“Walking with New Members in the Journey of Discipleship,” Liahona, Dec. 2024.
Walking with New Members in the Journey of Discipleship
New members need friends in the Church, service opportunities, and nurturing with the word of God.
A young, growing testimony requires patient nurturing when converts transition from a world of familiar friends and experiences to new worship practices and cultural conventions in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
These new members come from varied walks of life to embrace the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. They need guidance and friendship to grow in His light. “Those of us who are at different points in the long journey of discipleship must extend a warm hand of fellowship to our new friends, accept them where they are, and help, love, and include them in our lives,” taught Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Helping new members into the fold requires sensitivity, awareness, and sometimes self-reflection. “I believe we can do much better and should do better in welcoming new friends into the Church,” Elder Soares said. “I invite you to consider what we can do to be more embracing, accepting, and helpful to them.”
“I was in a new culture full of new vocabulary and traditions. I felt like an outsider in most conversations and questioned my worth.”
Amy Faragher, shown with her husband, Nathan, and their children
Show Sincere Interest
Amy Faragher knew the Church was true the moment she stepped through the church door. “I could not deny the witness I had received from the Holy Ghost,” she says, “so I chose to be baptized.”
About a year after joining the Church as a 19-year-old, she received a calling to serve in Relief Society. A year later she was called to serve as Relief Society president of her young single adult ward. “Those experiences really enriched my life,” she says. “I was all in.”
Serving in this calling as a relatively new member of the Church had its challenges. “I was in a new culture full of new vocabulary and traditions,” she says. “I felt like an outsider in most conversations and questioned my worth as a member.”
Despite the difficulties, Church members received her with warmth and open arms, like one sister who asked to be her friend. “Such associations softened the challenge of learning a new life,” Sister Faragher says. “I felt part of a community. Ward members didn’t judge me for not understanding Church culture or doctrine.”
Five years after joining the Church, she got married. She and her husband lived in various wards over the years. One in particular was accepting of her convert experience, even inviting her to share her story as a member of a panel at a ward activity.
In other wards she attended, Amy was eager to participate but didn’t feel included. She began to doubt her place in the Church. “At times, the loneliness was unbearable,” she remembers. “I continued to attend sacrament meeting and fill my calling in the nursery but suffered from a high level of anxiety.”
When her efforts to seek support from her ward during a challenging time didn’t bear fruit, she sought counsel from her stake president. As she spoke with him on one occasion, she divulged the ache of her heart. He responded quickly and asked to hear more. They talked at length and committed to meet regularly. “The stake president was genuinely interested and listened to all I had to say,” she recalls. “He was the first to ask the hard question about what was going on.”
Her counseling with the stake president and receiving other professional counseling helped her feel Heavenly Father’s love, an important step in her healing. “Everything changed for me. I’m finding my place,” she says. “I’ve learned I don’t need to be ashamed of being a convert.”
“It’s important for leaders to acknowledge and care for new members,” she suggests. “Ask the hard questions and learn how they are really doing. A calling or responsibility suited to the new member’s capacity is also important to the confidence of a new member. It’s not a burden to serve, as some leaders believe.”
Amy recently earned a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling, and she conducts stake workshops on mental health and assists with the Church’s addiction recovery program.
“Christ has required us to take up our cross and follow Him. For certain new members, they need to give up their friends. They need to give up their habits. They give up a lot of things so they can turn a new page, and they need a lot of support—sometimes even just a smile and a kind handshake.”
Ka Bo Chan, shown with his wife, Maila, and their children
An Opportunity to Serve Others
Ka Bo Chan was born in Hong Kong and moved to the United States while young. He learned about the Church as a teenager from a college roommate when studying music in Portland, Oregon. Gospel truths resonated with him, and he was baptized and confirmed. A short time later, he flew to Estonia to continue his studies.
Finding the Church in Estonia proved difficult. Gradually, with no contact with members and limited understanding of prayer and scriptures, his faith cooled.
During this time, he met Maila, a young lady in school. “Everything about her glowed,” he says. He began sitting by her, and soon they became friends.
Maila wasn’t a member of the Church and was unfamiliar with religion. But as their relationship continued, she said that if she were to marry, it would be for eternity.
During his studies, Ka Bo felt a spiritual tug to return to church and sought the branch in his area. The first activity he and Maila attended was a branch Christmas party. She felt the activities were awkward and it left a bad impression, so she vowed to never return. But Ka Bo continued to attend church.
One spring morning, Maila told Ka Bo he had to choose between her and the Church. Without flinching, he said he needed the Church and urged her to attend with him.
His blunt response caused her to wonder if she was missing something; her feelings softened, and she agreed to attend again. The next Sunday, she was immediately greeted by the smile of a sister missionary. She felt drawn to her, as if they had been longtime friends. Her apprehensions faded, and she was baptized and confirmed two weeks later.
Ka Bo and Maila didn’t understand the nuances of scripture and gospel practices, and there was nothing in their experience with their new religion that was familiar, not even the music. But they attended church and tried to learn the gospel.
When missionaries were transferred, Maila didn’t know the members well and felt unsure in new circumstances, like in Relief Society, where she once wondered if she was in the wrong place. Soon the bishopric felt inspired to call her to play the piano in Primary. “Playing the piano gave me place and purpose,” she says.
Mari and Jorma realized they were going counter to Finnish culture and tradition when they joined the Church. Yet they changed course in life and never looked back.
Nourished by the Good Word of God
Mari and Jorma Alakoski know the road of conversion. In the years since joining the Church in their native Finland, they have served in various capacities, including Mari’s calling as an assistant temple matron and Jorma’s calling as counselor in the first temple presidency of the Helsinki Finland Temple.
But like many converts, they had to fight for their faith. When missionaries met them, a testimony didn’t come as easily to Mari as it did to her husband. At first, she was uncomfortable with the Book of Mormon and pushed it away by touching it as little as possible with only the tip of a finger.
Later, when she saw tears streaming down the cheeks of her husband while he read the Book of Mormon, she thought to herself, “If this book touches him so deeply, it must be valuable.”
Her resistance gradually softened, and she began her quest for truth. In time, she too shed tears when reading the Book of Mormon.
Mari and Jorma realized they were going counter to culture and tradition when they joined the Church. Yet they abruptly changed course in life and never looked back. “The Church brought great contentment into our lives. I almost think that everything was too good to be true. We were received very kindly in the congregation,” Mari says.
“A lot of new things suddenly came into our lives,” she says. Sundays were no longer leisure times but packed with Church meetings, which were held three times throughout the Sabbath day at that time. “This required dressing the children for each meeting and timing their meals and naps.”
Every day of the week required time for gospel-related activities and meetings, whether home evening, Relief Society, or Primary. “On Saturday, we prepared food and clothes for Sunday,” Mari says.
Tha Alakoskis didn’t make a grand announcement when they joined the Church, but their family and friends gradually came to know. “Not everyone understood our decision,” Mari recalls. “A few friends stopped talking to us. But that was a small price to pay for all the precious things that came into our lives. Nothing and no one could influence us to abandon the Church. My father, after learning about our conversion, settled any discord when he said, ‘Let them do as they see fit. They are grown people. They know what they want to do.’”
In time, the couple desired to be sealed. They planned, sacrificed, and traveled two days by bus and one night by ship through Sweden and Germany. They finally arrived at the Bern Switzerland Temple, the only temple in Europe at the time.
The Alakoskis are an example of those who receive a witness of the gospel and forge ahead, much like Nephi, not knowing everything beforehand but following the Spirit (see 1 Nephi 4:6). They took cues from fellow members to learn the doctrine and how to apply the gospel to their lives. When they didn’t know something, they studied or asked for more direction.
Counsel from an Apostle
“We have long been taught how we can help our new friends to feel welcome and loved in the restored Church of Jesus Christ. They need three things so they may remain strong and faithful throughout their lives,” Elder Soares taught, echoing counsel from President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008).
“First, they need brothers and sisters in the Church who are sincerely interested in them, true and loyal friends to whom they can constantly turn, who will walk beside them, and who will answer their questions,” Elder Soares continued.
“Second, new friends need an assignment—an opportunity to serve others. … It is a process by which our faith can grow stronger. …
“Third, new friends must be ‘nourished by the good word of God’ [Moroni 6:4]. We can help them to love and become familiar with the scriptures as we read and discuss the teachings with them, providing context to the stories and explaining difficult words.”
Helping new members brings spiritual and temporal blessings to converts and lifetime members alike. It strengthens the Church in multiple ways. “Our new friends bring God-given talents, excitement, and goodness within them,” Elder Soares taught. “Their enthusiasm for the gospel can be contagious, thereby helping us revitalize our own testimonies. They also bring fresh perspectives to our understanding of life and the gospel.”