Today I read 3 Nephi 16. It's a really weird feeling to be reading something that was written almost 2000 years ago and read a passage of scripture that perfectly describes your time period. At least it's a weird feeling to me. But these verses in this scripture talk about our day and they also focus primarily on missionary work.
Have you ever wondered why the Lord uses such imperfect tools to move His work forward? Why does He use us? He could convert everyone in the entire world in a matter of probably an hour if He so chose, even without appearing to them personally, the Spirit could fall upon everyone in the world and everyone would be converted, so why does He use us, an imperfect tool?
As in so many other things, it is for our benefit. Have you ever wondered why President Hinkley included needing a friend in his famous list of 3 things each new convert needs? I believe it is because humans are social creatures. I remember once my dad actually getting pretty upset with my sister, my younger brother and I. He was concerned that we did not seem to have any friends or interest in making friends, at church. He explained how all humans are social creatures and desire to be with other humans and it really concerned him that his children did not seem to want to have any friends. At the time I thought he was just being a worry wort. But now that I'm older, as with SO many other things my parents tried to tell me before, I see that he was right.
I was never a rebellious child. In fact I can probably count the number of times my parents and I really clashed on 2 hands, if not on 1 hand. But there were definitely times I felt my parents did not know what they were talking about or just did not understand, that the times were different and they could not possibly understand. They DID understand and it was me who didn't see that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I'm sure every adult in the USA could say the same thing about their parents and their teenage years. But we are getting off track.
As I said before, why doesn't the Lord just use other means to convert His people and be done with it? Well for starters, He needs to worry about agency and make sure that the people are not coerced into doing anything they don't choose for themselves. Part of meeting with the missionaries is displaying that desire to believe that Alma taught the Zoramites about in Alma 32. The Lord cannot force anyone to believe who does not choose to believe on their own, that would destroy their agency. So I think that is a big reason. But the other reason is a missionary who serves an honorable mission and does what he/she is supposed to do will gain just as much, if not more than those he/she teaches during the mission.
A mission is just as much about the missionary's eternal salvation as it is those he/she teaches, perhaps more so. For those of you reading this who have never served a mission you cannot know the wonderful joy and happiness a faithful missionary experiences on an almost daily basis. You cannot truly understand the satisfaction you feel returning home at 9:30 pm completely exhausted after another hard day's work of preaching the gospel. You just don't comprehend the love you come to feel for those you teach and the heart break you feel when some of them tell you that they want to stop taking the lessons and never want to see you again. Oh yes, a mission is just as much about the preacher as it is the hearer, perhaps more so.
The Lord uses imperfect tools for His work, because it is in that very use that the imperfect becomes just a little bit more perfect. Much like Joseph Smith said about a boulder rolling downhill striking objects and knocking chips off and becoming ever more round and smooth. We are allowed to participate in this great work because some of us will not learn any other way and some of us need these experiences to grow. We are allowed to do this work because it is what WE need. And the Lord knows that. He gives us every opportunity to grow imaginable, including the ones we don't even know are opportunities. Take them all and fulfill the commandment a little bit more to become perfect. Until tomorrow.
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