M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

The Urgent Need for Senior Missionaries
by Ed J. Pinegar

Elder Hales spoke at April Conference 2001 on the need for senior missionaries. He said, "I will speak on the urgent need for more mature couples to serve in the mission field. We wish to express our appreciation for all those valiant couples who are currently serving, those who have served and those who will yet serve." [1]

Why is there such an urgent need for couples and senior sisters? There are things that senior missionaries do that no one else is as qualified to do.

They can work with mature less actives on a peer level. They provide leadership for the branches and wards they serve in. They have a lifetime of learning patience and charity behind them. I agree with Eldon C. McKell, president of the Alabama Birmingham Mission. He called couples "absolutely vital" to the success of his mission in some areas. "They take these little branches and hold them together," he said. "They bring stability, character, integrity and trust. Any mission president could use more couples." Elder Haight seconded the motion: "Mission presidents all over the world need the maturity, knowledge, and personal skills of retired couples to help strengthen their missions today just as much as we needed them in 1963. Couples add stability to a mission. They are role models for younger missionaries, and they offer mature thinking." [2]

The list goes on and on in all the various aspects of missionary work. Believe me, you are needed in the mission field, for there is a work that only you can do.

When I served as mission president in England, we had one couple in the mission besides our two office couples. We had eight stakes and we desperately needed one couple for each stake. I called the missionary department time and time again begging for senior missionaries. They expressed their sorrow for me, but there simple weren't any available. I knew that other missions had fifteen to twenty couples, and wondered why couldn't I have just eight sets of senior missionaries. They said that they would try. I prayed and fasted, and one day an apostle of the Lord came to our mission, Elder Russell M. Nelson. We visited and he asked how he could help. I told him of my plight and he responded with, "I think I can help." And help he did. The Lord answered my prayers, and we received eight couples and three sets of senior sisters in less than six months.

The work of those magnificent couples became legendary. They baptized, they reactivated, and they strengthened the new converts and blessed the lives of all the people in our mission. The young missionaries were blessed by their strengthening presence. Our family was blessed by their love. The stakes were rejuvenated and the wards had full-time help in leadership and member work. Most importantly, the souls of our brothers and sisters were lifted and edified. Over a thousand people were reactivated and nearly a hundred were baptized because of their glorious service. And how hard was it to activate and baptize that many of their brothers and sisters? One couple said, "Oh President, this is so easy. It is just like being a home teacher or visiting teacher . . . and it is so much fun." Yep, it is fun to bless the lives of our brothers and sisters.

President Benson had admonished us to have more fun:

We need increasing numbers of senior missionaries in missionary service. Where health and means make it possible, we call upon hundreds more of our couples to set their lives and affairs in order and to go on missions. How we need you in the mission field! You are able to perform missionary service in ways that our younger missionaries cannot.

I'm grateful that two of my own widowed sisters were able to serve as missionary companions together in England. They were sixty-eight and seventy-three years of age when they were called, and they both had a marvelous experience.

What an example and a blessing it is to a family's posterity when grandparents serve missions. Most senior couples who go are strengthened and revitalized by missionary service. Through this holy avenue of service, many are sanctified and feel the joy of bringing others to the knowledge of the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. [3]

Couples who have answered this call to service couldn't agree more. Sister Loveless, who served in the Florida Jacksonville Mission after her husband's death, said, "There is so much need for the seniors in the Church to serve a mission. If you are inspired to fulfill a calling to go on a mission, don't hesitate, because your family is blessed because of it and so are you." [4]

Sister Loveless is one of countless numbers who have seen what great things senior missionaries can do. The following is a wonderful article on senior missionaries that Sarah Jane Weaver wrote for the Church News:

A stake president reported to Pres. Terry J. Spallino of the England Birmingham Mission that a small branch within his stake boundaries needed something to help it grow.

It needed, the stake president explained, a missionary couple. "The stake president said, ‘If we can put a couple there to work with the young leadership and less-active members, we can meet our goals,'" Pres. Spallino recounted. "Couples have the ability to gain trust quickly. They are loved very quickly."

Mission presidents around the world are receiving similar requests from local Church leaders who have witnessed the impact that couple missionaries—who bring years of experience, leadership, stability and strong testimonies into the mission field with them—can have on Church work…

Couples who are in good health, with no permanent debilitating illnesses and who do not have dependent children at home, or are not in their childbearing years, can serve a mission for 12, 18 or 24 months.

The missionary department indicates a great need exists for couples who can help train local leaders, activate members and fellowship new converts. Some couples serve in mission offices as secretaries, financial clerks and vehicle coordinators. In addition, some couples are also needed to work in family history, public affairs, welfare, temples, Church education, and a variety of Church service assignments.

Quinn and Wilma Washburn decided in the 1950s that they would serve a mission when they were older. Today they are in Hong Kong, serving their third mission.

"We think every couple should serve a mission for their own benefit, as well as being able to help other people," they wrote in a letter to the Church News. "Most couples, because they have such wonderful experiences, have a great desire to go again—and sometimes again and again."

Troy and Marian Durtschi Butler of the Driggs 2nd Ward, Driggs Idaho Stake, are one of those couples. Currently in Quito, Ecuador, they have also served in Argentina, as well as in other South American countries. Sister Butler, who worked as a nurse before entering the mission field, said she feels indebted to the Lord for all He has given her and wants to show her gratitude.

Today, she is assisting the mission president's wife in handling common medical problems, such as colds and flus. In this assignment, her training as a nurse is useful. . . .

Colleen Asplund, Laramie (Wyo.) 1st Ward, who is serving a full-time mission with her husband, Owen, at historic Nauvoo, Ill., agrees.

"There are times when we get very lonesome for our familiy," she said, [but then] adding that her missionary experience—explaining Church history sites and participating in a nightly musical performance for visitors—has been a highlight in her life.

Elder Asplund agreed. "It has been a wonderful, wonderful experience," he said. "We have, for the first time in our life, spent 24 hours a day, seven days a week together. We have learned so much. We have had the opportunity here to study history and journals." . . .

Noel Burt, president of the Connecticut Hartford Mission, said couple missionaries not only keep small areas of his mission running but also they keep the mission office running. "They comment, ‘We are here to serve the elders and sisters so that they can do a better job.' They do just that," he said. "They work their hearts out" ("Missionary Couples Fill Variety of Roles in Furthering Lord's Work," Church News, 14 Sept. 1996).

" Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Morm. 9:22). Everyone needs to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Everyone needs to be nourished and strengthened by the good word of God.

Brother and Sister Jacobs took this scripture in Mormon literally and sought to teach all over the world. They were first assigned to the Eastbourne Branch in England. They strengthened the members, brought less active members back, and baptized more members of a part-member family. And when they returned home from England, they continued to preach and teach, and I had the joy of witnessing the baptism of two of their friends from England here in Provo. They freely made their life a mission for the Lord. They have been back to England on their own to nourish their friends. Recently they returned from a mission to China where they taught English as a second language. Yes, they have gone into all the world and fulfilled the words of Matthew: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28:19).

What made Brother and Sister Jacob such a force for good? Just living the gospel, and thereby loving it and wanting to share. The Lord admonished Peter to do the same, "But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren (Luke 22:32). You do not need to be the prophet to go out and teach with conviction—all you need is to love the gospel, to live it, and to have the desire to share it.

It has been my experience that senior missionaries simply radiate their love for the people and for the joy of teaching—nourishing people in the word of God. Every month as a mission president I invited the couples to our home for a "couples' meeting." They each stood and reported their stewardship. They were spotless and blameless, and they were full of joy in the work of the Lord. They expressed their weakness and dependence on the Lord in the work, thus fulfilling the words in the Doctrine and Covenants: "That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers" (D&C 1:23).

They proved Ether's words that in their weakness they would be humbled and the Lord would make them strong (see Ether 12:27). They were a part of the "marvelous work [that is coming] forth among the children of men" (D&C 4:1).

Senior missionaries are now all over the earth. They serve on every continent. They often go as a lead couple to prepare the way for a nation or area to receive the proselyting effort. They are like angels. Just as Angel Moroni prepared the Prophet, so will you be even like unto angels of God preparing the way and assisting in the work. "And ye shall go forth in the power of my Spirit, preaching my gospel, two by two, in my name, lifting up your voices as with the sound of a trump, declaring my word like unto angels of God" (D&C 42:6).

But you can't be someone's angel until you put in your mission papers, and then the Lord through His prophets will assign you to the place where you can bless lives. "And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" (Romans 10:15). You first agree to do His will, just as Christ did the will of the Father, and then the you can be an instrument for good in the Lord's hands. And yes, the feet of them that bring good tidings, that preach the gospel and bring souls to Christ are beautiful, and you shall be blessed.

There can be no greater joy than helping some one come unto Christ and receive the blessings of exaltation.

Adapted from, Lengthen your Shuffle,by Ed J. Pinegar, Covenant Books 2002

[1] Robert D. Hales, "Couple Missionaries: A Time to Serve," Ensign, May 2001, 25

[2] David B. Haight, "Couple Missionaries—‘A Wonderful Resource,'"Ensign, Feb. 1996, 7

[3] Ezra Taft Benson, Come Listen to a Prophet's Voice, 74

[4] "The Service of Senior Missionaries Leads to Many New Friends to Love," Church News, 20 May 1995

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