Missionary Work and the Atonement, by Jeffrey R. Holland

This is an excerpt from a talk I read often on my mission...



"Almost everything I have said here has been an aid directed toward the missionary process, ultimately toward the investigator. May I close with an extended testimony about how focusing on the Atonement helps full-time and member missionaries and mission leaders.

Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion 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 missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?

You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ experienced. That would be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price.

For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul.

If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,” ¹⁶ then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way. (emphasis added by Holden)

The Atonement will carry the missionaries perhaps even more importantly than it will carry the investigators. When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out and made a hiss and a byword, you are standing with the best life this world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living Son of the Living God knows all about your sorrows and afflictions. The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane and on to Calvary. The only way to eternity is through Him—the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

I testify that the living God is our Eternal Father and that Jesus Christ is His living and Only Begotten Son in the flesh. I testify that this Jesus, who was slain and hanged on a tree, ¹⁷ was the chief Apostle then and is the chief Apostle now, the Great High Priest, the chief cornerstone of His Church in this last and greatest of all dispensations. I testify that He lives, that the whole triumph of the gospel is that He lives, and because He does, so will we.

On that first Resurrection Sunday, Mary Magdalene first thought she saw a gardener. Well, she did—the Gardener who cultivated Eden and who endured Gethsemane. The Gardener who gave us the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley, the cedars of Lebanon, the tree of life.

I declare Him to be the Savior of the world, the Bishop and Shepherd of our souls, the Bright and Morning Star. I know that our garments can be washed white only in the blood of that Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. I know that we are lifted up unto life because He was lifted up unto death, that He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, and with His stripes we are healed. I bear witness that He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, that He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief because upon Him were laid the transgressions of us all. ¹⁸

I bear witness that He came from God as a God to bind up the brokenhearted, to dry the tears from every eye, to proclaim liberty to the captive and open the prison doors to them that are bound. ¹⁹ I promise that because of your faithful response to the call to spread the gospel, He will bind up your broken hearts, dry your tears, and set you and your families free. That is my missionary promise to you and your missionary message to the world."




I figure I should post some thoughts, which will be brief. Missions are hard. Salvation is hard. My own mission was hard. It's difficult for other people to really understand it, I think, because we're told, as missionaries, to be as positive and upbeat as possible when we write our loved ones, but there were times when there was hardly anything to be positive and upbeat about. I think one of the most important lessons I've come away with from my mission is exactly what Elder Holland said. "Missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience." It will never be easy for us, and it will neverbe easy for people we are trying to teach. I have found myself, sometimes, uttering blasphemous phrases like, "My mission was a waste of time," and this is usually a result of learning about some convert of my mission who went inactive or left the church. Then my dear sweet wife rebukes me for saying such a thing, and when I stop being upset, I am unable to say such things.

If any prospective missionaries, or current missionaries, are reading this, and might be having a hard time, or are scared or fearful of the great task of preaching the gospel, just do your best, and remember that your whole mission is to help people. Your mission is not to rack up numbers to impress your zone leaders and your mission president. Find a way to love people and make them your whole focus in everything you do. When you do that, you won't be scared. It's strange how that works, but it does. You will have disappointments, and sometimes you may have so little success that you hate your life, but that is normal. Keep on going and have faith. I could say a lot of cliche things, but I won't. I'm glad I went on a mission, even if it wasn't all a piece of cake.

Converts of yours may leave the church or go inactive, and investigators may dump you, but your hope, and my hope, is that these converts will come back, that your investigators who you pray for morning and night with all energy of heart, will seek out missionaries again to be taught. It is my hope, and should be your hope, that we will see all of these people when we pass on to the myserious "other side." It will be just glorious to see a family that you baptized, and who stayed faithful throughout their lives. It will be even more glorious to see old Bill McGee, that old hobo you contacted on that park bench once who you were pretty sure was drunk and didn't understand anything you were talking about.

Oh yeah, and just so you never forget who Bill the Hobo is, you should write experiences like these in your journal so you never forget.