by During the mission, I created a theory on how to create “missionary members”
Here’s how it goes: there are 3 types of members 1, the inactive member, 2, the active member and 3, the missionary member.
Like a chemical reaction, to have these members go up the ranks for less active to a missionary member requires an activation energy and that is where the missionary comes in.
The missionary provides the needed spirituality to get an inactive member to an active member and then to a missionary member.
My philosophy is that the easiest way to get someone to become super spiritual is to directly involve them in missionary work, because once they catch that missionary spirit it’s impossible to stop them. When you have the missionary spirit, it makes you the best member of the church that you can be.
Here’s an example, we had an inactive member called Fr. Paul. He hadn’t come to church in years but he was still very believing. When we started teaching him, we also started teaching his fiancé. We had him be there when we taught her about the Book of Mormon about the Restoration. He beared his testimony about the Book of Mormon to her and that the Church was true. We could feel the Spirit. And of course, we invited her to church. And he had to come with her to church since that he helped teach her and was like her spiritual guide now.
When the inactive member teaches his friends, that will help them want to come back to church because they will be like a spiritual guide to their friend and they will both progress spiritually together.
There was a less-active kid in Yaoundé called Fr Loic. He hadn’t come to church in a long time. I took a special interest in Fr. Loic because I knew that he had lots of potential in his young life.
So, what I did with Fr. Loic is that I would set up appointments where we would work with him in sector.
We would call him, go to his house, and expect to work with him. In an earlier article, I said that less active members were sometimes capricious and sneaky. The first 3 times we tried this he wasn’t ready and basically ran away from us. But we didn’t give up, the third time he was ready. Earlier we had done the member referral game and he had referred to us 21 of his friends. It was incredible, he had a lot of friends that he was ready to share the gospel with.
So, we got to his house and he had on his white shirt and tie. It was incredible. We worked all day, walking up and down the neighborhood. He was showing us his friends and we taught them it was great. See how easy it is.
You just need to throw the inactive member into missionary work, and they will grow spiritually. When members work with the missionaries, they teach the pure doctrine they testify and they feel the spirit. Involve everyone of your recent converts in your missionary work.
My goal with Fr Loic was to prepare him spiritually to have a strong testimony through working with us and to prepare him to serve a mission. That was my vision for him. And it still is, I talk with the members in that branch in Yaoundé to know how Fr Loic is doing and if he is preparing to serve a mission.
It’s not by coercion that we do these things, it is by us missionaries giving the activation energy necessary to help people make these changes in their lives an it’s easiest with the members. I say, “why bother with people who are outside of the church when we can do it first for people inside the church?” help them first have the change, give them the missionary spirit through involving them in missionary work then have them bring you their friends.
Also, I have another philosophy. Before you expect people to help you, you should first help them. The things that they need the most help is spiritual. Spiritually scratch their back is what I say. Itch the thing that is bothering them the most, mostly that is sin or a lack of gospel knowledge. Something that really irked me a kid was when the missionaries came over for dinner in my ward back home, they would come and they would eat then they would leave. Or they would ask us for people to teach then leave. I found out later that I was irked because the missionaries never itched us spiritually, they never got to know me personally and they never asked me how my scripture reading was doing or if I had questions. They never taught my family in depth about the gospel. they barley gave a full Restoration lesson. So, because they never helped us spiritually, we never helped them in return. It’s funny as missionaries you guys are full time ministers right? So, you should be blessing and helping people spiritually but when the missionaries left our home, I never once felt spiritually edified. the scriptures say that the blessing of receiving a prophet is a prophet’s blessing but I didn’t feel any missionary blessing growing up nor did I ever feel inspired by the missionaries so I never helped by letting them teach my friends.
You missionaries should be getting to know each member individually, visiting them regularly, having them work with you in missionary work so that you can get to talk to them and know how they are doing. Teach powerful lessons to them that are inspired according to what they need so that they will be inspired and be touched to have confidence in you.
