AREA PRESIDENCY MESSAGE
Fishers of Men
Missionary work is not an event or an activity; it is part of who we are as we live the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In order to talk about becoming fishers of men, I would like to share two experiences.
After I concluded my studies, my wife, Alessandra, and I moved from the USA, where we had studied, back to our home country of Brazil. We were starting our adult lives, and I was seeking employment. It was a difficult period of our lives as we did not have a lot of resources, but we were doing our best to be spiritually and materially self-reliant. During this time, I saw an opportunity for a job with a company that I admired a lot. I knew that I did not have the required professional experience; however, during the interview, I was prompted to talk about the two years that I served as a full-time missionary for the Church. As I spoke about my mission, I found myself sharing the plan of salvation and the word of wisdom, amongst other things. It was a very easy and natural conversation.
I like to run, and I would participate in running groups where we would train and run together. Many times people would ask me why I would not train with them on Sundays or participate in races that took place on Sundays. I would always answer by saying that Sunday was the day that I went to Church with my family. This answer often triggered a follow up question: Which church do you go to? As I answered the second question, a third question would almost always follow that would allow me to share our basic beliefs.
When I had those experiences, I never thought much about them until I read the Lord’s counsel to Peter Whitmer in Doctrine and Covenants 30:5: “Behold, I say unto you, Peter, that you shall take your journey with your brother Oliver; for the time has come that it is expedient in me that you shall open your mouth to declare my gospel; therefore, fear not, but give heed unto the words and advice of your brother, which he shall give you.”
This invitation to open my mouth to declare the gospel had a personal impact on me. It was as if I were reading: “Behold, I say unto you, Ciro, that you shall open your mouth to declare my gospel”. I then realized that in the above experiences I was proclaiming the gospel as commanded in the scriptures.
Often, when we think about missionary work, we think about inviting our friends to come to our homes with the goal to have full-time missionaries there to teach the gospel to them. This is great, and we should continue doing it. But what I was doing during those two experiences is also missionary work. I was sharing the gospel in a normal and natural way. This is what we are called to do: to love, share, and invite people to come unto Christ in a normal and natural way.
We usually have the expectation that missionary work should bring immediate results. We cannot measure our success in proclaiming the gospel by the number of people who eventually join the Church through our efforts. We never know the impact and reach of our words and testimonies. For example, the two experiences that I mentioned have not resulted in baptisms up to now. But I am happy that I opened my mouth and proclaimed the gospel, and I continue to talk about the gospel with others. Sometimes the seeds that we are planting will take a long time to grow and to bear fruits. At other times it will happen faster. Our responsibility is to do our best in opening our mouths and in helping people feel the love of God.
To illustrate this, we can look at the conversion of Parley P. Pratt. When he came across the Book of Mormon, he was almost immediately converted and baptized. In contrast, it took Brigham Young two years of studying the gospel before he was baptised. Therefore, it is so important for us to love, share and invite. Even when people do not immediately act upon our invitations, we continue to love, share and invite as the Saviour Jesus Christ has taught us.
In Matthew 4:19 we read the following: “And he saith unto them, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” This is the same invitation that the Saviour Jesus Christ is extending to each one of us: to follow Him and share His message.
So what do we share? In 2 Nephi 25:26 we read: “And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.” We talk of Christ. In the above verse we could replace ‘our children’ to ‘our friends’: “that [our friends] may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins”.
We should do this in a normal and natural way. People will want to know more about the Saviour and His gospel because they know us. Missionary work is not an event or an activity; it is part of who we are as we live the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ciro Schmeil was sustained as a General Authority Seventy in April 2020. He is married to Alessandra Machado Louza. They are the parents of two children.