By Carrie A. Moore
Deseret News
Friday, Nov. 07, 2008
LDS missionaries are often told they won't be able to feel God's spirit or guidance as well or as often when they return home, but a former mission president tried to dispel that notion at Brigham Young University on Thursday.
Russell Osguthorpe, former president of the South Dakota Rapid City Mission, told dozens of returned missionaries they renew their covenant with Jesus Christ each week as they partake of the sacrament. "That they may always have his spirit to be with them," is part of that prayer, he said. "We can have the spirit of the Lord with us all the time."
After serving God full-time for 18 months to 2 years, depending on whether they are women or men, LDS missionaries return with two categories of learning they can fit all of their mission experiences into, he said.
Second, missionaries return with "an increased capacity to love others. If you served a dedicated mission, I'm totally convinced you came back seeing the capacity to love others as you see them grow.
"For possibly the first time in your life, you've had another person's well-being in your care," he said, referring to potential converts who work to change their lives in order to prepare for baptism.
He urged missionaries to use those two methods of learning to expand their lives in every way, from dating and marriage to study, vocation and community service.
President Gordon B. Hinckley was an example of employing that philosophy, he said, re-telling the story of his experience as a young missionary in England. The mission president summoned him one day and asked him to go to the office of a book publisher.
The company had just published a book purporting to contain a "history" of the Latter-day Saints that was false, and he wanted Elder Hinckley to speak with the president of the company about it.
President Hinckley said he wondered to himself why the mission president would ask him to go, rather going himself. But rather than voicing his fear and concern, he simply said, "yes sir," and went to the man's office.
After telling the secretary he would be willing to wait as long as necessary, he finally gained an audience with the company president. After stating his concern and waiting to be dismissed, the man's demeanor softened, and he ended up agreeing to recall the books and add a page that stated the information was fictional, rather than factual.
The man kept in touch with Elder Hinckley until his death, sending him a Christmas card each year.
Osguthorpe said the story exemplifies the power of faith that can come through exercising personal agency when one is asked to do something for God.
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