Introduction
Welcome to the most successful pre-mission training available….
Unlike the intensive, 24-hour a day training you will receive in the MTC, this book will outline for you a program you can use as you go to school, work, date and do all those things pre-missionaries do. It may be hard to believe, but it is possible to do all that you do and still prepare for your mission. I am convinced you can because I have helped thousands of busy youth in our region of the Church prepare. The keys are found in what I learned as I worked with the Youth Guides at the Arizona Temple Visitors’ Center. I must say, however, that it will only work if you work the plan I outline in the rest of the book. Through trial and error I forged a program that trained pre-missionary age youth in missionary work. In so doing, I amassed a vast treasure of information I can share with you.
First, you have to decide where you are in your preparation.
Last minute? Catch the plane in two days? Read on….
If you’ve stumbled upon a copy of this book in a bookstore, or at the home of a friend, and you are so close to departing for your mission that you have run out of time to do anything but pray for a dramatic intervention, please turn to Appendix A and learn about a newsletter I call The Helaman Son Letters. The Letters can come to you once a month during your mission if you complete and send in a subscription form, plus the amount calculated for your mission. Each issue will bring thousands of words of encouragement in the form of letters from former missionaries who have been on missions and have advice for your personal journey as a servant of the Lord. I once corresponded with more than 130 missionaries in 21 counties around the world, and have in my files more than two million words from the field written by missionaries in all stages of their missions. This vast storehouse of firsthand knowledge was the basis for a wonderful newsletter I published for 9 years and sent to my Helaman Sons while they were on their missions. It was so popular with the former Youth Guides that they told me it was the letter they most anticipated receiving during the month. I have re-created it using the best of past issues. Follow the subscription directions and you, too, can receive this wonderful, spiritually uplifting newsletter and missionary training tool during your mission. Missionary stories and lessons learned are timeless and will help you as you “put your shoulder to the wheel” in the work.
Got your call? What you can do in the next two months….
If you have already received your mission call, and you have a couple of months to prepare, then this book will be of value to you. In addition to subscribing to The Helaman Son Letters, you’ll want to go first to the chapter on Fast Tracking. There I have tried to condense everything down into a two-month time frame. Using the outline in this chapter, you can pick up the basics and learn a few of the most important concepts you’ll need to know before you leave. It will help you become a more successful missionary as you reach the MTC and go into the field. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Helaman Son Letters described in Appendix A. If you subscribe during your mission, it will help you review the things you learned in Fast Tracking, and be a strength to you in time of need.
You have time … up to a year or more. What to do….
If you are a young man or woman preparing for your mission, and you have not received your call or there is up to a year or more before you send in your papers, this book will be of immense value to you. The Youth Guides established a highly effective method for training pre-missionaries. I have outlined this method and how you may take advantage of it as you prepare for your mission. Take the opportunity to skim through its pages, stopping from time to time to sample its words of wisdom. Within these pages is a tremendous story of faith and works that will buoy you up day and increase your faith in your fellow youth who are being marshaled by the thousands in the cause of Truth.
However, if you have a year or more before you receive your call, this book can be one of the most valuable tools you will find as you prepare. It is devoted to training you to become the best missionary possible as you follow the simple suggestions and report your success to your family, friends and leaders. It will help you outline a path to follow during the months that remain before your mission, and instill within you the principles of effective missionary work.
This book is really written for youth who have not yet received their call, but who are currently preparing for their missions, and is about youth who found themselves in the same boat. By the time they left they were prepared for their missions. If you follow the lessons we learned in the Youth Guides, you, too, can become successful as a missionary. That’s a big promise, but it is one that I can back up. You see, we learned (or re-learned) some simple rules that helped us to become the most successful pre-mission youth training program in the Church.
As an example, one of rules we had was that you had to study the Gospel for 30 minutes each day, 210 minutes a week, and you had to report that you had studied. You did that by filling out a Weekly Report form and giving it to your youth leader. On the back of the form you were encouraged to write something about your week for your leader to read. However, because we all worked and went to school and still managed to have time to put the Youth Guide program in our lives, we designed ways of getting things done that can work for you.
Did you notice that our standard was to study the Gospel? That didn’t mean that we had to read the scriptures alone. Taking into account that we had to go to school and work we were allowed to listen to tapes by General Authorities as we traveled in our cars, read current books by them, study from the Missionary Guide or listen to the tapes from that program. We could also read Church magazines, gaining up-to-date information from the General Authorities and filling us with inspirational stories. There were lots of ways during our day that we could accomplish the goal, without waiting until we were so tired and it was late at night and we fell asleep reading the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon was our basic standard, but we didn’t stop there.
Some people don’t like to read, but wouldn’t go anywhere without their portable CD player. What about investing in Church CDs? That seems like a natural. Also, there are times at work when pulling out a Church magazine and reading in an article fit right in with what was happening at that time. Well, more about that in the chapter about Standard of Excellence.
We learned many things in the Youth Guides. We learned that you don’t have to be the most popular Mormon youth in the ward or stake to be really successful at missionary work. We learned that if you just set up some basic rules and encourage everyone to follow them that your success can become legendary.
In the annals of modern day Church missionary history, I believe that you will find there is nothing that compares in breadth and depth to the story of the Youth Guides who served in the Gardens at the Arizona Temple Visitors’ Center. It is the story of an unmatched legion of youth whose missionary labors and accomplishments are the basis of numerous local legends. In a county of almost 3 million people, these young men and women came from 28 stakes and over 100 wards, were called and set apart by their Stake Presidents, with the intention of becoming the most outstanding missionaries the Church has ever known.
Buoyed by faith, hope and charity combined with sweat, toil and tears, they rose to the challenge of missionary work in the most unique program for youth the Church has ever sponsored. Their tremendous courage reminded us of the Ancient Stripling Warriors. Therefore, this book is dedicated to the modern-day equivalent of the Helaman Warriors, the ones I call my Helaman Sons and Daughters. With their faith they moved monsoons, with their courage they confounded the learned, and with their indomitable spirit they taught the basic principles of the Gospel to literally millions of their earthly brothers and sisters. All of this was done within the confines of the quarter acre of ground known as The Gardens of the Arizona Temple. Not an ordinary tract of land, but the place between the gleaming Arizona Temple and the Visitors’ Center, buffered from the world by these two marvelous buildings, and filled with the beauty of a reflection pool surrounded by a variety of flowers, shrubs and trees especially planted to enhance the wonderful message and beauty of the Gospel.
Out of the thousands of youth who were members of the only program like it in the Church, I have selected 52 whose stories will provide you with a year’s worth of inspirational Sunday reading. These are youth that I was personally involved with before and during their missions. We counseled together, struggled in leadership positions together, fought Satan together, went to the temple together and became the best of friends. With their permission I will share their innermost thoughts and feelings about the Gospel and the work. We’ll be with them in the Gardens and go with them to lands near and far. From each you will learn lessons they learned as they worked to become awesome missionaries.
Although it is complicated and has been difficult to put into words, I will explain in Chapter One who and what the Youth Guides were. We’ll look at the organizational structure and the things that we were able to do within it. We’ll suggest things you can do in your home, ward, or stake that will benefit your missionary preparation.
Chapters 2-53 will be stories from my files recounting the struggles, trials and accomplishments of my friends in the program.
Appendix A will outline what The Helaman Son Letters was and how you can become a part of that wonderful publication.
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