The three days that changed everything

About a year into my mission I had the chance to spend a few days with one of our zone leaders, Elder Mike Smith.

I thought it was a routine exchange. I found out years later it was anything but.

Our mission president had been watching me. He saw a missionary who was unhappy, going through the motions, trying but missing the point. Encouragement had not been enough. So he made a deliberate decision. He sent Elder Mike Smith not to lecture me or fix me or review my numbers, but to create what he called spiritual defining experiences. Moments where I could feel something real. Something undeniable. Something that would change me.

Elder Smith approached missionary work differently than I did.

He did not focus on numbers. He did not stress about outcomes. He focused on one thing: helping people feel the Spirit. Helping them feel the Savior’s love.

He testified simply and sincerely, not like he was checking a box, but with his whole heart. He used scriptures. He created space for quiet. And after every experience, he did not ask “do you believe this?” or “will you commit?” He asked one simple question:

“How do you feel?”

When people responded with words like peace, warmth, comfort, or joy, he would gently testify: “That is the Spirit. That is the Savior’s love for you.”

And you could see it happen. The moment someone understood that God was speaking directly to them. Recognition. Realization. That is not something you can manufacture. It is not something a missionary produces. It is what the Savior does when someone finally makes space for Him.

We did not baptize anyone during those three days.

They were still the best three days of my entire mission.

Before those three days, I was grinding through missionary work, measuring success by numbers instead of hearts. Asking every night whether I had done enough. Coming up short by my own accounting every single time.

After those three days, I was different.

Not because Elder Smith preached at me. Because he showed me what it looked like when a missionary stopped asking “how am I doing?” and started asking “what would He do here?”

Those are very different questions. They produce very different days.

The Savior’s ministry was never efficient by our standards. He stopped for one person when crowds were waiting. He asked questions and actually listened to the answers. He noticed the people everyone else walked past. He was never in too much of a hurry to be present.

That is not a technique. It is a way of being.

Preach My Gospel says it plainly in Chapter 1, and most missionaries read right past it: your success is not determined by how many people you teach or help bring to baptism.

It was there the whole time.

The work becomes joyful when you stop trying to produce results and start trying to help people feel the Savior’s love. Not easy. Not without hard days. But joyful. There is a difference, and Elder Mike Smith showed it to me in three days without ever saying a word directly to me about it.

He just let me watch the Savior work.

Ponder this: What is the question you are asking at the end of each day? If the answer is “how did I do?” what would change if you replaced it with “did anyone feel the Savior’s love today because I was there?”

This is Lesson 3 from Learning to Walk with Him, available June 1 at learningtowalkwithhim.com. The Five Lessons Guide is free right now at learningtowalkwithhim.com/guide.