Today I read Doctrine and Covenants section 79 and 80. They were both only about 4 verses and both were revelations given to men to go forth and preach the word of God. They were so similar and short that I decided to combine them into one post as there is really only one thing to talk about with both sections, missionary work.
I got to thinking the other day, why is missionary work so important to Latter-day Saints? We catch a lot of heat for our missionary efforts and are accused of everything from shoving our religion down other people's throats to brainwashing our members. And yet we are not the only religion that proselytizes nor are we the only religion that encourages its members to spread the word of God.
So why do we, and other religions, place such a high emphasis on missionary work? It is because we know the worth of souls is great. We all know that this life is not all there is and we want everyone to have the best quality of life both in this life and in the life to come possible. We want people to be truly happy. A few weeks ago I was driving to work and saw a billboard that had most of the major religious symbols on it with the words, "You know they are all scams". Underneath was information for a local atheist group meeting time and place. It stayed up for about two weeks and then the time for the meeting was gone so it was removed but every time I drove past it I was reminded of Alma 30, where Alma confronts Korihor and who also accused Alma of scamming the people. Alma's response was that he received no compensation for his preaching so why would he do it if not for their eternal well being? He also invited Korihor to look around and see how happy the members were and then see if he still felt they were being scammed.
There are very, very few members of the LDS church that are unhappy in their religion and if they are, I will bet that in at least 90% of the cases it is because of some personal sin. There is a reason the root of the word Gospel means the good news. Missionaries who are living the commandments of the mission field are very happy people. Members who live a good and faithful life, no matter what their trials are have a happy life. I have found that much like Alma told his son the only thing that brings real unhappiness in this life is sin.
That is why missionary work is so important! Because we want people to be happy and live the best life possible. People, when they find out I am LDS, and sometimes after I explain what that means, always look at me with a mixture of horror and pity. It is usually followed up with some ridiculous statement of how they could not live without their coffee, tea, alcohol or sex. And yet after such a statement they will vehemently deny being addicted. Go figure. And yet if you were to get that person to do some deep soul searching, are they really happy? Are they fulfilled? They are not, they drink alcohol to forget their pain and troubles or the stress of their life. They drink coffee because they are overtired from not enough sleep. They sleep with whomever because they cannot find someone to spend the rest of their life with. Everyone of those people have a need that the living the Gospel of Jesus Christ could fill.
I have a friend at work. We attend different religions, but both of us love Jesus Christ and we frequently will talk about religion. Not comparing mine to hers, but rather we have a couple of employees that could benefit from having Jesus Christ and His teachings in their life and we frequently talk about what a difference living the Gospel of Jesus can make in people's lives. We understand that the only thing living the gospel does for people is make them happy, and in a lot of ways, safe.
So to answer our original question, we have missionary work because we love our neighbors. We have missionary work because we want people to be happy. We have missionary work because we are learning to be like our Father in Heaven. All are correct answers and there are probably a dozen more we could give but they are all along the same vein. The next time you find yourself thinking, "That person could use the Gospel in their life" pray to Heavenly Father how you can help that person and you will be amazed at the good you can do in their life. Until tomorrow.
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