One of the first meetings people have with the church might be through one of the many thousands of missionaries that serve throughout the world. I find the missionary aspect of the church very interesting, and a witness to the efficient organisation of the church.
I've heard many times that it is to give everybody here on earth the chance to hear the gospel and to decide for themselves if it is true or not. But still it seems like a huge sacrifice to leave your home and family for 18 to 24 months.
In Denmark most people are religious in a different way than other places in the world. Religion is not something you talk about, and is sometimes seen as an embarrassing subject. So when missionaries knock on your door and say they want to talk about religion, it is often just seen as an inconvenience or maybe even rude. 80 percent of the Danish population are members of the Danish Peoples Church, which is a Lutheran church, as I might have mentioned earlier. But only very few of them attend church on a regular basis, and many have very different believes from what is normally categorized as "christian", for an example a survey showed that a fair amount believed in reincarnation. My point here is that Denmark must be a very challenging place to be a missionary.
I would love to hear your thoughts on missionary work. Have you served a mission, and why did you choose to do so? Maybe you wish to serve a mission in the future?
Oh! how I have longed to be a missionary, since I was a little tiny child.
ReplyDeleteWhy? Because, The Gospel of Jesus Christ gave me hope. It told me that I was a child of God, first and foremost, that I had a purpose here upon the earth and that ultimately there was eternal life that would include the loving members. I knew this from a personal witness as a young child and I wanted then, as I do now, to invite others to experience the same peace, comfort and strength by receiving their own personal witness.