Lessons on Missionary Service
Lesson No. Twenty-Three

Humility by Michael Lunt

Section 4 of the Doctrine and Covenants outlines the virtues necessary to qualify a missionary to effectively preach the gospel.  Included is the virtue of humility.  This virtue was critical to me while serving in Florianopolis, Brazil from 2001-2002.  Humility enabled me as missionary to relate to a different culture and also to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord to build up the Kingdom in a way that would advance the work in Brazil.

There is not a more fun-loving, friendly, and humble people than the people of Brazil.  Their culture is one that promotes family, friends, relationships, and a no-stress approach to life that is far different from the fast-paced world often seen in the United States.  They trade work and money for the opportunity to spend more time with their families and friends.  On most days everyone leaves work or school around noon and goes home for several hours to have a big meal with their families and to spend time together.  The cost for this quality time is that they live in humble circumstances.  Spirituality and family are more important than material goods.  As we would teach, oftentimes neighbors and friends would crowd into a house just to hear messages about Jesus, because they felt that was more important than anything else they could be doing.  Their humility makes them teachable and in tune with spiritual things.  Where church meetings were held was not important.  We held church meetings in our apartments, member’s homes, and anywhere you could imagine, but the spirit was always present.

The importance of humility became very relevant to me later in my mission.  Early on as a new missionary I was very motivated to teach and to baptize as many people as possible.  We had a lot of success from a numbers perspective. The Brazilian people oftentimes would commit to be baptized very quickly, but keeping them active was a challenge.  About six months before my mission concluded the Area Presidency asked the missionaries to focus on retention and seek to teach families and priesthood eligible men, with an emphasis on the educated population.  It wasn’t unusual in an area in Brazil to have hundreds of baptized members with only a handful at meetings.  The Area Presidency believed that converting educated men and families would strengthen the church and its leaders.  My companion and I emphasized and focused on this during the last months of my mission. We weren’t concerned with the numbers but being instruments for the conversion of strong families and priesthood holders. 

From a numbers perspective this new focus made discussions more difficult and the work slower.  Instead of working in the slums and low-income areas we taught families and men in more affluent areas.  These conversions were very rewarding as we watched entire families and men accept the gospel.  They continue to strengthen and lead the church to this day.   There is no question in my mind that by heeding the counsel of our leaders we found more long-lasting and stronger converts during these months than ever before.  The numbers weren’t important but the impact on the church in Brazil was the focus.  By humbling ourselves, with an eye to building the kingdom we were blessed in our efforts.  Marco Antonio was a convert during this time, and we had hours and hours of discussion, sometimes very intense discussions.  He was a college professor, he has even done some work for BYU and he and his family continue to be a very strong part of the church in Itajai, Brazil.