“Go ye into all the world”

My wife and I have reached that point in our lives where many of our friends are retiring and/or serving missions.

This afternoon, we attended a sacrament meeting in another ward and stake where former neighbors of ours spoke.  It was their missionary “farewell.”  They’re heading off for two years to Berlin, Germany, where he will serve in a mission office and she will serve as (presumably among other things) the mission nurse and medical person.

I noticed that this ward, probably a fairly typical Mormon congregation in Utah, has three other missionaries — younger ones in these cases, I presume — already out in the field.  One is in Korea, another is in Sierra Leone, and the third is in Guatemala.  So, with the addition of our friends, this ward will have missionaries out serving in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Europe.

Again, I marvel at the reach of the Church, and at the quite extraordinary experiences routinely had by those who serve faithfully in it.

“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”  (Mark 16:15)

***

I find myself thinking, yet again, of Alma 29:1-3

1 O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!

2 Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth.

3 But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me.

There’s a song, very familiar to Latter-day Saints (at least of my generation) based on the first two verses above.  For a long time, candidly, I really disliked that song.  But it’s grown on me, and its message is, if anything, more powerful and urgent to me now than it ever has been.

I hear about and read about and sometimes see suffering almost every day that, in my view, could be eradicated by faithful adherence to the teachings of the Gospel.

While I’m at it, though:  Roughly five years ago, I wrote a column for the Deseret News in which I briefly touched upon one (to me, intriguing) feature of Alma 29:1-2:

“The Book of Mormon was very carefully written”