1 March 1979
The life mission of every member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is identical in its general features. Those features are that:
- The whole of each person’s life is seen to be a mission in the cause of Jesus Christ from the time one receives the covenant of baptism until one releases that final breath. This means 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at home or abroad, in sickness or in health, and in whatever marital state or Church calling one is found.
- Each person’s daily assignment in that mission is to turn his assigned portion of evil to good. Seeing evil as that which is not as good as it could be and taking the Savior as the standard of good, the life of a Latter-day Saint is one continuous labor to uplift, to ennoble, to beautify, to instruct, to correct, to celestialize all around him, when, where, and how it is appropriate to his stewardship and as directed by the Holy Spirit.
A child forlorn, frightened, or sobbing is an evil of this world: it is the mission of a saint to hold that child, to administer comfort, security, and understanding as the manifestation of a pure and inspired love, thus turning an evil into something better. A ward choir which sings grudgingly, mechanically, egotistically is an evil; with skill, sensitivity and love an inspired director can lift every participant to praise God with voice and song, to bear witness and gratitude through the meaning of the lyrics, to sing to bless rather than for recognition or reward. A widow’s home is unpainted, with sagging doors, cracked panes and drafty casements; a small army of craftsmen who care descends upon that home and leaves function where there was fault, dignity in place of deterioration, warmth instead of wounded heart. The children of an Andean village have no opportunity for education; a low cost, locally administered self-help program is designed, embodied and delivered, giving those children access to the modern world. Even as a people languish in ignorance of their true spiritual heritage, their need is assuaged by the teaching of the Restored Gospel in their midst.
Thus every father, mother, builder, teacher, chemist, administrator, and repairman who is a covenant servant of Christ is striving each day to make the world a better place, to uplift, encourage and comfort not only fellow Latter-day Saints but ultimately all of the earth’s inhabitants. No one except the President of the Church carries the burden to worry about the whole world, for each turns to his own neighbors and stewardship for his field of labor. Each morning each faithful servant goes to his knees in prayer to discern his assigned quotient of evil to be turned into good for that day, knowing that the powers of heaven will assist his faithful labor and that therefore his day will be “sufficient unto the evil thereof.”
Compensation is the last thing the true servant is concerned about. He knows that he must perform honorable work and be compensated for it to provide for himself, his family and to have a modest surplus with which to bless others. He knows that his greatest personal opportunity is to turn evil into good for which he is not compensated; therefore he deliberately spreads his resources of wisdom, knowledge, skill and substance in many times and places where there cannot or should not be any return favor. And he always remembers that it is to the Savior that he is beholden for his health, strength, mentality, knowledge, wisdom and skill with which to bless, be it in compensated or non-compensated opportunities to do good.
Thus the mission of the Latter-day Saint is to waste and wear his mortal life out in searching the mind and will of the Savior to discern his formal and informal callings, then to turn evil into good in those callings. He thinks about poverty, ignorance, disease, inferior values, corruption in high and low places and strives to help. He may need to invent, to translate, to build, to tear down, to persuade, to expose, to correlate, to cooperate, but all with pure motive and under the direction of his master, the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever preparation he needs to fulfill his task, he seeks, beginning with repentance from all sin, carrying through the acquisition of knowledge and skills, culminating in attaining power in the priesthood to do all good things. It is through the efforts of such servants of Jesus Christ that this earth will be first terrestrialized, then celestialized and delivered spotless and whole to its worthy creator.