Lessons on Missionary Service
Lesson No. Seventeen

Be True to Your Trust

A mission president’s primary responsibility is to prepare missionaries for future service – The first question asked in the Returning Mission President’s Report at the end of our mission was:  “Describe what you have done to help missionaries develop spirituality, leadership, and other personal qualities.  To what extent do you feel you have been successful in preparing missionaries for future activity and service in the Church?”  Our Church leaders believe that a mission president’s primary responsibility is to prepare missionaries for future service to family, Church, and society.

As a mission president I taught my missionaries the importance of them being true to their trust as missionaries believing this will best prepare them to be true to the various trusts they will be given throughout their lives – to be true to their trust as a husband or a wife, or as a mother or as a father, as a member of the Church, and as a citizen of their country.

I learned that it was important for missionaries to feel the love of the Lord and their mission president.  I also learned that in some ways it may be even more important for missionaries to know that the Lord and their mission president trusts them. 

I learned that it was important to be direct with any missionary who violates his trust to make sure that he knows what is expected in order to get back into trust quickly.  Missionaries want to be trusted and they usually make the necessary effort to have the trust of the mission president.

Our last charge to our missionaries was to Be True to Your Trust – This was the message of our last edition of The Iron Rod in June 1993.  The last three paragraphs of that message were:

“Missionaries who are true to their covenants and have faith in the Lord experience a mighty change of heart on their mission.  This has happened to all of our missionaries who have been true to their trust.  These missionaries come from many different backgrounds.  Some are old, some are young, some are elders, some are sisters, some are from the city, some are from the country, some have been to college, some have not, some come from large families, some are the only child, some have active parents, others do not.  In many ways they are individual and different.

“However, in the most important ways they are all remarkably the same.  It starts because they have been “true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted” (Alma 53:20).  Missionaries who are true at all times are wonderful examples of how the doctrine of oneness works as they become one with the Savior.  They are given “faith, hope, charity, and love, with an eye single to the glory of God” (D&C 4:5).  They become true servants of the Lord able to act in his name as they develop the Christ-like attributes of faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, and diligence” (D&C 4:6).  Like the stripling soldiers they follow the example of the Savior as they think more of others than of themselves.  (See Alma 56:47)

“As we conclude our service in the Kentucky Louisville Mission we have come to know that the final test of a mission president and his wife is that they leave behind them in their missionaries the conviction and the will to be true to their trust at all times. Now as all of us look to the future, our charge to each of you, our beloved missionary sons and daughters is to be true.  Be who you have been called to be – a servant of the Lord.”

Testimony – Being true to our trust is important for everyone who serves in the Church in any way or at any time.  Being true to our trust is especially important in our families.  Fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, and children of all ages all have an essential role and a trust in the family.

If we are true to the various trusts we are given throughout our lives, we will receive in return the greatest gift of God which is peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come.