A high percentage of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often mistakenly called the “Mormon Church“) are converts. The Church of Jesus Christ has a remarkable missionary program. By mid-2012 there were about 58,000 Mormon missionaries giving full-time service all over the world. Typically, young men would depart for two years of Mormon missionary work at age 19, and young women would depart for eighteen months of missionary work at age 21. However, in the October 2012 General Conference of the LDS Church, Prophet Thomas S. Monson announced that the qualifying age for young missionaries would be lowered to 18 for young men and 19 for young women. With that announcement, applications for full-time Mormon missionary service soared by nearly 500%.
Most Mormon missionaries are not only youthful, but they are self-supporting in their service. They devote themselves fully to their work in bringing souls to Christ, arising early in the morning for study and preparation and spending the day teaching and serving. Missionaries are trained and commissioned to find those whom the Lord has prepared to receive the gospel. Everything depends on the spiritual insights acquired independently by the investigator. Missionaries will not baptize a person unless the person receives his or her own spiritual witness, after sincere prayer, through personal revelation, and unless the person fully repents and is prepared to keep God’s commandments.
People prepared to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ have generally had one or both of two types of experiences. Some have begun to experience an almost painful yearning for truth and some of these have searched far and wide without finding it. Others have come to their own conclusions about what true religion is, and they find that Mormonism teaches those truths they have partially come to on their own. It is common for people prepared to receive the gospel to have experienced a miraculous insight, dream, or vision that causes them to recognize immediately that the Mormon missionaries are messengers from God.
Missionaries are moved around within their areas of service to keep investigators from joining the LDS Church because of their affection for the missionaries. Missionaries will not baptize anyone unless that person is fully prepared. Missionaries teach the precepts of the gospel of Jesus Christ using the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the teachings of ancient and modern prophets. Investigators read and pray about what they read and what the missionaries have taught. They must receive confirmation directly from God in order to qualify for baptism. This is especially important regarding the Book of Mormon. A spiritual witness that the book is true means that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that the original Church of Jesus Christ has indeed been restored in modern times and has power and authority from God.
Repentance is necessary to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ. At baptism we take upon ourselves the name of Christ and therefore witness of Him in our actions and character. New converts promise to keep His commandments from then on, and they renew that covenant weekly, when they partake of the sacramental emblems in Sunday meeting. The following standards must be kept:
- Keeping the Law of Chastity, which forbids any sexual relationship outside the bonds of a legal marriage between a man and a woman.
- Paying a full tithing (10% of one’s income) to the Church. Paying tithing brings wonderful spiritual and temporal blessings and builds one’s testimony of the gospel.
- Living the “Word of Wisdom,” which means abstaining from the use of alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, recreational drugs, and the abuse of prescription drugs.
- Attending church on Sundays and serving in “callings.” (The LDS Church has a lay clergy, so everyone serves in order to run the Church.)
There are many investigators of the LDS Church who love its precepts and receive a witness that it is true, but they cannot bring themselves to live according to the standards of the gospel, set by the Lord, or to commit to living according to God’s commandments into the future. Some of these find that they are ready later on in life.
Other investigators will face any difficulty in order to honor their new-found witness. They commit themselves fully to follow Christ in the face of family disapproval, loss of friends, and even loss of employment. The Lord rewards those who are willing to make these sorts of sacrifices. Over time, as family and friends observe the blessing membership in the Church is for the new convert, they soften, and they become more accepting. The Lord and church leaders help with employment and other challenges that may arise.
I am a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I received confirmation of its truth directly from the Lord, and have never looked back. It is the greatest blessing I have ever received, and I thank God for finding me every day in my prayers. Keeping the required commandments have also proven to save me from many possible miseries in life. They are protective and enable people to enjoy the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.
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