LOVE THIS!

From Jeffrey Holland in an address given to New Mission Presidents, June 2007

"Presidents, you will have occasion to ask, and your missionaries will have many occasions to ask, why is this so hard? Why doesn't it go better? Why can't our success be more rapid? Why aren't there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don't people just flock to the font? Why isn't the only risk in the mission field pneumonia, just being soaking wet all day and all night in a baptismal font? Why isn't it easier President? Why do the people not understand, President? Why do they reject us, President? Can't they see? These are things that a nineteen and a twenty and a twenty-one year old will ask. They are things I have asked.

"I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. It is not Church doctrine per se, it's just my feeling to you as you prepare to go into the mission field. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation was never easy. We are the Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, He is our Great Eternal Head. Why would we believe, why would be think, that it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? In turn, how could we possibly bear any moving, lasting testimony of the Atonement if we have never know or felt anything of such an experience? As missionaries we are proud to say we are disciples of Christ -- and we are. But mark my word. That means you must be prepared to walk something of the path He walked, to feel something of the pain He felt, to at least occasionally sometime during your mission shed one of the tears of sorrow that He shed."