Elder Duncan began by meeting with our District and Zone Leaders. He asked them, “what makes missionaries happy?” The answers were working, teaching, baptizing and having the Spirit. He encouraged them to help their missionaries have a vision of what is possible. He told the story of Florence May Chadwick who learned to overcome the fog in her attempt to swim from Los Angeles to Catalina Island.
In the main meeting he began by helping the missionaries understand the “Why” of missionary work by talking about how God loves all his children, especially missionaries. He referred to the last verse of the hymn “Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd” where it states “Make us Thy true under-shepherds, Give us a love that is deep.” We begin to have charity by desiring and praying for it. He quoted Dallin Oaks talk Desire to teach them that desires dictate our priorities which shape our choices which determine our actions.
He explained that missionaries are building bridges from investigators to the Savior and in order to do that missionaries have to listen to and understand where their investigators are beginning as well as having a vision of seeing them in the temple as their goal. He used a video of Naaman to teach that obedience leads to faith. When missionaries express their faith through a positive attitude and combine that with effort, they can reach “Frontiers of Faith” and attain their goals. Elder Duncan is sitting in the center of each of our zone pictures:
Westwood:
South Bay
Penninsula
Metro
Marina
Lakewood
Central
