Musings of a Ward Mission Leader

Through most of my life I have been guilty of thinking that the calling of Ward Mission leader would be the worst calling you could ever get.  It seemed like the calling that caused everyone to flee from you.  It was also pretty nebulous as far as responsibility.  I never really knew what they did.

So in the Lord’s fine tradition of doing to you what you least want done, I was called as the Ward Mission Leader in my new ward here in Las Vegas.  Now do I not only have the calling I never wanted, I have that calling in a new ward where I didn’t know anyone.

Interestingly I had a sense of excitement when I received this calling.  Although it is still hard from a personal comfort zone standpoint I can say I still enjoy the calling.  I have learned much and I also think that it is a much better calling to have here in Las Vegas than it would be in Salt Lake.  For most of the time I have been here we have had a set of missionaries for just our ward.  Now we share them with one other ward but we still have lots of contact with them.

As the Ward Mission Leader, I had a great opportunity to watch the progress and baptism of a young lady over the past several weeks.  I count this as a great blessing to me to see the freshness and enthusiasm of a new member.  This is a young lady in her late 20s or so that is married with one young child who will be a year old next month.

Because this will be on a public blog I won’t disclose their names since I haven’t asked permission.  The story starts with me and the missionaries visiting a person who showed up on the ward records.  It was the name of the man in his late 20s so we went by to visit.  We were welcomed warmly and we found that this person had actually lived in the home for about a year.  I don’t really know how the church tracks down people and finds their addresses but they had done it in this case.  It turns out this person was married with a young child and indicated a desire to return to church.  He had been baptized as a teenager but had fallen away from the church for a time.  His little boy now left him desiring to be able to answer questions for him and teach him about God.  He indicated he would like to return to church but that his wife would not be interested.  The missionaries persisted in their visits and very soon was teaching the wife the lessons and committing both of them to come to church.  They immediately became faithful in all that was asked of them.  The sister accepted all that was taught and accepted the challenge to be baptized.  From first meeting them to her baptism was only about 6 weeks.  It was a wonderful story.

I now find myself very protective of these individuals and fear that the ward will not do their part to continue to nurture them.  I don’t really like the way that our PEC meetings are conducted and I want to suggest changes but I am also torn about what the right thing to do is.  It is really the Bishoprics responsibility but I am also a part of the Council and I think I have some responsibility to see that it runs properly.  Whatever happens I hope that these great people continue to feel welcome and included in the ward.  They have the potential of being a great asset to the ward.  Both are sharp, intelligent young people with a lot to offer.