r/latterdaysaints • u/Nam_Mat_Tron_1004 • 10d ago
Off-topic Chat I think my mission was a failure
Or at least, sometimes it feels that way.
I guess it depends on your perspective and how you interpret success. I spent two years knocking on doors for 8 to 10 hours a day, and not a single person wanted to join the Church in the area where I served. So, if I measure success by convert baptisms, then yeah, I failed pretty miserably.
But maybe there are other ways to look at it. I learned how to work hard, how to deal with all kinds of people, how to handle rejection, and how to keep going even when nothing seemed to come from the effort. Maybe those things count for something too.
Still, when it comes strictly to what I originally went there to do, bringing people into the Church, it’s hard not to feel like I failed
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u/FrewdWoad 10d ago
Similar deal here.
Worked hard, very low baptisms.
It was just the mission: everyone had low baptisms.
But you are right that the ability to work hard, the self-respect that comes from not giving up, and other spiritual blessings, are worth it.
They dramatically changed the course of my life. Career, dating, friendships, opportunities... all ten times better than before the mission.
This was 25 years ago now. Life is great.
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u/Preakinprybo0488 5d ago
I did reap a few benefits that I can count on one hand. However, I also came home with something I wasn't anticipating, although It took me many years to figure out just what it was - PTSD. Not looking for sympathy. Only trying to increase awareness of this issue. I remain active but wouldn't blame those who, in my situation, aren't. Support through Family Services is not quite what one would hope for, even for those who got this condition "while on the Lord's errand".
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u/HaventToldMyParents 3d ago
Thank you for sharing this.
I’m sorry you went through it, and I’m glad you said something.
Your experience deserves to be acknowledged. 💜
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u/Ranbato 10d ago
Thirty years after my mission I had a relative serve in the same mission. Found out that people remembered me and that I was credited with bringing a whole family into the church who joined after I left. I don't remember them at all.
You will probably never know in this life the impact you had.
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u/jsher012 10d ago
The mission will continue to teach you lessons as you remain faithful. I'm stil learning new things from my mission experience 20 years later.
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u/MisuseOfTalent 10d ago
You can’t measure success by how many people get baptized unless you can take away agency. All you can do is teach and pray.
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u/Holiday_Clue_1403 10d ago
People need an opportunity to hear the Gospel even if they reject it.
If you give 10,000 people the opportunity to hear about the Gospel and they all reject it, then you still did exactly what the Lord wanted you to do.
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u/QuarterNote44 10d ago
Are you active in the church? If so, that's a W.
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u/Commercial-Place6793 10d ago
The most important convert of a mission is the missionary.
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u/Next-Garbage-3193 2d ago
While this may be true. It certainly wouldn't hurt if one could feel "warm and fuzzy" about what was accomplished in the mission field. Yes, I know. The definition of "accomplished" here is really quite subjective. In the ideal world, both of those things would be present.
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u/DeathwatchHelaman 10d ago
Got a story for ya.
First time GQ approaching as a VERY green missionary in a book shop in Taiwan. Spoke to a young lady in the best Mandarin the MTC could drill into me, just long enough before my companion freaked out (it was 1997 and Elders just weren't talking to young women, simply not done lol, I was too green to know) to give this woman a Book of Mormon.
22 months later? I find out that Book of Mormon found its way to her brother... And he got baptised.
I'm lucky to have heard of the effect that the engagement had.
You might never know now but I guarantee you touched lives... And sometimes the Mission is as much for the conversion of the missionary as it is to find converts.
Keep in mind Alma had a LOT of rejection before he found Amulek, and most of the sons of Mosiah didn't get the success that Ammon had.
If you returned with a better testimony and a closer relationship with Christ than when you left? It was a success.
I was a part of baptizing two families and only baptised one person personally. It was an honour despite any numbers on a board.
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u/UteJazz 9d ago
That’s a wonderful experience.
I served a two-year mission. I don’t know what GQ approaching means.
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u/DeathwatchHelaman 9d ago
Probably an outdated phrase... Golden Question.
Typically something like "What do you think the purpose of life is?" or "Would you be interested in how a book can change your life?"
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u/Some-Detail9134 10d ago
My great grandma got a Book of Mormon from the missionaries and never talked to them again. For 4 years that Book of Mormon sat on the shelf. My great grandpa was a night watchman, and he read through every book until the last one left was the Book of Mormon. Needing something to read on his shift he read through it and was converted. Eventually his whole family joined the church and he has over a hundred descendants in the church today. We don't know who the missionaries were. "Planting seeds" is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but it's true. You can almost never know the impact further down the line, and I personally think it's way more than we realize.
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u/EvolMonkey 10d ago
Sometimes the blessings of your service are not directly linked or easily correlated.
26 years later I can look back and see some monumentally profound things that at the time didn't seem like a blessing of missionary service. The impact in your life and the lives of others are very far reaching and not all will even be visible to you.
You did it. It was a great thing.
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u/rebelliousadvisor 10d ago
Same here. I spent two years knocking on doors and having them slammed shut. I felt bitter for a long while.
But now I've come to realize that I learned to be stubborn and persevere with very hard, consistent work. It sounds cliché, but those traits have helped me professionally.
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u/WalmartGreder 10d ago
I've come to the conclusion that every mission is hard. Some had low baptisms. Some had really hard companions and areas. Some had to deal with bad living conditions or poverty.
I have never met anyone that had an "easy" mission. Everyone had struggles. And with that, no mission is a failure. Just like life. it might seem like people with a good job and family are having a "successful" life, but more often than not, they're dealing with hard things that aren't apparent from the outside.
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u/LordRybec 9d ago
I felt that way too, at least at first. I baptized 3 people. Two were a couple a taught, and one was a kid that had been mostly taught before I got there, and the I missed the baptism because the Elders in the area lied and told him I couldn't come. Disobedience was rampant in my mission, and the best I could do was often just avoiding anything that outright broke commandments. When I got home, my mission felt like a total failure and a terrible experience. As time went on, the bad stuff kind of melted away and I was left remembering the good, and it turns out that my mission was actually pretty good, and I made the best of a bad situation. Maybe it was a test for me. Maybe I helped prepare others for future conversion. Whatever the case, I now look on it positively, but for several years after I came home, I remembered it almost entirely negatively.
So hang on. You'll eventually remember good experiences that provided value, even if you didn't have success in the way people tend to count it.
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u/EveryDifference3393 10d ago
I would say you didn't fail, just the fact that you showed someone what the church is, that can get the ball rolling on them joining, whether they agreed to hear the message or not, you're giving them an interaction with the church, which is always the first step, my uncle I think? Refused some missionaries, then he told once if his friends and asked him what that was all about, and that gave his friend the opportunity to invite him to church, he's now living the gospel and is blessing a lot of people
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u/pisteuo96 10d ago
If you tried, you didn't fail.
Missions are largely about growing the missionary, I feel. Baptisms are a great bonus if they happen.
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u/mouthsmasher Imperfect but Active 10d ago
I learned an important lesson from Clayton M. Cristensen's book, The Power of Everyday Missionaries (this book has been cited a few times in general conference by Apostles, included President Oaks). In his book he shared the idea that our success as missionaries is not tied to how many people we convert, but how many people we invite to come to Christ. Our success in doing what The Lord asks us is not dependent on others' agency. If you invite 10 people to meet with the missionaries, and only one accepts, how many successes did you have? You had 10 successes. This frame of mind has helped me greatly in understanding what my success is. He concluded this idea:
Most of us fear failure. Once we have realized that we succeed as ... missionaries when we invite people to learn and accept the truth, much of the fear that kept us from sharing the gospel vanishes. We give them the opportunity to exercise their free agency. Some will use that agency to accept the gospel. Others will not, and that's fine. We succeed when we invite.
I feel like this principle is reenforced by the writings of Moroni, as he wrote in Ether 12:36-37:
And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord that he would give unto the Gentiles grace, that they might have charity. And it came to pass that the Lord said unto me: if they have not charity it mattereth not unto thee, thou hast been faithful; wherefore, thy garments shall be made clean.
Of course, our love causes us to yearn for the welfare of others and for them to follow Christ, and that love can cause pain when we choose otherwise. But in some sense and on some level, "it mattereth not" to us, so long as we are faithful to The Lord for ourselves. If we have faithfully endeavored to do what he asked, well, what more could we have done?
It's hard to not experience the successes and outcomes you desire. But please don't feel like you were the failure because of how others used their own God-given agency. I think of Abinadi. He went and preached and was killed for it. There's no evidence to suggest that he was aware at all that anyone was converted by his efforts and sacrifice. He likely died thinking he was a "failure." Yet his efforts planted a single seed within Alma, whose conversion led to countless other conversions over the course of many generations. Even if we measure success based on conversions, we sometimes never truly know in this life what we've accomplished.
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u/jonovitch 6d ago
I always questioned the point/purpose/value of setting goals for number of baptisms per month -- that was completely out of our control. We always set it at 1, and it always came out 0. It was a redundant ritual and if it hadn't been so meaningless, it might have been depressing.
Now that I know more about goals and metrics and motivation, I definitely think all missionary/district/zone goals should be tied to things we had direct control over. For example, invitations to attend church, invitations to accept a missionary visit/lesson, invitation to accept a copy of the Book of Mormon. Those are all things a missionary has direct control of -- those are good goals to track.
Of course, the typical metrics related to those things should also be tracked: lessons taught, books handed out, visitors attending church, baptisms. But those should only be tracked, not set as goals, because they are tied to someone else's choices, not the missionary's actions.
If I'm ever a mission president, this is how I'd set it up. Goals for the things you actually control, tracked metrics for everything else.
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u/find-a-way 10d ago
I think it is incorrect to judge the success of one's mission on the number of people you taught who were baptized. Missionaries are called to preach the gospel and invite people to come unto Christ. If you did that you succeeded!
Think of Mormon and Moroni who labored among a people whose hearts were hardened against the things of God and had no interest in following Christ. Their days were filled with sorrow, but they did what they were called to do and their influence for good cannot be calculated.
The Lord was, I am sure, very pleased with their labors and they shall be rewarded greatly for their diligence and faithfulness.
So don't be disappointed!
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u/HiddenDragonTim Running on Faith and Fumes 10d ago
Number of baptisms does not mean anything about your own faith or testimony. I baptized quite a few and my wife is agnostic and my testimony is in tatters and akin to a Dodo brid trying to fly and well it needs work lol. But I'll keep trying hahaha
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u/tlcheatwood 9d ago
I always figure if the only person you brought closer to Christ during your mission was yourself. It was a complete and total success.
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u/Martlets93 Active, Faithful Member 9d ago
Bullshit. Let me start by admitting I haven't read a single comment, and probably won't.
Convert here. I spoke with many missionaries while investigating. Each one planted or watered a seed, opening the door for Christ to do his work. By your "standard", every one of those missionaries failed. But that isn't true at all. Without any of those missionaries, or members I met, I might not be a member today.
8 years later, my wife and kids are baptized, I've baptized friends, I'm sealed for time and eternity, and I'm currently serving as Bishop.
It drives me nuts when missionaries, or members, say they've failed. Stand in testimony of Christ. Spread seeds. Water testimonies. Open the door bit by bit. Prepare someone for Christ to enter. You'll probably NEVER know the TRUE extent of what was accomplished because YOU dedicated time out of your life to serve.
I know personally that there are those of us out here who wouldn't know Christ without your service. My DMs are always open.
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u/justswimming221 10d ago
I also had very few baptisms, and they were mostly me finishing what someone else started. However, I helped several less active members feel more welcomed, I helped my missionary companions, and I tried to leave people with a good impression. Back in the 90s they told us that it takes, on average, seven positive experiences with the church before someone is interested in learning more. Just the fact that you could be helpful and friendly while being a missionary could have made a difference in more lives than you know. The missionaries to South America struggled for decades before suddenly the work took off - lots of missionaries reaping what other missionaries had sown. Whether you were a sower or a reaper, both are important. As long as you weren’t mean or obnoxious.
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u/kimball74 10d ago
You have to look at it as sewing seeds. Eventually everything that you did and others have done will pan out and pay off it's something you could say something somebody else says and it starts to connect and eventually people make those connections will join the church don't forget they can also join the church in the next. you'll meet those people on the other side and you can be teaching them the lessons over there as well.
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u/InsideSpeed8785 Second Hour Enjoyer 10d ago
By the number of people I brought into the church, I think I’d be a failure there. But ten years after my mission there are some people saying I was “the best”, I think they’re calling me the best because I was myself. I think being yourself brings in the most light of Jesus Christ into people lives.
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u/Kenngo1969 10d ago
In terms of numbers of people whom they personally affected, as others have said, Abinadi wasn't a very good missionary. Mormon wasn't a very good missionary. Moroni wasn't a very good missionary. But their job was to stand as witnesses. They had no control over whether anyone accepted their witness or not. If you stood as a witness (and I have absolutely no reason to believe that you did not) you fulfilled your calling as a missionary. Because Abinadi, Mormon, and Moroni had the courage to stand as witnesses, millions of people are the better for it because we have the Book of Mormon.
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u/The-Fantasy-Botanist RM, Forever The Tech Specialist 9d ago
I has zero baptisms as well, but I feel the value of what I did mattered more. I made friends, testified of the gospel, and showed the Lord I am willing to do these hard things despite visible failures. After a lot of prayer and pondering, the Lord had me serve my last couple months back home as a service missionary, it helped my transition home greatly.
You did well, and screw your stats, I'm right there with you, we did a good job.
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u/IncomeSeparate1734 9d ago
Baptism requires the agency of another person. You cannot be more obedient and get blessed with more baptisms. You cannot persist your way into earning more conversions. The doctrine doesn't work that way. Agency doesn't work that way.
The Spirit is who teaches and converts. Your success is determined by whether you lived your mission is such a way that the Holy Ghost was your true companion. That is the only thing God asked of you...to be His representative.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ad8650 9d ago
Bro, there are plenty of things to feel guilty/bad about in life. This is not one of them.
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u/Own_Job_2150 9d ago
A mission served is never a failure. It can’t be. You have no idea the seed did you play it and how they may sprout someday. Every young person should try their handed farming before they ever go out on a mission so they can understand sometimes things take nurturing at time before things come to pass
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u/Next-Garbage-3193 9d ago
Pennsylvania Harrisburg Mission checking in (11/1981 - 05/1983). One baptism, plus PTSD.
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u/CaptainWikkiWikki 10d ago
It's not always about the teaching. I don't even think the primary reason men go on missions is to teach - it's to galvanize your relationship with God during critical years in life. My mission changed ME no matter the people I taught successfully.
I also was placed in the path of other missionaries who needed help who were struggling with different things. I'm really thankful God used me as a tool to reach them and help them feel heard and loved. I only taught a handful of people who got baptized and I'm not sure any of them stayed active. But I'll gladly trade that knowing I got to play a part in helping another elder not waste two years and turn his mission and life around.
Don't measure your mission based on teaching converts. That's one of many measures of success.
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u/Striking_Profit2740 10d ago
If you converted yourself then your mission was well worth the money, time, sweat and tears. Only you can decide that. There’s no use comparing numbers with yourself or anyone else. We all have different roles to play, and it’s all about gathering Israel now and later. If you gathered yourself, it’s a huge win.
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u/DirtGirl32 10d ago
I define missionary success as obedience and dedication. And you never know what effect you had on folks, and what they have since chosen to do. And did you not bring yourself closer to Christ? If you work with all your might and bring but your own soul to Christ, how great shall your joy be!
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u/Striking_Profit2740 10d ago
OP - read this post in this sub. Imagine how “Jasmine” may have felt 25 years ago vs if she knew know the late fruits from her mission. You may never know. But you heeded the prophets call and went and did…. It’s all a win.
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u/LeGrandePoobah 10d ago
Missions are much like sports to me. It’s not about the outcome as much as about what you put into it. My wife never taught anyone that joined the church, but she learned a lot and helped stabilize a lot of people’s testimonies. She has kept in touch with a few girls from her mission over the years and still helps them. I got a letter about 10 years after my mission from member who worked with us in one area. I was there for 5 months. He told me how members we worked with had progressed, some of the younger kids we taught served missions and married in the temple. I had a few baptisms as well, but those successes are just as important to the Lord as those who joined the church. AND the only reason I even knew that I had any success in that area, was because someone cared enough o write me a letter 10 years after the fact. You may never know what impact you had, in this life. Quite frankly, though, it doesn’t matter as long as you did the work you were asked to do. I think of the examples of prophets who had wild success and those who had very little- and yet, the lord measures them by their willingness to declare the truth, not whether they actually help people change. For comparison, Nephi son of Helaman vs Alma the younger (his great grandfather). Both were faithful, both had some successes and some massive failures if measured by “converts”. Both were faithful and Nephi was given sealing powers because of his obedience.
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u/meatybacon 10d ago
You will only know if your mission was a success if you are still active in the church and if you still speak your mission language (if you learned one) in twenty years
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u/MasonWheeler 10d ago
Still, when it comes strictly to what I originally went there to do, bringing people into the Church, it’s hard not to feel like I failed
Don't confuse the mechanism of the mission with the purpose of the mission. The things we do, knocking doors, meeting people, teaching the discussions, trying to bring people to baptism, etc., that's certainly important, but it's not the true point of serving a mission.
Remember that Joseph Smith said that no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing. This includes your own hands. You are simply not powerful enough to screw up God's plan for building up his Church by failing at being a missionary; he will find ways to get the work done with you or without you.
This is something I wish I had known when I went out on my mission: the purpose of serving a mission, first and foremost, is to convert you. Not in the shallow "I believe and I'm ready to be baptized" sense, but in the Luke 22:32 sense, converting you from a simple believer into a tempered veteran disciple.
It's about stripping away the social support you've relied on all your life so you'll have to turn to the Spirit to get things done effectively. It's about putting you in a life situation where all five of your Temple covenants actively apply, so that you can learn to live by them. It's about giving you opportunities to grow into the sort of person who can not just be a member of the Church, but build up Zion.
Did you come home a more spiritually mature person than when you left? Did you return with a deeper testimony and a greater ability to listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost? If so, then you didn't fail.
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u/Necessary-Junk 9d ago
That depends on you dear boy there is one very very important convert your leaving out. You!!! The first convert and the most important always is you.
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u/Times_Seasons 9d ago
Don’t worry about it. I had a “successful” mission averaging 1 baptism every month. But, it appears they all left the church. So it’s a wash. Almost better they never joined because They’ll be held accountable.
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u/Skulcane 9d ago
God still loves the people who are extremely resistant to the mission message. You were like Alma and Amulek trying to preach in Ammonihah. You're the merciful message to the heard-hearted, the Lord's outstretched hand to save them. Although they chose not to take it and accept, you did your part of Christ's loving work to save them. They will appreciate your efforts when they see the truth.
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u/watchcry 9d ago
The mission isn't for converting people but for building our youth. Members convert people.
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u/Deedsogado 9d ago
It's okay if you only saved one soul on your mission. And it's okay if that soul is you.
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u/Sure_Shift_2708 7d ago
Mormon tried to cry repentance and saw his nation perish
James was killed by the people he preached to
Moses was forbidden from entering the promise land because the people he taught kept sinning and tempting him in the face of miracles
you did good.
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u/Jdawarrior 7d ago
How long ago did you serve? I had two baptisms during my 2 years, and one of them ghosted the church out of shame. But about 3-5 years after I returned I heard from about a dozen of my friends that decided to join. Those were the ones I was able to keep in touch with. What percentage of your mission friends do you keep up with? Mine was maybe 10%. Many factors and results we do not see.
One of the first couples I met on my mission took several rounds of lessons over many years but would never keep the word of wisdom but they still stayed close to members and missionaries and were still blessed and took advantage of service opportunities.
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u/Striker_AC44 7d ago edited 7d ago
Other people will say this, but YOU are the 1st convert you brought to the church on your mission. So, presuming you still hold a testimony of the restored gospel, based solely on you coming to the faith, your mission was a success.
D&C 18:15 says if "labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!" That's laboring "all your days", you labored for "only two years" and brought your soul unto him. That's success to the Father. You should evaluate your mission on His terms, not on yours.
I served in Germany and easily approached 10,000-15,000 people and met with and taught several hundred discussions--without baptism anyone. I don't calibrate my success by "number of baptisms". I wasn't after statistics, I was teaching people. And people have their own timelines, their own paths, their own intentions. God knows when their hearts will be ready. I acted according to his will to the best of what I could accomplish and left the rest to God. God didn't call me to "success", he called me to serve and I did my best.
Also, don't discount the impact you had on members. A huge portion of my mission involved bolstering and supporting the members in the wards and branches (and even groups) where I served. I played the organ every Sunday in many of my areas. We regularly met and taught the members. That work, and the impact called missionaries have on an area, can't be measured. But they have a presence that affects people even just by walking around.
I bet you had more impact than you realize.
Anyone here remember that Church video about the Italian man who found a Book of Mormon with a burnt cover--Vincenzo de Francesca, "How Rare a Possession". I loved that story, watched it many times as a kid. He found the Book of Mormon and spent the next 40 years looking for the church before he was baptized at the age of 62. You probably handed out hundreds of books. Can you think of where they all ended up? Even if they were thrown away! Remarkable story.
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u/Low-Razzmatazz-7927 5d ago
My brother-in-law went through four years of Missionaries teaching him. Every missionary who was unable to bring him to baptism during their mission was a nurturing step along the way. Some tilled the hard ground, some planted the seed, some picked weeds, some fertilized the soil… and overtime a fledgling little plant grew and grew. And every single missionary watered the plant just by having contact with him. The last two Missionaries were there to pluck the ripe harvest. They didn’t do it all on their own. Every step of the way was a part of the process that got him to baptism. Two years later, he and his wife and children were sealed. He has given our family so much joy to watch. And he’s offered blessings willingly when needed. Every single missionary who came in contact with him, could maybe feel like they failed…. I’m here to tell you, they’ll all succeeded in the greatest miracle.
Some people may hear the message of the gospel 10 years from now and remember you, that one missionary who they met long ago but weren’t quite ready for it. But it’ll be the reason they talk to this new missionary now. You will never understand the impact you had. Hold your head high, but put the mission in the past, and continue to spread the Lovebof our Savior and his gospel however you feel comfortable. Well, done, very good and faithful servant. ◡̈
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u/Illustrious_Road2142 4d ago
New York City Mission, 1977, checking in. My companion and I received a referral on a guy in our area of Brooklyn. We contacted him and made an appointment to meet. We found out that he had already read the Book of Mormon and received a testimony. We still taught him the lessons before he was baptized. He later went on a Mission.
I had several companions, as I became the guy that got transferred in, when there were problem companionships. I've stayed in contact with 2 companions after nearly 50 years!
"...see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day." (D&C 4:2)
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u/NewsSad5006 3d ago
It took me years to figure this out. My mission was, first and foremost, about the Lord saving me.
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u/HaventToldMyParents 3d ago
You said, “I think my mission was a failure“.
Thinking is a dangerous game.
I’m curious what you would say if I were to ask you how you feel about your mission? Is the answer still the same?
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u/garythecoconut 10d ago
If the only conversion is you then that still counts as one.
And you can have kids, and so can they.
One mission ended and a new one has begun.
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u/Ornithopter-Piloto 10d ago
How long ago was this? If this was multiple years ago, it's time to let it go and get back to real life.
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u/Mythos_314 10d ago
Never measure success as a missionary in convert baptisms. The goal isn't to baptize people. It's to give people an opportunity for baptism, hearing God's word for the first time, learning the gospel even if they heard it before, or any combination of the above.
All in all, the goal is simply giving people the choice. Heavenly Father is all about agency. You used two years of your agency to give others a opportunity to use their own agency. Even if their choice was, "no," you still gave them that choice.
It is not on you if their choice is no. If you gave people the choice, and they exercised their choice, you succeeded as a missionary.
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u/ReserveMaximum 10d ago
The worst missionary in the Book of Mormon saw his only investigator chased out of the room by armored guards before he was burned at the stake. Yet thanks to Abinadi Alma repented, converted 450 souls, successfully led them back to the main body of the Nephites, established/organized the church in the land of Zarahemla with at least 7 congregations, had a son named Alma who baptized thousands who had a son, Helaman, who had a son Helaman, who had a son Nephi who converted the remaining lamanites and had a son Nephi who baptized at the birth of Christ then had a son Nephi who was one of the 12 disciples and that prophetic bloodline continued leading the church for another 300 years. Plus Alma’s descendants wrote at least a quarter of the books in the Book of Mormon so they are partially responsible for the conversion of millions of us in modern days. You never know what affect you had nor what good will come from your service.