Solitary Samuel: First of vast force
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In some respects, missionary labors haven't changed much since that day in June 1830 when Samuel Smith, the 22-year-old younger brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith, completed his first day as a missionary.
After walking 25 miles and being rejected at four homes and thrown out by an irate innkeeper that evening, he spent the night sleeping under an apple tree.
Samuel began his labors with only a knapsack full of copies of the Book of Mormon — a solitary missionary with no companion, no formal preparation in a missionary training center, no organized missionary lessons to teach.
Today, 175 years since Samuel was called and set apart as the first missionary of the Church, rejection is still part of the work. But in many other respects, the Church's missionary effort has vastly matured.
From those simple beginnings has come an army of more than 905,000 young men and young women and couples who have served missions since 1830. Today, nearly 52,000 missionaries serve in 339 missions organized in 160 countries. They enter their fields of labor armed with testimonies, well-organized material and supported by priesthood leadership.
Missionary work has been a hallmark of the Church since its earliest days. Joseph Smith, setting the standard and example of missionary service, traveled thousands of miles in perhaps as few as 14 months, oftentimes preaching to hundreds in a congregation, teaching with such power and authority that many requested baptism on the spot.
In Kirtland 1837, a season of economic depression, when a spirit of criticism and evil speaking threatened the Church, Joseph Smith said to Heber C. Kimball, "Brother Heber, the Spirit of the Lord has whispered to me. 'Let my servant Heber go to England and proclaim my gospel, and open the door of salvation to that nation.' "
"It is difficult for us to comprehend the enormity of that call," said President Gordon B. Hinckley, then first counselor in the First Presidency in the April 1987 general conference. "Such a request from one ordinary man to another would have been incredible. It meant leaving a family destitute. It meant traveling to New York and crossing the sea when he had no money. It meant that a man with very little schooling . . . would go to the great cities of the British Isles among a people known for their education. . . .
"Suffice it to say that Heber C. Kimball and his six associates, at the call of Joseph Smith, left their homes, traveled over land and sea, and laid the foundation of a mighty work in the British Isles," continued President Hinckley, describing how they baptized many hundreds.
Whether it was Parley P. Pratt preaching the gospel in Chile, or President Heber J. Grant opening missionary work in Japan, or the first missionaries to Europe, the South Pacific, Asia, Africa or eastern Europe, the history of missionary work in the Church is a chronology of countless miracles that followed faith and sacrifice.
In Kirtland, Joseph Smith founded the School of the Prophets, in which the elders of the Church, "gave the most studious attention to the all-important object of qualifying themselves as messengers of Jesus Christ, to be ready to do His will in carrying glad tidings. . . ."
Apart from this effort, early missionaries received little other preparation. The first organized training for missionaries began in 1925 at a mission home in Salt Lake City. In 1961, the Language Training Institute at Brigham Young University started teaching Spanish, later adding other languages and changing its name to the Language Training Mission.
The Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, was established in 1978 to provide modern facilities and teaching programs, focusing on scriptures, languages and missionary methodology. Since then, smaller missionary training centers have been built in other countries, totalling 17 in all.
In September 2004, in the most dynamic revamping of missionary labors since the first missionary discussions were introduced in the 1950s, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles created a 230-page publication titled, "Preach My Gospel" to guide missionaries through every aspect of the work.
Missionary work is "a basic and fundamental work of the Church," said President Hinckley. "It was begun before the Church was organized, and there has never been a period in our history when it has not gone forward. Even in times of world wars, when the number of missionaries was greatly reduced, the work has never entirely ceased.
"You never can foretell the consequences of this work," he has said on many occasions.
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