Mini-miracles worked by missionary couples in the mission field are strengthening wards and branches across the Church, according to Church leaders.

Couples in the United States are given "a royal welcome" as they arrive at the Missionary Training Center. They are assigned quarters in the old Royal Inn, donated recently to BYU and remodeled into the new Missionary Training Center Annex, opened the first of December.Most older couples arrive with the well-rumored misconception that they will tract, according to annex director Grant Barton, a former Texas mission president.

Instead, couples are asked to share the gospel by using their lifetime personal skills of nurturing and caring for others. These are important skills that help change lives, say mission leaders.

By drawing upon their wealth of gospel experience, they make a considerable impact. So valuable are the couples that leaders are requesting about three times the number that are available.

Couples are also valuable in strengthening younger missionaries, and they have a particular affinity for leadership training and involving other members in the reactivation process.

One couple, according to leaders, started an effort that eventually saw some 300 people back in the fold of activity.

And for the couples, the mission becomes "a beautiful, wonderful experience," according to one representative from their ranks, Sister Geraldine Anderson who recently completed a mission in Chicago, Ill., with her husband, Orval. "We've made so many friends."

The couples are often assigned to wards where active Melchizedek Priesthood holders are fewer in number. Occasionally these wards also have greater numbers of families in need of extra priesthood support.

One such ward is the Chicago 1st, an inner-city ward with 10 families for every home teacher. A number of ward members, such as Ethel Johnson, reside in nursing homes. She was baptized into the ward about a year ago.

"When I was baptized, I felt the Holy Spirit all over me," said Sister Johnson. She enjoyed attending services after her baptism, but wheeling herself to class was exhausting. She stopped attending after a while.

A few months after her baptism, Sister Johnson felt isolated from the Church and called Bishop John R. Olsen. She asked to have her name taken from the records of the Church.

Deeply concerned, Bishop Olsen called upon a missionary couple assigned to the 1st Ward, Elder and Sister Anderson from Apple Valley, Calif.

The Andersons, said Sister Johnson, "asked me to come back to Church and give them another chance."

When she came back, the Andersons were there to welcome her and communicate her need for assistance to others who were happy to help. Sister Johnson attended the temple preparation class and a few months later received her recommend, and the Johnsons accompanied her to the temple.

Going to the temple "was a great, wonderful experience," she said. "I can't tell you . . . I can't really explain such a wonderful feeling. It was a wonderful thing the Andersons did for me - a great thing.

"I should have been a Mormon a long time ago," she said. "Why did they keep it a secret so long?"

Another member also felt the caring of the Andersons. One night she called them at 3 a.m. from the hospital. "Please come visit me," said Sister Jean Tallon, a ward member. "I think I am going to die."

When the entered her room a short time later, she exclaimed, "I knew you'd come. I knew you'd come."

Sister Tallon recovered from her illness and now attends the temple preparation class in the 1st Ward.

Bishop Olsen and the ward leadership also received a boost from the missionary couple. "Most of their work was not seen but felt," he said. "They lifted the spirits of the leadership. We even conspired on ways that we could keep them here."

But instead of keeping the couple, ward members held a farewell party where they hugged the couple from California and expressed their love.

Another couple, Elder Willis and Sister Virginia Petersen of the California Riverside Mission, from Tremonton, Utah, serve in a young singles branch in the Arlington 4th Ward, Riverside California West Stake.

In just their first months in the mission field, they have already taught and baptized converts. They've also worked in reactivation and are a good influence on the younger missionaries.

"These young adults are really trying to bring people to us," said Elder Petersen. "We're all for couple missionaries. If we hadn't come, look what we'd have missed."

According to mission leaders, the satisfaction the Petersens feel is typical among missionary couples. Because of their experience in life, they are looked up to by investigators who rely on them for help in such big questions as "How can I change my life?" "How will I live after I am baptized?"

Couples don't intimidate investigators and less-active members, and easily form relationships.

Another missionary couple who illustrate these points are Elder Eldon G. and Sister Elizabeth Olsen from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, labor in the Espanola Ward, Santa Fe New Mexico Stake.

"One of the keys to reactivation is not to judge anybody but to accept them and love them, and frequently tell them we love them," said Elder Olsen. "After a while they feel it and so they know we are not there to preach to them."

They have a list of less-active members whom they visit. Some are more friendly than others. "Some let us in gingerly," said Elder Olsen. One such man, an apple farmer, had been less-active for nearly 30 years.

"One day as we left, the farmer said, `I feel very resistant to people coming into my home and trying to tell me I ought to do this or that. But you people are different.'

"I asked him if he would mind if we left a blessing on his home. He said, `That is another thing I don't like.' Then he paused and added, `Well, it wouldn't hurt.'

"We dropped to our knees and they followed. When we finished our prayer, he had tears in his eyes."

Later, the Olsens, and other less-active members, helped the apple farmer dig a trench. When he had extra cases of apples that he couldn't market, he gave them to the ward. The Olsens distributed the apples to other members.

A strong friendship eventually developed.

The couple also used another talent. "We started square dancing," said Elder Olsen. "We've had pretty good turnouts of mostly non-members. We try anything."

They also encourage members to call each other and just chat. "We've had fun fellowshipping people and we think we are making headway," said Elder Olsen. "The spirituality in the ward is lifting."

And, he added, so is the satisfaction they have in serving a mission.

"We think we are making headway. A lot of the members bring friends, and there is a good feeling among the members."