The doctrine of Christ
E-mail story
It's easy. Send a link to the story you were just reading to a friend. Just fill out the form on this page and we'll send it along.
Your name and e-mail address are transmitted to the recipient. Otherwise, it is considered private information; see Privacy policy.
PROVO, UTAH
The doctrine of Christ — that He came into the world to do the will of the Father, to draw mankind to Him through repentance, baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end — was the subject of the presentation given by Bishop Richard C. Edgley Jan. 10 to departing couples at the annual seminar held at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah.
Bishop Edgley, first counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, invited individuals at the Seminar for New Missionary Training Center Presidents and Visitors' Center Directors to read passages from 2 Nephi 31 and other scripture and to comment on their meaning.
Emphasizing the importance of retaining new converts once they have accepted the gospel, Bishop Edgley shared a personal experience.
Delayed at an airport, he met and conversed with a man, a minister from another faith. They ended up sharing a rental car together.
From their conversation, he put the man in touch with missionaries after he returned to his home in southern Arizona. The man eventually embraced the gospel and asked Bishop Edgley to attend his baptism.
"This is where it gets interesting," Bishop Edgley said. Many members of the man's new ward were present for the baptism and, after it had been performed, the bishop invited certain members to stand. They included the president of the elders quorum the man would be part of as a prospective elder, the Sunday School teacher who would teach him, the home teacher who would be visiting him, the home teaching companion he would have, the family history consultant who would help him with his genealogy, and the ward employment specialist who had arranged temporary employment for him while he searched for something more permanent.
"This is the doctrine of Christ," Bishop Edgley said, to have missionaries to bring someone to Christ and to have others rally around him to help him endure to the end.
"I know why you're here and not sitting on a beach sipping lemonade," he said. "You're here because you feel the same way I do. I bear my witness this is the Lord's work. It is true. Our Heavenly Father and Christ explain it to us and the Holy Ghost confirms it to us."
