Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING] We're from Salt Lake City, Utah, and we just returned from the California Sacramento Mission headquartered in Sacramento, California. We left Bountiful Utah, served in the Georgia Atlanta North Mission. We live in Midway, Utah. We were called to serve in the South Africa Cape Town Mission. There are many responsibilities a mission president has. When we were set apart by President Monson, his blessing really charged us and set us apart to look after the individual missionaries, their spiritual development, their well-being. Pretty quickly we realized that it was Heavenly Father's work, and so we needed to humble ourselves and find out what He wanted us to do. Every day we experienced situations where I knew the Lord was very directly involved, whether it was in protecting us or our missionaries. It was just a constant reassurance that the Lord was very much a part of all of our lives. Faith is central to almost everything we did in the mission--

the faith that the missionary who steps off the plane is going to be the kind of missionary he should and his mother expects him to be when he returns home, the faith to work with the members and have the members doing what they should be doing to help the missionary efforts move along, the faith to get up every morning and face another day. I've come to know and believe even greater how much Heavenly Father knows us individually and has a plan to help each one on us get where He wants us to be. Time after time, I'd get a letter from an elder or a sister who, after two or three weeks in an area, say, "President, I didn't like it when you sent me here. I had a problem with this area. But now I know why I'm here." I think we did see the blessings of missionary service in countless ways in the lives of our missionaries. Those that were shy just overcame it in ways that I don't think they ever saw possible. Those who lacked confidence were made powerful. We saw them just become magnificent sons and daughters of God. And every time the missionaries saw a miracle, they called President Jardine's cell phone, and then he recorded it. And we defined a miracle as seeing the Lord's hand in the work. And I didn't know how many of those we'd get, but we got three to four-- might make me cry-- a day. And then we got 80 to 90 a month. I can't tell you how many times we had convert testimonies from people who said that they were kneeling in fervent prayer to God, that He would help them find what their life's purpose was, or would lead them to the truth. And they would get up from their prayers, and literally within seconds, missionaries would knock on their door or would meet them on the streets. And if that had just happened one or two times, maybe you would say coincidence, but it happened over and over and over again. We had missionaries that had to leave our country and go up to maybe into a different country. And it was often we didn't know when those visas would come, and that affected just about everything we did in the mission, with their transfers. And we just had to have the faith that it was the Lord's work and He would provide the way. And many times, it was just the last minute when these elders were able to get into the country at war. We just had to depend upon the Lord for that blessing. We went into the mission field with great testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, but I do feel like they broadened and deepened. I really gained a strong testimony of Heavenly Father caring about the details of the missionaries' lives and of people that they were teaching again and again. And I think I knew that intellectually, but in the mission field I got to see it every day, that I have a greater understanding of why I'm here on earth as a result of having served in this capacity for the last three years. I know that Heavenly Father directs this work, and it's the Church of Jesus Christ, and that if we're obedient and do our very best, that He will provide.

Returned Mission Presidents

Description
Three newly returned mission presidents and their wives share the blessings they experienced during three years of service.
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