Lesson 21: The Latter-Day Miracle of Missionary Work

We have all had lessons on missionary work that only served to make us feel discouraged, embarrassed, and/or ashamed.  Or we have been asked to compile a list of friends (again) that we could share the gospel with.  Those lessons have their place in the Church.  Well, not the first type of lesson; that sort of lesson is never valuable because it doesn't lead to different behavior.  So, the activities I am going to share here are not directly geared towards those types of activities.  However, I believe that each activity here (there are 2) can and will, if done well, lead our class members to renew their conviction to share the gospel and undertake new efforts to do so.

Activity 1:

1. Review what was discussed last week, especially about strengthening our friendships with those around us who are not of our faith.
2. Ask for some class members to share what they have done this past week to implement the ideas from last week.
3. Read the 3rd paragraph in Section 1 ("Let us as Latter-day Saints . . .).
4. Discuss how these sorts of small steps to be better friends will make it easier to fulfill the command to share the gospel.  Be sure here to treat being better friends as exactly what it is-- a way to be a missionary.  So, if someone is being a good/better friend to those around them, they are being a missionary.
5. Discuss again on ways of reaching out in true friendship to those around us who are not of our faith.  Focus on building relationships of trust (to use the old missionary term :)  ). 

Activity 2:

1. Divide the class into two parts.
2. Ask the first group to read Section 3, paragraph 3 ("We ask that parents . . .") and then discuss specific things that they are doing to fulfill the challenge of President Hinckley in this part to prepare their children for future missionary service.
3. Ask the other group to read Section 3, paragraphs 8-9 ("Along with the need . . .") and then discuss specific things they are doing to fulfill the challenge of President Hinckley in this quote to prepare to serve a mission themselves in the future.
4. Come back together and ask each group to share the things that they came up with.
5. List them on the board and look for similarities and differences.
6. Discuss as a class

Activity 3 (You may consider this a cop out, but I believe this would be effective):

1. Identify someone you know that is a convert and would be comfortable sharing their conversion story with others.  This could be a person that is part of the class or not.  You might even use technology to skype in someone that you know from outside the ward/branch you live in.  This could be especially powerful, if it were someone that you met and taught on your own mission.  Preferably, the focus of their story would be how regular members helped them to become interested and learn more about the gospel.
2. As a class, discuss what stood out to each person as they listened to that account. 
3. Invite anyone in the class who feels so moved to share part(s) of their conversion story.

Using These Activities:

Three activities is more than normal, I admit, but I was having trouble focusing on just one.  Of course, there are ways to adapt each of these activities to meet the needs of your class.  Many of them are mentioned in the specific activities themselves.  So, instead of going through those, I want to explain what I think is the important part of each of these.  First, we are more motivated to do things that we feel like we are already doing well at.  Mind you, our perceptions do not need to be accurate; as long as we feel like we are good at something, we are motivated to keep trying.  So, in these activities part of the focus is on helping the class members to feel good about their efforts to do missionary work already.  The most Christ-like people I know have always done this with me.  They encourage me even when I am probably not doing much well and I try even harder afterwards.  So, by focusing on what the class members are doing (Activities 1 and 2) already in missionary work, they will feel more desire to try even harder to do missionary work.  That is what we want.  The last activity is clearly based on the power of testimony and story.  We all get excited when we hear about missionary success stories.  So, by sharing one of those and then inviting others in the class to also share, we are creating a climate into which the Spirit can touch individual's hearts and increase their desire to participate.

I hope that one of these ideas will prove helpful to you.  Please let me know these ideas work.  I am eager to learn of their value.