Education—an Essential Foundation for Accomplishing Our Missions

By Milton Camargo

First Counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency

From “The Education, the Mission, and the World,” a devotional address given to students at Brigham Young University–Hawaii on February 28, 2023. For the full address, visit speeches.byuh.edu.

The world needs to know what you know about the wonderful blessings Jesus Christ offers those who follow Him.

a collage of people studying and learning new skills

The Lord loves you and is counting on you to bring His light to everyone with whom you interact. He wants your life to be a beacon to your friends and relatives. He expects you to bear testimony of the reality of our Heavenly Father—that we are all His spiritual children and, therefore, all humanity is our brothers and sisters. The Lord also expects you to bear testimony of His sacred mission on this earth—that He is the Son of the living God, that He was, that He is, and that He is to come (see Doctrine and Covenants 68:6).

Education as a Religious Responsibility

President Russell M. Nelson, our prophet, said to young adults in May 2022: “Education is very important. I consider it a religious responsibility.”¹ The Lord does not see education as separate and distinct from spirituality.

In fact, in Doctrine and Covenants 88:77–78, He gave us a commandment to “teach one another,” promising His grace to help us learn “all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God.” And what are those things that pertain to His kingdom? The list in verse 79 might surprise you because it doesn’t just include only gospel topics like faith and repentance. It also includes (with some of my possible considerations for how they might relate to what we can study):

“Things … in heaven”: The stars and planets? The earth’s atmosphere? Aviation? (I think Elder Uchtdorf would agree with me!)
“Things … in the earth”: Construction? Manufacturing? Industrial processes? Information technology? Health science and all its ramifications? Zoology? Biology? Biochemistry? Agriculture?
“Things … under the earth”: Geology? Mineralogy? Oceanography? Marine biology?
“Things which have been”: History?
“Things which are”: Current events? Political science? Sociology? Business? Public policy?
“Things which must shortly come to pass”: Weather forecasting? Financial projections? Analysis of possible pandemics? Technological advancements?
“Things which are at home”: Domestic affairs like education, taxes, law, local projects of urban development, and food production planning?
“Things which are abroad”: Foreign affairs? International relations? Diplomacy?
“The wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms”: Different forms of government, cultures, and languages? Anthropology? Artistic and literary traditions around the world?

Wow! That’s much more than we could learn in a lifetime (and I’m sure the Lord wants us to learn more too!).

And why does He want us to learn all this?

It’s not just so you can get a good job—although that is important to Him. But His vision is broader than that, and His purpose has more eternal consequences. It’s described in verse 80: “That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you.”

Education as a Preparation for Our Missions

This, it seems, is the great purpose of education—to be prepared for the mission God has given us, to be ready when He sends us again.

Some of you may say, “Send me again? I already served a mission. Will I be sent again?”

In reality, there is one only mission. If you served a full-time mission, that was a marvelous period of focused service to the Lord. But it wasn’t the beginning nor the end of the mission He sent you here to fulfill. And what is that mission? Consider these descriptions from the scriptures:

“We will make an earth whereon [God’s children] may dwell; and we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” (Abraham 3:24–25).
To Adam and Eve, an angel of the Lord said, “Thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore” (Moses 5:8). And Adam and Eve “made all things known unto their sons and their daughters” (Moses 5:12).
After His Resurrection, the Savior said to Peter, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17), and to His disciples, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:19–20).
When Christ appeared in the Americas, He said, “The works which ye have seen me do that shall ye also do” (3 Nephi 27:21).
In the days of Joseph Smith, He said: “Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men. Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day. Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work” (Doctrine and Covenants 4:1–3).
And today, through the Lord’s living prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, He tells us: “The gathering of Israel is the most important work taking place on earth today. One crucial element of this gathering is preparing a people who are able, ready, and worthy to receive the Lord when He comes again, a people who have already chosen Jesus Christ over this fallen world, a people who rejoice in their agency to live the higher, holier laws of Jesus Christ. I call upon you, my dear brothers and sisters, to become this righteous people. Cherish and honor your covenants above all other commitments. … Let God prevail in your life.”²

If I could summarize our mission, then, I would say it is this:

To keep God’s commandments, His higher and holier law.
To follow Jesus Christ with all our heart, doing everything in His name.
And to make all of it known to God’s other children, gathering them back to Him in preparation for the Lord’s Second Coming.

How can getting an education help you prepare for this mission? There are many possible answers to this question, but here are a few thoughts:

Learning about the heaven and the earth can deepen our reverence for Jesus Christ, who created them.
Learning about the past, present, and future can open our eyes to the consequences of obeying—and disobeying—God’s commandments throughout human history.
Learning about the “perplexities of the nations, … countries and kingdoms” can make us more sensitive to cultural differences. The better we know the hearts of the people of the world—their needs, their values, and what matters to them—the better prepared we are to share the gospel with them in a way that they will understand, embrace, and cherish.

I have complete confidence that you and I can accomplish this mission because Jesus Christ has accomplished His. Our success depends on Him, and He was true to the mission His Father gave Him—a mission that only He could fulfill.

I testify that Jesus Christ accomplished His mission so that you can accomplish yours. “He marked the path and led the way.”³ Now your mission is to follow His path—the covenant path—and make it known to everyone. As Lehi said, “How great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth” (2 Nephi 2:8). Make it known to your children, to your brothers and sisters, to the Lord’s sheep, to all nations—even unto the end of the world. Make it known by word and by example, sharing and living what you know about the Savior. Make it known by serving God and His children with all your heart, might, mind, and strength in this wonderful work of gathering Israel, of preparing a people who are able, ready, and worthy to receive the Lord when He returns. This is your mission, and it is indeed a wonderful mission.

Safeguards against the World

The world needs what you have to offer as a covenant follower of Christ. The challenge you will face is that you will have to live in that world while also fulfilling your important mission. And it’s a complicated world, where the adversary uses subtle weapons, seeking to deceive you, making wrong seem right, or slowly twisting what was originally right until it becomes something wrong.

Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said at the October 2022 general conference, “In the busyness of our daily lives and in the commotion of the contemporary world in which we live, we may be distracted from the eternal things that matter the most by making pleasure, prosperity, popularity, and prominence our primary priorities.”⁴

How does this happen in our lives? It goes something like this:

We complete our education, get a good job, and start to receive more and more material blessings. We start to like those blessings so much that we forget Him who is the giver of the blessings.
We buy a pair of black shoes for work. Over time, we need a brown pair for weekends. Then we need a blue pair to match the new outfit we just bought, but they won’t go with our favorite outfit—white shoes would look better with that. Soon we have 10 or 15 pairs of shoes. However, we still only have one pair of feet!
With our spouse, we determine that spending time together as a family is an important priority. After all, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” says that “successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of [among other things] wholesome recreational activities.” So we decide that each year our family will go on an exciting new outing. Over time, trips become longer. They extend over Sundays, in places where there is no chapel to attend Sunday meetings. They also become more expensive, and we end up spending everything we have—along with some things we don’t have! I think you’ve heard this phrase: “We buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like!” But we put all the photos on our social media page, and we hope for a lot of likes!

President Nelson referred to this challenge when he said: “What does it mean to overcome the world? It means overcoming the temptation to care more about the things of this world than the things of God. It means trusting the doctrine of Christ more than the philosophies of men. It means delighting in truth, denouncing deception, and becoming ‘humble followers of Christ.’ It means choosing to refrain from anything that drives the Spirit away. It means being willing to ‘give away’ even our favorite sins.”⁵

Remember these teachings of our prophet. Write them down, and reread them when you are tempted by the cares of this world:

Care more about the things of God than the things of this world.
Trust the doctrine of Christ more than the philosophies of men.
Seek and delight yourself in eternal truth, as found in the scriptures and in the words of living prophets and apostles.
Be a humble follower of Christ.
Abstain from anything that drives the Spirit away. The Holy Spirit is real, and it is a wonderful gift in your lives. You can and should always seek the promptings of the Spirit.
Abandon your favorite sins!

President Nelson also quoted this promise from President Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994):

“Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will

deepen their joys,
expand their vision,
quicken their minds, …
lift their spirits,
multiply their blessings,
increase their opportunities,
comfort their souls,
raise up friends, and
pour out peace.”⁶

Honestly, does the world have anything that compares to what the Lord offers you?

The world needs to know what you know about the wonderful blessings Jesus Christ offers those who follow Him.

The Lord Is Counting on You

I conclude with what I wrote at the beginning: The Lord loves you and is counting on you to bring His light to everyone with whom you interact. He wants your life to be a beacon to your friends and relatives. He expects you to bear testimony of the reality of our Heavenly Father and of the Lord’s sacred mission on this earth.

Your education is crucial to your God-given mission. And your mission is crucial and desperately needed in the world today.