by There was a missionary I served with in Congo and Cameroon named Elder Soto. During Covid he was serving in a ward in Switzerland and came up with an inspired program to turn around his ward’s struggling missionary program. Here is the unity plan that he put in place:
It all starts with unity, you need to have unity with yourself and unity with God. You need to be in unity with God through studying the scriptures and keeping the commandments and having the Holy Spirit. (To learn more about this unity with God read John 14 and John 15. They talk about how we can connect ourselves to Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father and how we can abide with them and they can abide with us.)
Next is to have unity with your companion. You cannot bring about any change in your sector if you do not have unity with your companion. (Elder Soto helped me write another article about tips to get along with your companion.)
Next step is as soon as you enter a new ward or a new branch, call the bishop or the branch president of the ward. Introduce yourself to the bishop, tell him your desires to work hard in the ward and that you are excited to serve in his ward. Next, ask him what his vision for his ward is, not the ward mission plan, but what are his goals or his vision for the ward to be like. Ask him what he wants the ward to be like in one year or in two years. Ask him what his focus for the ward is, what he wants it to be like. Ask inspired questions. Make him think. When you ask him inspired questions, he will see that you are serious about this work and will build a lot of trust with him.
During this call to the bishop, ask him who the Elder Quorum President is, who the Relief Society president is, who the ward mission leader is, who the ward missionaries are, and who the ward clerk is. If you are missing their phone numbers in your phone, ask him for them.
Next is to get to work fulfilling the bishop’s plan. Missionaries come to help fulfill the bishop or branch president’s plan. We don’t receive revelation for the bishop’s ward, it’s his ward, we ask him for his vision for the ward and we help him with this plan. It’s like with Ammon (Alma 17). Did Ammon go in and say, “Ok I’m going to start teaching, ‘King, who can I teach the gospel?’” No. The first thing Ammon did when he met the King was tell the King that he wanted to be his servant. How did the King respond? The King was shocked. He said, “This is a really good guy. I’m going to give him my daughter to marry.” Then Ammon started doing everything that the King wanted him to do.
At the end of the phone call with the Bishop, ask him for the names of 5 families that he is worrying about in the ward and their phone numbers.
Elder Soto told me that the Bishop of the ward in Switzerland told him that he wanted there to be unity among the members who were already in their ward. He didn’t ask for more baptisms or for inactives to come back, he just wanted more unity among the active members. Elder Soto said that he dropped all the investigators that they were teaching to fulfill the Bishop’s plan and that once it was completely fulfilled then they started to focus on bringing new people into the Church.
Elder Soto got to work meeting with these struggling families and finding out what their problems are and he reported back to the bishop in a few days.
Elder Soto said the first two weeks visit as many active members as you can. Have short visits (about 15 to 20 minutes. 30 if they have questions and stuff) and share deep spiritual experiences of your own so they can see in you a devoted disciple of Christ. By doing this it will push them to share their own spiritual experiences and that’s how you know which member is on fire or not. They will respect you a ton if they see you’re not kidding around.
The first person the missionaries should seek to have unity with is the bishop. In order for there to be unity with the bishop the missionaries must be there to work with him, not by him. Missionaries must be a servant to the bishop and help him in his goals if they want there to be unity.
Next is to meet with the Ward Mission Leader or the 1st counselor of the Elder’s Quorum. See if there are ward missionaries, if not observe the members of the ward or the ones you have already visited and see which ones are the most spiritually “on fire” the ones who are overflowing with testimony and enthusiasm. After you have found these members, present their names to the bishop so that they can be called as ward missionaries.
The next step is to build unity with the 1st counselor of the Elder’s Quorum and the 1st counselor of the Relief Society. Create a plan together that will cover inactives, convert, and members. Call it “Unity.” In order to fulfill this vision you are going to have to work hand in hand with the auxiliaries.
A next very critical step is building unity with the ward missionaries. This may be the most important step of the entire plan. Before doing this you want to make sure that you have the MOST spiritual members of your entire branch as the branch missionaries. They need to be the hottest spiritually. This is how Elder Soto described it to me, “If you want to build a big fire, you don’t divide the coal into separate areas, you put the 5 pieces of coal together and you put them in the center. When they are together they are going to burn very well and are going to create a good big fire.” Put the most spiritual members, with the other most spiritual members as ward missionaries then hold a meeting with all of them.
In preparation for this meeting, prepare a treat or meal for them. Elder Soto said that since a lot of the members in the ward were Latinos, they made delicious Peruvian cookies. The key is to make them something that they would like. Missionaries in Cameroon could make fufu and grilled fish or Ndolé or Poulet DG. Missionaries in Congo could make fried chicken and fufu and saka saka. Make them a large amount of food and try to make the recipe perfectly. It’s not just about giving them something to eat, it’s about doing something for them, it’s about the amount of love that you are putting in it. The missionaries need to impress the members as much as they can. They need to show love, real love in the way they prepare the food for the members. At this point you might be asking, “What, make food? Are you crazy?” Well this isn’t my idea it’s Elder Soto’s and apparently it worked so just try it ok? 🙂
Also Elder Soto says in preparation for this meeting you want to be as spiritual as possible. Study and meditate on the scriptures beforehand. In the meeting, share a small spiritual thought and a small summary of the “Unity” plan that you created with the 1st counselor from the Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum. Next, talk about the importance of unity. Unity with the bishop and with the ward mission leader and unity with the other ward missionaries. Make it clear that they are a family now and that you have shown love for them by making them food that is a token of how they should show love to each other. Tell them to love each other, to invite each other over to eat, to do family home evenings together, to take time to visit each other in the week like a family would. Tell them to call each other and to be family. Before these ward missionaries can do these things to investigators, they should be doing it amongst themselves. When the investigators see the love and unity that all these members have for each other, they will want to continue to come to church and join the church.
Testify with everything you have that they will be blessed as they work on having unity and love in the ward.
The next step after organizing the ward mission program and the ward missionaries is to start working with the most spiritually “on fire” families. Teach the families that they need to introduce themselves to new investigators at church, that they need to be super nice to the investigators, that they need to invite them over to eat together and invite them over for Family Home Evening. The main thing that will get investigators to come to church is the love that the families show to the investigators. That will help them want to continue to come to church. The biggest indicator that someone is going to stay active in the church is how much they come to church on Sundays. They can understand the gospel and be reading the scriptures like crazy but if they aren’t coming to church then they will not be active members. If the members are helping them stay active by being super welcoming and having love then they will come to church. With the strongest families in the ward, also do missionary work with the kids. Have the families invite their neighbors and friends to FHEs with the missionaries and do the missionary referral dialogue game that I’ve written about.
To be continued…
This article isn’t done yet. There are still some missing pieces but in the meantime try to implement the parts of the plan that are already here.
