On my way to serve a full-time proselytizing mission, my Grandma Baugh told me I was still alive because I had important things to do. Years prior I had been minutes away from death in an operating room, and now here I was about to leave for the former Soviet Union. I was scared. Her message helped. And though it came in an unremarkable moment in a minivan on the freeway, her encouragement has rolled through my mind many times since.
My late grandma’s words have had staying power because they are true. Every soul is special and has a unique contribution to make in God’s work. As Pamela Druckerman, a writer, said, “somewhere in the world, there’s a gap shaped just like you. Once you find it, you’ll slide right in,” (“How to Find Your Place in the World After Graduation,” New York Times, May 29, 2015).
The work of restoration is as much ours to continue as it was Joseph’s to begin.
And yet half the time I do not believe this is true—at least for me. Quashing the voice of self-doubt is like getting rid of a housefly. Self-doubt is small, nagging, elusive. Sometimes he shouts, other times he whispers, but he’s always sending messages. Sure you are unique, he tells me with an eye roll, just like everybody else.
Yet we believe, thanks in large part to the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that each of us matters and has a work to do. In Joseph Smith’s First Vision, the founding event of that Restoration, the prophet tells us that the Father called him “by name” (Joseph Smith—History 1:17). If you have ever had someone important address you by name, you will know something of the deep value and trust that this servant of God must have felt in that precious moment.
The Restoration, as we see, began on a very personal note. And while Joseph Smith was indeed the man destined to “[bring] to pass much restoration unto the house of Israel” (2 Nephi 3:24), another tremendous truth God gave us through the Book of Mormon is that the work of the Restoration is as much ours to continue as it was Joseph’s to begin. Nephi said this restoration will occur “among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people” (2 Nephi 30:8). Every one of us, Latter-day Saint or not, can help make this happen.
How do we do it? Perhaps we start by studying the work of Restoration through Book of Mormon scriptures. Some verses speak of God restoring His children to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Others teach of our Father gathering His scattered children. These are things happening every day before our eyes. You and I are those children, brothers and sisters in the global family of God.