Reaching Out With Love to New Converts and Less-Active Members

At the beginning of Chapter 22, Reaching Out With Love to New Converts and Less-Active Members, Gordon B. Hinckley shares a heart-wrenching experience. Near the end of his mission, he met and baptized a young man, who he described as well-educated, refined, studious and gifted. He felt this young man had “all the qualifications someday to become a leader among our people.” After President Hinckley had returned home, the young man was given a small assignment in the branch. “He knew nothing of what was expected of him. He made a mistake. The head of the organization where he served was a man I can best describe as being short on love and strong on criticism. In a rather unmerciful way, he went after my friend who had made the simple mistake. The young man left our rented hall that night smarting and hurt. … He said to himself, ‘If that is the kind of people they are, then I am not going back.’ He drifted into inactivity.” Many years later when President Hinckley had the occasion to be in England, he tried to find his friend but was unsuccessful. When he got home, he didn’t stop trying. After much searching, he was able to track him down. President Hinckley recalled, “I wrote to him. He responded but with no mention of the gospel. When next I was in London, I again searched for him. The day I was to leave, I found him. I called him, and we met in the underground station. He threw his arms around me as I did around him. I had very little time before I had to catch my plane, but we talked briefly and with what I think was a true regard for one another. He gave me another embrace before I left. I determined that I would never lose track of him again.” And he didn’t. He wrote and sent gifts. He was able to visit personally with him on one more occasion. After the man passed away, his wife wrote to let President Hinckley know and said, ‘You were the best friend he ever had.’ President Hinckley said, “Tears coursed my cheeks when I read that letter. I knew I had failed. Perhaps if I had been there to pick him up when he was first knocked down, he might have made a different thing of his life. I think I could have helped him then. I think I could have dressed the wound from which he suffered. I have only one comfort: I tried. I have only one sorrow: I failed.”

This lesson is a sobering and powerful reminder of our personal responsibility to actively and purposefully care for each other. Just as we discussed in the last lesson, our words and our actions matter! What we say and do can have a great influence, either positively or negatively, upon anyone we have interaction with. Remember the quote from Jeffrey R. Holland, “People do not join the Church because of what they know. They join because of what they feel.”1 Sadly the opposite can also be true. People do not leave the Church because of what they believe or don’t believe. They leave because of how they feel. That should never happen! We all have the opportunity—and the responsibility—to love openly and unconditionally, looking for ways to support and help so that it doesn’t.

President Hinckley received a letter from a woman who had joined the Church a year earlier. She told him, “Church members don’t know what it is like to be a new member of the Church. Therefore, it’s almost impossible for them to know how to support us. When we as investigators become members of the Church, we are surprised to discover that we have entered into a completely foreign world, a world that has its own traditions, culture, and language. We discover that there is no one person or no one place of reference that we can turn to for guidance in our trip into this new world. At first the trip is exciting, our mistakes even amusing, then it becomes frustrating and eventually, the frustration turns into anger. And it’s at these stages of frustration and anger that we leave. We go back to the world from which we came, where we knew who we were, where we contributed, and where we could speak the language.”

Have we ever thought about that? Or is it more likely that when we see a new convert we think only of the excitement of their baptism and all the possibilities that lie ahead for them? President Hinckley offered this challenge, “[I]f you do not know what it is like, you try to imagine what it is like. It can be terribly lonely. It can be disappointing. It can be frightening. We of this Church are far more different from the world than we are prone to think we are.”

There is a very enlightening and informative article in the September 2017 Ensign called “We Can Do Better: Welcoming Others Into the Fold.”2 The experiences four people had who either joined or were investigating the Church are very eye-opening. The article also contains suggestions to help us be more successful as we interact with new members or investigators and a link to a series of short videos the Church has produced to help us in our efforts. It is a great resource.

President Hinckley taught, “There is absolutely no point in doing missionary work unless we hold on to the fruits of that effort. The two must be inseparable. It is an absolute imperative that we look after those who have become a part of us. … The greatest tragedy in the Church is the loss of those who join the Church and then fall away.”

We look after each other when we show genuine concern. We should never let anyone make this new journey alone! We all need love, encouragement and friendship. However, perhaps it is never needed more than when a new convert is trying to “become accustomed to the ways and culture of this Church.” President Hinckley pleads, “Let us reach out to these people! Let us befriend them! Let us be kind to them! Let us encourage them! Let us add to their faith and their knowledge of this, the work of the Lord.”

Recently Bonnie L. Oscarson similarly encouraged us. She reminded us that “there will always be someone at every Church meeting you attend who is lonely, who is going through challenges and needs a friend, or who feels like he or she doesn’t belong. You have something important to contribute to every meeting or activity, and the Lord desires for you to look around at your peers and then minister as He would. … [A]s disciples of the Savior Jesus Christ, we watch out for one another, encourage one another, and find ways to serve and strengthen each other. We are not just receivers and takers of what is offered at church; we are needed to be givers and suppliers.”3

Let’s go back to the experience President Hinckley shared about his friend. Surely he would have done all he could to help his young friend when the offense first happened, but he was not there. It seems to me that President Hinckley’s sorrow came not because he hadn’t tried to help, for clearly he had, but because his friend had not enjoyed the blessings of the gospel that were so dear to him. He wanted those blessings for everyone.

Once asked by a reporter what brought him the greatest satisfaction in the Church, President Hinckley replied, “[W]hat this gospel does for people … is miraculous to behold. They look to Christ and come alive.” For his friend and others who have left the Church, his desire was they once again look to Christ and come alive. During one of his general conference talks, he spoke specifically to members who had drifted into inactivity, “To you who have taken your spiritual inheritance and left, and now find an emptiness in your lives, the way is open for your return. … If you will take the first timid step to return, you will find open arms to greet you and warm friends to make you welcome. … Put the past behind you. … There is everything to gain and nothing to lose. Come back, my friends. There is more of peace to be found in the Church than you have known in a long while. There are many whose friendship you will come to enjoy. … [T]he Church needs you, and you need the Church. You will find many ears that will listen with understanding. There will be many hands to help you find your way back. There will be hearts to warm your own. There will be tears, not of bitterness but of rejoicing. … To you, my friends, who … long to return but are reluctant to take the first step, try. Let us meet you where you now stand, and take you by the hand and help you.”

The invitation to return has been extended many times. It is up to all of us to be the open arms, the open ears and the open hearts offering true friendship. It is likely that in each of our families we have someone who has chosen to leave the Church. While we pray for them, love them and invite them, it is often someone else who is the answer to those prayers. Sister Oscarson taught, “Heavenly Father may have placed those who need us closest to us, knowing that we are best suited to meet their needs.” She quoted Spencer W. Kimball who once said, “God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs.”3 Henry B. Eyring shared, “I have prayed with faith that someone I loved would seek and feel the power of the Atonement. I have prayed with faith that human angels would come to their aid, and they came. God has devised means to save each of His children.”4

President Hinckley reminds us that we need to be “constantly … aware of the tremendous obligation to fellowship.” We fulfill that obligation especially as we reach out with love to new converts and less-active members. The Savior is our perfect example of one who always had, as Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, “hands outstretched, reaching out to comfort, heal, bless, and love. And He always talked with, never down to, people. He loved the humble and the meek and walked among them, ministering to them and offering hope and salvation. That is what He did during His mortal life; it is what He would be doing if He were living among us today; and it is what we should be doing as His disciples and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As we emulate His perfect example, our hands can become His hands; our eyes, His eyes; our heart, His heart.”5

The challenge for us is to be one who Heavenly Father can trust us enough to be the answer to someone’s prayer, who is willing to be a human angel, who tries to do what the Savior would do if He were here.