priesthood keys that makes those assignments. He’s the one that approves those assignments. And by virtue of that, the assignment comes with priesthood authority, which means that the opportunity, the privilege and the blessing to act in the Lord’s name.
And so that also gives us a little level of confidence. It’s like putting that missionary badge back on. “I have priesthood authority with respect to this assignment to engage with you with the hope to develop a relationship with you as I try to become like the Savior and foster charity,” which I love. President [Russell M.] Nelson just talked about: We can have confidence before God when we work to be worthy of the gift of charity, the pure love of Jesus Christ.
15:16
Mary Richards: I’m so glad you brought that up. I was thinking about this April 2025 general conference address, where President Russell M. Nelson invited us to grow in confidence before the Lord. And this seems to be what we’re talking about. This is one of those very ways where we can grow our confidence. And how do we do that? By increasing our charity and our virtue, our power, our strength.
So, let’s talk a little bit about: How can ministering help us grow in confidence? And then, how do our ministering efforts improve as we grow in confidence before the Lord?
15:47
President Camille N. Johnson: I listened recently to a general conference talk that Elder Gerrit W. Gong [of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles] gave in April of 2023 on ministering. And he gave an example about a fellow. I think his wife was a member of the Church. He was not. And over the course of many, many years, he was blessed by a relationship with a ministering brother. And when he finally agreed to join the Church, it’s because he had that long-standing friend. And I just think that’s a beautiful example of how we grow in confidence before the Lord and we persist.
So, just because — and you kind of get the impression from Elder Gong’s story as he expressed it — that perhaps there was a little bit of pushback at the beginning with this fellow, like, “I don‘t want these people in my house. Don‘t send any white shirts into my house” kind of thing. So the ministering brother probably came in a blue shirt or a golf shirt or whatever. He worked with it, but he just kept coming. He didn‘t give up.
And ultimately, many years later, when he was prepared to make covenants and be baptized, that friend — who through engagement then relationship, that charitable friend — was just so important to all of that, and he wanted him to be there. And I thought that was a lovely story of persistence in all of this. We should not feel like we failed if we perceive that our efforts are initially rejected or even rejected over the course of months. We just keep after it, because we grow in confidence before God.
17:19
Mary Richards: Yes. I think about your ministering brother when you were younger, Elder Daines; he was growing in confidence as he tried his very best.
Elder Robert M. Daines: Yeah.
Mary Richards: President Nelson has also invited us to make our discipleship of Jesus Christ our highest priority. In this way, in ministering, this is us becoming disciples of Jesus Christ, isn‘t it?
17:42
Elder Robert M. Daines: Yes. I agree. I agree with you, and I agree with President Nelson. I sometimes think of things that are steps for me to approach the Savior and to be more like Him. And I used to read the scriptures and think that meant healing the leper or walking on the water or changing the water to wine. Now I see ministering is, at least for me, my baby steps into that. I can‘t raise the dead, or I can‘t heal the sick necessarily, but I can show up. I can visit the sick.
You think about, again, what the Savior did post-Resurrection; He spent time with people who are grieving. He spent time with people in the spirit world, people who had recently suffered. I can at least show up and do that. And ministering is my excuse to do that if I hear somebody’s sick or if I hear somebody needs a babysitter or needs something in their yard picked up or they need to borrow a tool I have, or something. That, for me, is like: Well, I can‘t solve the serious wound, but I can engage with them, and I can show them they’ve got a friend, and I can be like the Savior in that, at least.
President Camille N. Johnson: “Line upon line, precept upon precept” idea (2 Nephi 28:30). But I love that. That’s a beautiful explanation of how we’ll increase in our discipleship of Jesus Christ.
19:11
Elder Robert M. Daines: I think, “Why is He going to share with us more power unless we are faithful in doing what there is?” I remember years ago, I had a ministering family that I was assigned, and the husband — who wasn‘t a member of the Church — the husband died. And I remember praying at night to bless this mother and her little twins. And I was praying, “Please, please, bless them.” Then I got this rebuke, like, “You bless them. Don‘t just ask me to do it. Do what you can do.” So I did what I could do. And so we did stuff with candy, and we came over to the house to do activities. And I think that’s what ministering is, a little bit, doing whatever we can do to help somebody and trusting that the Lord does the hard part once we have the relationship.
President Camille N. Johnson: Yeah, that’s a beautiful example.
20:09
Mary Richards: The words of the Savior’s relief came to my mind, which you teach about, President Johnson. And as we meet temporal needs and see those things, we’re helping them feel the Savior’s relief spiritually as well.
President Camille N. Johnson: And it’s been my experience that that is how I receive the Savior’s relief for myself, is when I aim to bring His relief — temporal relief, in some cases, sometimes it’s spiritual relief. Actually, it’s always spiritual relief. But when I’m bringing His relief to others, that’s when I find relief from Him for myself.
Elder Robert M. Daines: Amen.
20:45
Mary Richards: And ministering might look different based on location or other circumstances. What kind of patterns are you seeing, and what are you learning, I guess, President Johnson, from around the world?
President Camille N. Johnson: Well, I’m learning that sometimes we try to put the square peg in the round hole; it doesn‘t work all that well. In Utah, by way of example, Elder Kevin Pearson, [a General Authority Seventy] who has been serving as the Utah Area president, has asked that ministering be a home visit. And that having been said, I have a dear friend with some social anxiety that doesn‘t want to have a home visit, and she’s expressed that to her ministering sister and said, “If you’ll just touch base with me with a text message, with a phone call, with a note at my door, with a flower at my door, that will be perfect. And on occasion, maybe I can welcome you into my home. When I feel well enough to do that, I’d love to have you come.”
I think that’s the idea, that we’re sensitive to the needs of those to whom we minister, and we ought to be asking them. We do want to be in their homes in Utah, but there are some people that are going to say, “Please don‘t come. And here’s a very specific reason for that.” And so, let’s keep working at it. I think that all around the world, we see ministering differently. Home visits are neither practical, nor are they feasible, in some parts of the world because the expense associated with travel to get to some of our members in our units is extreme. In some places, it’s dangerous to go out at night to visit.
And so I’ve seen ministering happening after church. So, we have that two-hour block schedule. There’s really an extra hour in every Sunday, I know, that we can spend at the church, at the building, getting to know the people we’ve been assigned to minister. And maybe it’s an opportunity to share some food. If food is the way that I engage, I may just bring an extra sandwich or a basket with me. And I’ve seen that in places around the world. Africa comes to mind, where I saw people come together. And when church ended at those two hours, it was just the beginning for them. They were so happy to be together, and I saw beautiful ministering as they just spent additional time together on a Sunday afternoon.
23:01
Mary Richards: Something I saw when I was working on an article for the Church News about young single adults in ministering was a YSA branch in Virginia, the Relief Society president told me some of the beautiful things she’s seeing among their members and how their ministering assignments have really led to so much more inclusion, more invitations. They’ll have YSA activities, and the ministering sisters are reaching out: “Are you coming? Let’s go. I would love to see you there,” or “Let’s have a ride.” And they’re having more of this, more attendance, because of these beautiful relationships that have formed through ministering. And I think that’s something that we can see in areas of the world too.
23:40
Elder Robert M. Daines: Yeah, I think that’s a nice and an easy step for ministering. If you don‘t know what to do, you can always invite and help somebody attend an activity you’re already going to. So, I like the example you gave about giving somebody a ride to the temple. If there’s something you’re already doing or something you enjoy doing, and you can invite a friend along, that’s a really nice way to do it.
Mary Richards: And serve together, maybe. Invite to serve.
24:05
President Camille N. Johnson: I think our young adults are particularly astute at inviting, and so are our young men and young women. And remember, they have the opportunity to minister too. For the young men, it’s a responsibility. For the young women, beginning at age 14, they have that opportunity. So I hope that when ministering assignments are made, we carefully consider the assignments that are given to those young people. Let’s give them an opportunity to succeed, and they’re so natural at that inviting and maybe don‘t have some of the anxious nature that adults have about making an invitation or knocking a door.
24:49
Mary Richards: And they grow in confidence before the Lord, like we’ve been talking about.
President Camille N. Johnson: Yeah, absolutely.
Mary Richards: As we include them, as they say yes to these assignments and yes to these opportunities. And then as our assignments change, we really just keep growing, don‘t we, in these relationships in our ward family?
25:08
President Camille N. Johnson: I’ve always said to my boys, “You can‘t have too many friends,” and that’s the idea of ministering. Just because I have a new assignment doesn‘t mean that I’ve lost the relationship that I’ve cultivated with the person that I was first assigned to. And so my garden just keeps flourishing with new friends.
25:25
Elder Robert M. Daines: And one of the things that’s most surprising to me is how these friendships can be surprising. We’ve moved several times in our family, and we moved once to an area where we expected to make friends quickly and easily, and it didn‘t work out that way, and my wife found it a little more difficult than she expected. So what she did is she threw herself into her ministering assignments, and they were made with sort of — they weren‘t necessarily to the women in the ward that she would have matched, if you were matching preferences or backgrounds or personalities, definitely not. But those ended up being the most important relationships for her over years. And it was something that was surprising that she found only by repeatedly showing up and asking how she could help and looking for a door in.
26:18
Mary Richards: I just was reminded of one of my last ministering assignments, a widow in our ward, and now she’s serving a senior mission, and I was able to go to the Provo Missionary Training Center to cover [first counselor in the Primary general presidency] Sister Amy A. Wright‘s recent devotional, and I saw her there, and we both just had tears come into our eyes, because it’s true; we were at different stages in our life, but this has become a lifelong friendship for me. Yes, I was assigned to her, but she ministered to me so much too in return. And seeing her there at the MTC and giving her a big squeeze and a big hug before she went off to her assignment was just something I’ll always remember.
26:53
Elder Robert M. Daines: Can I throw in one thing? We talk about ministering a lot as something I’m supposed to do as the minister, it’s my responsibility to show the Savior’s love. There’s a lot that we can do as the “ministeree,” the person to be ministered to.
I once took a big survey of the elders quorum I was in to try to understand who was going and who was not, and whether it correlated with my duty or my diligence or whatever. And I found the only thing that really predicted whether I went ministering was whether the family had requested that I show up and said, “We’d love to see you. Why don‘t you come by?” I think there’s a lot we can do to help people feel comfortable and open the door a little bit.
I keep throwing my wife under the bus, but somebody called her to say, “I’m your new ministering sister. How can I help you? What could I do for you?” And Ruth said — she was doing really well at the time, and she didn‘t need a lot — but she said, “Well, I’ll tell you what. Who else do you minister to? Well, let’s go together and visit some of the people that you’re concerned about.” And it actually ended up creating incredibly meaningful relationships. So there’s both stuff you can do as the person being visited to make it easier for the other person, and it can open up a whole new avenue of relationships to the ward.
28:21
President Camille N. Johnson: I think we’re so inclined to providing relief and less inclined to receiving relief; we don‘t want to be on the receiving end. And yet, when we receive relief, we’re giving someone else an opportunity to fulfill their covenant responsibility to comfort us, to mourn with us. And so I know sometimes I think, “Well, I’m just going to grit my teeth and figure this out.” I think that that’s a flaw that I have to work on, and I have to open myself up to receiving relief, receiving my ministers, receiving the help that they want to give. Otherwise, I’m depriving them of an opportunity that is a covenant opportunity and responsibility that they hold.
29:04
Elder Robert M. Daines: And people are grateful for it, I would say. If I only knew how to help, I would love to help. And part of my passivity or my frustration is I don‘t know exactly what’s going to work and what’s going to not. So if somebody says, “This would help me, Rob,” I’d really like that.
29:20
President Camille N. Johnson: And I think we should speak up. And if you don‘t know how the person to whom you’ve been assigned wants to be ministered to, ask them.
Elder Robert M. Daines: There’s a novel idea.
President Camille N. Johnson: There’s that novel idea to just ask what is it that they want. I’ve shared before a story that my dear friend Elaine used as she was really being prayerful about her ministering assignment, and she hadn‘t had a great deal of success in her initial efforts at engagement with the sisters to whom she had been assigned. But then a particular need came up. She had — there was potential for flooding at her home.
And so rather than asking the people assigned to her to help fill the sandbags, she called the sisters she was assigned to and said, “Will you come and help me fill sandbags?” And of course, they did. And then they felt very comfortable in calling her when they had a need. And I thought that was such a beautiful example. The engagement doesn‘t always have to be “I’m doing something for you.” The engagement can be “Can you help me with something that matters to me right now?”
Elder Robert M. Daines: It’s almost as if that’s supposed to be a real relationship. It’s bilateral. I love that.
30:33
Mary Richards: She wasn‘t afraid to ask for help. And so then they thought, “I don‘t need to be afraid to ask for help.”
President Camille N. Johnson: Right. It’s that all receiving relief thing, yeah, getting over that hurdle.
Mary Richards: I love that.
President Camille N. Johnson: I think it’s important that when we’re ministering we remember our spiritual responsibility and opportunity and privilege. I talked about it as a covenant privilege and a covenant opportunity, and what a sweet opportunity we have to invite people to prepare for and make and keep covenants. Elder Gerrit W. Gong in that talk that he gave on ministering in 2023 said that “inspired invitations change lives. When invitations help us make and keep sacred covenants, we draw closer to the Lord and each other.”
So as ministers, I hope we’re paying attention to the invitations we’re extending. And yes, we’re going to engage with food or filling sandbags, but I hope we’re also issuing invitations to be prepared for the next ordinance, the sacrament on Sunday. If a person to whom I minister has not yet been endowed, I hope that I’m asking the right kinds of questions to help them think more seriously about being endowed and perhaps help in the preparation for endowment. Ministering brothers and sisters are really key to preparing our members for and keeping them on the covenant path that President Nelson‘s described.
32:09
Mary Richards: Our guests always get the last word on the Church News podcast, and we always like to ask at the end, “What do you know now?” And so, I’ll start with you, Elder Daines, and then we’ll go to President Johnson.
What do you know now about how ministering increases our discipleship of Jesus Christ and how we can grow in confidence before the Lord?
32:34
Elder Robert M. Daines: I’ve been thinking about the Savior’s teachings after His Resurrection. And I was reading in the Gospel of John, and His last words before He disappears in the Gospel of John is “Come, follow me.” And He actually repeats it twice. It’s the last thing we have a record of Him saying in John. And I like to imagine that as an invitation to follow Him in some uncertain way. We don‘t know where He goes. He says, “Follow me.” We know He’s been through Gethsemane, He’s been through the horrors of the Crucifixion. We know He’s visited people and healed people and fed people, and then He goes. And part of our invitation is to figure out for us: How are we going to follow Him?
Ministering for me is, in a way, the easiest way to do that, is I try to say, “Who can I help for the Savior today?” And I found actually, when you talk about confidence, I’ve prayed for years without getting answers to really important questions, and that’s been really difficult. But the prayers I always get an answer to are “Who can I help for Thee today?” That gives me a kind of confidence that the Savior sees me, He’s paying attention, that He’s giving me direction, because I always think of somebody; I get a face or a name. And so even if I’m frustrated that I’m not doing something else right or that there’s some big issue in my life that’s unresolved, I can feel confidence that I’m following Him, that I’m getting advice and direction in His work. And nothing, nothing feels better than that.
34:15
President Camille N. Johnson: Well, it’s been a pleasure for me to be with you, Mary, and with Elder Daines today. And I hope that our conversation models for the membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints how Relief Society and elders quorum leaders work together. And I see that as we have the opportunity to converse on this subject and problem-solve and think more deeply and more broadly about how we can improve our ministering and increase our discipleship of Jesus Christ. We do better when we work together, don‘t we?
So, this has been really, really lovely, and thank you for inviting us to be here together. What I know now is that President Russell M. Nelson is the Lord’s mighty mouthpiece on the earth today. I trust and have complete confidence in his counsel to us, and he’s asked us to focus our lives on Jesus Christ, to make our discipleship our highest priority and to have confidence right now before God. And there were several key points that he made in that address about how we can have confidence.
He wants us to pray with confidence that Heavenly Father hears us, and that’s what Elder Daines just explained, that we can have confidence if we go to Him and say, “Who can I help today? How can I be Your hands or Your listening ears? How can I be Your feet today?” He will hear and answer those prayers. And as we seek to have a ministering heart and mind, we can have confidence before God. I’m sure of that, and I know it now.
35:58
Mary Richards: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m Church News reporter Mary Richards. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.
