A future missionary shares 3 ways she's preparing to serve a full-time mission - by doing missionary work now! A guide for future LDS missionaries

Hello! This is Kendall (the oldest daughter of the Overzealous Missionary Mom). I am a college student and I attend a young single adult branch in my area. I plan to submit my mission papers in a few months (just waiting to get close enough to my 19th b-day!). 

Today I'm going to share some of the things that I've been doing to prepare to serve a full-time mission. Of course, I attend my church meetings and institute, do my church calling (YSA FHE Director, yo!), pray, study, exercise, etc. You know, all of the regular things... But there are a few additional things that I have started to do lately that have really helped me to have a better understanding of missionary work in more of a hands-on way.

Elder Bednar says that we should become missionaries before we become full-time missionaries...which, according to Elder Bednar is actually the most important thing we can do in preparation to serve a full-time mission. "My earnest hope for each of you young men is that you will not simply go on a mission—but that you will become missionaries long before you submit your mission papers, long before you receive a call to serve, long before you are set apart by your stake president, and long before you enter the MTC" - this is from a talk titled, "Becoming a Missionary" by David A Bednar (link to the talk here) 

How do we do this? Here are 3 things that I recommend: 

#1- Inviting people to Sunday church meetings and/or church activities 

One of the easiest things to do is start inviting. Full-time missionaries invite people to be baptized, but they also invite people to learn more, meet with the missionaries for lessons, read the scriptures, pray, study, attend church, go to activities, etc. Every day. Inviting people to church or activities is simple way for you to start. You already go to church on Sunday every week and you probably go to 1 or more other church-related meetings/classes/activities (seminary, mutual, ward activities, etc for youth and institute, FHE group, & other YSA activities for young adults), so why not bring a friend or two along? I've tried to do this more and more as I get closer to my 19th b-day.

Do you have a friend or relative who lives nearby that is a church member but who hasn't been attending church or activities lately? Sometimes people miss a few times and find that it gets harder to get back into going to church the longer they miss. It may just take a friendly offer to give them the courage to return to church. Or they may feel more comfortable coming to an activity. You won't know unless you ask!

The same concept applies for non-member friends and relatives. Sometimes people get the idea that non-members aren't allowed at church or church activities - which is definitely NOT true! You may have some friends who would love to come to Mutual or YSA activities, but didn't know that they were welcome. I go to YSA activities whether I'm interested in the activity or not, but if I'm going to invite a non-member friend I like to find out ahead of time what the activity will be so I can make sure it will be something my friend would be comfortable with before I invite them. For example, I have a particular friend who hates sports, so if I know we're playing soccer on Monday and then having a BBQ on Friday, I would probably start by inviting her to the BBQ instead of starting with soccer!

Don't forget to think ahead and explain what will be happening if this is their first time at church or at an activity (i.e., "first we have a hymn and prayer, then the sacrament will be blessed and passed to the congregation" or "We will have a prayer and a short lesson, then we will be playing volleyball")

I've invited a lot of people to church and activities...and 100% of the time I have had a positive response. Nobody has ever been upset or offended because I invited them to something. People always have been nice to me, even if they don't want to go.  They don't always say YES, but a lot of times they DO say yes and end up coming! Most of the time people I've invited have come to church or an activity and had a good experience. 

These sort of invitations are especially successful if you are able to pick up your friend and go together. It's a lot less intimidating to go (or return) somewhere unfamiliar if you aren't walking in totally alone.

When we are missionaries, we will be inviting people to do things all day long, so this is a great way to get practicing.

#2- Working with the full-time missionaries (attending and participating in teaching appointments). 

If you have the ability to do so (ie, if there are full-time missionaries in your area that you are available to help), they are often looking for church members who can go to teaching appointments with them. Sometimes missionaries need another member to be there because of the rules about who must be present during a teaching appointment (ie, full time missionaries aren't supposed to be teaching a person or 2 people of the opposite sex without other church members there also to balance out the numbers...this keeps a meeting from being misunderstood as a romantic situation).

Something else that is just as important is to have church members there when the missionaries are teaching so that the investigator (or less-active member) that they are teaching is developing friendships with local church members who will remain in the area long after the full-time missionaries are transferred. This is really important, because if an investigator only has a friendship with the full-time missionaries, but isn't developing relationships with members of their new ward or branch, they are not very likely to stay active in the church once the missionaries they know are transferred. It is vital that people who are preparing for baptism (or returning to church) start meeting and becoming friends with ward members.

Another aspect that this can help with, is that sometimes investigators feel like missionaries aren't "real people" - which, of course they are "real people," but investigators only see full-time missionaries in their current role as an authorized representative of Jesus Christ. They don't see what they were like back at home or how they dressed before they were a missionary. Sometimes this is intimidating, because investigators might get the impression that missionaries are perfect and don't understand what it's like to be a "regular person" and to try to change their lifestyle to fit the gospel standards. Having a regular non-missionary person at a discussion can really help with this. As you share your personal experiences with the gospel as a non-full-time-missionary church member, you can give investigators the hope that regular people really can live the gospel in this world.

#3- Spending the day (or part of the day) with the full-time missionaries

I contacted some of the local sister missionaries- there are only a couple of sets of sisters in my Stake. The ones that I have worked with are the local Chukkese group missionaries (a "group" is a church unit that is smaller than a branch. Like, not enough people to be a branch. Sort of like a pre-branch). I explained to the missionaries that I'm planning to put in my mission papers later this year and asked them if I might be able to go out with them on appointments or help them with anything. I ended up having a day off of work & school that week, so they invited me spend part of the day working with them. They explained to me that in the Chukkese culture, they aren't really able to make appointments, so we mainly made drop-in visits to many families during the 5 hours I spent with them. Part of the time they spoke Chuuk, but a lot of the time they spoke English (depending on who we were visiting and what they preferred). I don't speak one word of Chuuk, so this was really a different experience for me. 

Here is a photo of me, dressed in missionary-appropriate clothing, 

heading out to working with the full-time sister missionaries for the day

In the past 2-3 years, I have gone to teaching appointments with full-time missionaries 5 or 6 times. I have also had several friends take the missionary lessons in my home and participated with that. I thought I understood what being a missionary is about. My mom (a returned missionary) always says that you can't know what its like to be a full-time missionary day after day, week after week, and month after month until you live it yourself. An hour here or there gives you a small sample, but not a big dose.  

I can tell you now from personal experience, those 1-hour appointments that I'd had with the missionaries in our ward over the years did not give me nearly as good of an idea of what being a missionary is like as the 5 hours I spent with the full-time sister missionaries that day. I feel like (even though it was only 5 hours) I got a much better sense of what is involved. The sometimes awkward situations, the unfulfilled commitments, and the frequent disappointment were easier to see when I was with them in a longer stretch. It might sound like my day with the missionaries was a  serious bummer, but it wasn't. These sisters were really great and upbeat. They love the Lord and they love missionary work. But missionary work isn't always sunshine and rainbows. The reality is that there are a lot of "no's" and a lot of heartbreaking situations. This experience had a profound effect on me. I respect the full-time missionaries so much...

Me (center) and the Chuukese Missionaries 

who recently took me along with them for part of the day

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from just going to teaching appointments with the missionaries,  that is actually a great way to become familiar with how missionaries teach. But if you get the chance, I really recommend doing more than that - going out with full-time missionaries in your ward/Stake for a whole day (or at least part of a day). Check with your local missionaries to see what they are able to do and what would be appropriate/convenient for them. I also recommend being very polite and courteous to them, since they are doing you a favor by letting you tag along. 

You don't have to be an expert in anything to start doing missionary work as a member-missionary. You are there as a helper and a friendshipper, so don't worry that you will be expected to get into teaching deep doctrine or anything like that. If you are in a teaching appointment with the missionaries, you may be asked to share your feelings about a gospel principle or to read a scripture as part of a lesson. Nothing scary at all. The full-time missionaries are the teachers, so let them take the lead.

PS- It's a good idea to become familiar with Preach My Gospel, start having regular scripture study (especially if it is studying the scriptures in PMG), and start memorizing the things that missionaries memorize can be helpful (and will be helpful in preparing to serve your own mission), but don't feel like you need to know everything to start getting involved in missionary work.

Click HERE to link to our blog post about 5 things to memorize before you get to the MTC that will be helpful in your mission preparations! 

See you in the mission field!