Divine companion: Teaching by the Spirit
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"My assignment tonight is to address the very broad subject of the role of the Holy Ghost in missionary work, with special emphasis on 'teaching by the Spirit,' " said Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve, speaking to nearly 600 missionaries in the Provo Missionary Training Center, and another 100 mission presidents and their wives attending the 2009 New Mission Presidents Seminar, June 26.
"I have entitled these remarks 'The Divine Companionship,' " he said.
"My point tonight is to stress that the Spirit must be with you and you must teach by it when you teach because that is the way the lesson ceases to be your lesson and becomes His, becomes under the power of the Spirit a vehicle for lifting your investigators out of the temporal world.
"We are charged with the responsibility of getting people out of their ruts and routines, out of their problems and their pain, out of their earthly little arguments and ignorance and sins, and take them to the Gods — to the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost — ultimately we are to take them toward their own Godhood. In short, we are to take them to the divine. And the Holy Ghost is the connecting link which the Godhead has agreed to give us here in mortality for that heavenly connection. …
"You can't go forward in this work without 'the ultimate teacher.' He must be part of your companionship. … Don't ever forget that the Holy Ghost is the key to that knowledge."
Turning to the mission presidents, Elder Holland said, "You and we have the monumental task of taking these young, bright, willing hearts and minds, and turning them into teachers — teachers whose duty it is to teach, making sure that when they do teach, it is by the Spirit. …
"Teach the missionaries that second only to the responsibility they have to listen to the Spirit is the responsibility they have to listen to the investigator. They must have the patience, sincerity and ability to go where the investigator is, spiritually speaking, before expecting the investigator to come where they are, spiritually speaking. But people won't just leap there simply because the missionaries want them to. The missionaries have to go prayerfully and lovingly out into the highways and byways of these people's lives seeking to discern their challenges and concerns. …
"Once we have found these people, once we know our investigators, then we can find out what they believe and what they enjoy and what they hope for, as well as what they fear and anything they are struggling over. Then we must take them by the hand and lead them with 'that portion that shall be meted unto every man' as the scriptures say (Doctrine and Covenants 84:85). If we will listen with spiritual ears just the way we must see with spiritual eyes, the investigators will tell us what lessons they need to hear! …
"Missionaries today have to study harder, pray more earnestly, plan better, be more pure and teach with more focus and power than they ever did in my day as a young elder." Elder Holland said the discerning missionary will know that his teaching is having the desired effect when one or more of these things happen.
The missionary hears himself saying something he didn't plan to say and learns something from his own instruction that he did not know before.
The Book of Mormon is a pure vehicle of the Spirit because it is the pure word of God. Missionaries must use it in their teaching as often as possible.
The piercing flame of the gospel is felt in the missionary's and the investigator's heart every time a particular point of truth is made.
The investigator honestly admits that "this is a good seed being planted, that he already feels a swelling growth" (Alma 32:28).
There is an awareness by the investigator, spoken or unspoken, that the lesson is showing him a "more excellent way," and that repentance of less noble and less spiritual habits is in order.
Investigator asks soul-searching questions, usually out of this new sense of awareness.
Spirit will prompt testimony and an invitation to be baptized. There comes such joy and peace in the room, such a near-tangible atmosphere of divinity, that neither the missionary, nor the member, nor the investigator experiencing such a moment would choose to be anywhere else in all the world at that time. Sometimes tears will be shed. Always great love will be felt. It is then that the veil is thin, that the Godhead is making its presence felt, and no other time or place would be appealing to those so privileged to be experiencing this. When that moment comes, … the missionary then invites the investigator to be baptized.
"The Godhead will bear testimony of you and your companion — frail, little uncelestial souls that you are — when you have earnestly tried to become part of the Divine Order. You have prayed and studied and fasted appropriately, and have always exerted great faith. You have been obedient to the commandments, to the rules of the mission, and to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. You have kept yourself morally clean in thought, in word, in deed, and have helped your companion do the same. You have tried to develop Christlike attributes, have worked diligent hours and have tried to be a witness of God 'at all times and in all things and in all places' (Mosiah 18:9).
"If you try to live this way — try with all the best that is within you — the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost above you will smile and say, 'It is enough. We will let these missionaries and their investigators feel a portion of the power of heaven. We will let them feel the touch of our unity and our divinity. …'
"Welcome to the work of angels," he said in closing. "Welcome to the work of divinity."
