How to Prepare to Serve a Mission

As I was perusing LDS.org I came across this article that went along swimmingly with my lesson on repentance last week.  So I thought I would post it.  I was going to just put a couple of quotes but ended up putting the whole thing except for one section I removed.

Hope you enjoy it. Here it is:

Want to Prepare Your Child to Serve a Mission? Teach Repentance

Contributed By the Young Men General Presidency and Board

20 OCTOBER 2016

"Recently, one of our board members—Brother Mark Pendleton—was at a breakfast with several stake presidents and stake leaders, during which a sincere father asked a question:

“What do you feel is the most important thing I can do to help my son prepare to serve a mission?” the father asked.

"Because Brother Pendleton works in the Missionary Department, he often gets questions. Usually the questions are more general and tend to focus on various topics such as mission preparation classes, obtaining a job, going off to college, how to create outlets for stress, turning weaknesses into strengths, and helping young people be able to do hard things and not get discouraged when things don’t go their way. The list is expansive, and there has been much written and spoken on the subject of mission preparation.

"Without hesitation, the response given to this man was: “Teach him how to repent.”

"The father wasn’t prepared for this answer and appeared a little confused.

"Missionaries’ purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement and repentance.

"Preach My Gospel states, “As your understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ grows, your desire to share the gospel will increase” (p. 2). Missionary work is helping people to repent, and in order to do that, a missionary has to know what it feels like to repent so he or she can help others know how to repent. Preach My Gospel also states, “We must understand what an investigator must feel in order to receive conversion” (p. 92).

"Our youth need to understand that repentance denotes a change of mind and a fresh view about God and about oneself. Then repentance comes to mean a turning of the heart and will to God and a renunciation of sin. Without this there can be no progress in the things of the soul’s salvation. If a young person understands that true change is repentance, he or she will look at missionary work very differently.

"Repentance is an important part of a missionary’s life both personally and for teaching investigators of the Church....

..."The conversation with this father ended with this statement: “There is nothing more important for your missionary’s preparation than to help him come to know the Savior and His Atonement in this special way. Help him see repentance in a new light as a blessing and privilege and a positive lifelong experience as he learns to take the gospel from the mind deep down into his heart.” The father nodded with grateful appreciation.

"Often our youth look at repentance in a negative way, believing it's only used for the most serious of sins. This approach to repentance may include a period of time not partaking of the sacrament and keeping oneself completely free from the sin for six months or a year. Though this is part of repentance, if the focus becomes a box to check off, or ticking off the months in place of turning one’s heart and will to God, then there might be a change of habit with little change of the heart.

"We hope that every young person works on changing their heart by repenting every day. “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). One of the most precious commandments is to repent of all our sins. Repentance is the only way to return and live with our Heavenly Father."-- LDS.org, October 20, 2016 -- click on the title link above to read full article.