A testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ - the Savior and Redeemer of mankind - is now and always will be the most important element of missionary work, said President Gordon B. Hinckley.

President Hinckley, first counselor in the First Presidency, was the keynote speaker June 23 at the opening of the annual mission presidents seminar, held at the missionary Training Center here. He adressed some 83 new mission presidents and their wives, as well as most of the 15 newly called General Authorities. An area presidencies seminar was held at the same time with a joint opening session.Also emphasized at the seminar was the need of creating a unified effort between full-time and stake missionaries and members at a time "when the Lord is hastening His work," and the "doors of many nations are opening."

Eight members of the Council of the Twelve and six of the seven Presidents of the Seventy attended the seminar, along with many members of the Seventy.

Mission presidents came to the seminar from across the world, including the first three ever from West Africa. Most of the new mission presidents will begin their three-year service about July 1.

Prior to the seminar was particularly eventful for Fritzner Joseph of Haiti, who is the new president of the Haiti Port-au-Prince Mission, and his wife, Marie Gina. Sister Joseph gave birth to a son in a local hospital just a day before the seminar began.

In addition to President Hinckley, other speakers in the opening session included Elders L. Tom Perry of the Council of the Twelve, chairman of the Missionary Executive Council; Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Council of the Twelve, a member of the Missionary Executive Council; and Elder Robert L. Backman of the Presidency of the Seventy, executive director of the Missionary Department.

The seminar will continue through Sunday, June 28. Other members of the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve are scheduled to address the group during the week. (Additional coverage will be in the Church News on July 4.)

President Hinckley, keynote speaker at the seminar, told the new leaders it was natural for them to have concerns about their ability to do the work.

"I assure you that the Lord will not let you down if you walk with faith and humility; I have no hesitancy in promising you that."

However, he observed, "You will be trained in greater depth than any generation of mission presidents before you were ever trained. Your fears, your concerns, sacrifices, are not new. They have been felt by those who have similarly gone forth since the earliest days of the Church."

Today's mission presidents have better transportation and smaller areas than mission presidents of earlier days, President Hinckley noted.

"Within my own experience we have moved from the time when there was not a mission president in all the world who drove a car."

One factor that has not changed over time is the responsibility of the mission president over a group of missionaries, he said.

"They become your greatest challenge, your greatest opportunity for your greatest satisfaction. Without their dedicated efforts, you cannot succeed. With their dedicated efforts, you cannot fail."

President Hinckley instructed the new mission presidents to train and trust their missionaries. In that training, "when all the mechanics of missioary work have been discussed, mastered and utilized, there is no message so important, none so new as the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Master and our King whose holy name becomes the name of the Church we go out to represent."

He recalled the words of his mission president, Joseph J. Cannon, who in essence said, "The most important thing, the most significant thing we can give to the people we teach is the certain knowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, Savior and Redeemer of the world, through whose atoning sacrifice the blessings of eternal life are made possible for all the sons and daughters of God."

President Hinckley added, "Of all the victories in human history, none is so great, none so universal in its effect, none so everlasting in its consequences, as the victory of the crucified Lord who came forth in the resurrection that first Easter morning.

"While laboring in England I saw many statues and paintings of the great men and women of English history. But great and important as are all of these heroes of the past, none could compare with the victory of the lonely pain-wracked figure on Calvary's cross. He triumphed over death and brought the gift of eternal life to all mankind. He it was who answered Job's question, `If a man die, shall he live again?'

"It was of Him that Job spoke in eloquent testimony: `For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:

"`And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.' (Job 19:25-26.)

"This Jesus, of whom every missionary should and must bear witness, was the Master of life and death, a man of miracles. It was He who made the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear. Small wonder that those who sought Him were astonished with a great astonishment. None other in all their acquaintance have done what He did."

"I hope," President Hinckley continued, "that each of you presidents and leaders will carry in your hearts a flame of faith and knowledge from which the candles of those who serve under you will catch a light and become of the very essence of their testimonies of the work."

Elder Perry and Elder Hackman conducted a workshop on stake and full-time missionaries. Elder Perry called for "complete and perfect harmony" between stake and full-time missionaries. He instructed leaders to follow the directions of the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve, that there "will be one voice in proclaiming the gospel around the world."

He said that a convert is assisted when he is supported before and after his baptism by "the united efforts of members and missionaries, under the careful supervision of caring leaders."

Elder Backman said stake and full-time missionaries should work hard together in all phases of missionary work.

"Then the missionary will be busy in the sacred processes of conversion. He'll be busy in retention. He'll be busy in activation. And he'll be busy in community service.

"We have long taught that every member is a missionary. Now we add that every missionary is a member who assists as appropriate in the ward or branch in which he serves, to perfect the saints as well as to proclaim the gospel, for these are one great work of salvation and should not be artificially separated."

Unity was also emphasized by Elder Wirthlin in his remarks.

"You are the beneficiaries of generations of experience," he counseled.

"You can have confidence in what you will be taught at this seminar."

He said that after understanding the established methods, leaders are then in a position to receive inspiration.

He asked leaders to follow a pattern of responsive orthodoxy and inspired initiative.

"To me, responsive orthodoxy means you actively seek direction of the presiding Brethren....It means that once you have learned the will of the Lord and the expectations of the brethren, you exercise voluntary obedience. It means you act in a spirit of unity, not in a spirit of grudging compliance.

"Inspired initiative means you seek the Lord's guidance to carry out the approved program. I would emphasize that inspiration comes most freely when you seek it in behalf of others," he said.