Ship Building

March 11, 2015

Every six weeks we have transfers/changes.  During this time, new missionaries arrive, missionary companionships are changed, and missionaries completing their service are sent home.

As missionaries arrive, each are assigned a “trainer.”  Each trainer is with each new missionary for 12 weeks.  They are to teach them everything they need to know to be an excellent missionary.  These trainers will set the stage for the remainder of the service for each missionary.  We try really hard to pick the best trainers.

We had a training meeting for “trainers” the other day.  With 9 new missionaries arriving in 6 more days, we spend some time helping them get ready to train.

I awoke at 4AM the morning of the training.  I had a strong impression of what I needed to say to the trainers.  One of the great stories in the Book of Mormon is when Nephi received a revelation from Heavenly Father telling him to “build a ship.”  This ship would take him and his family to the Promised Land.  This was my impression that morning.  Tell the trainers that they needed to be ready to “build a ship.”

Nephi probably didn’t know how to build a ship, but he did recognize when his Heavenly Father talked to him and he did know that he would be guided in whatever he needed to do.

Our trainers need to be able to “build a person.”  They need to be able to recognize when they are being guided by the Holy Ghost.  They need to keep themselves pure so that personal revelation can come.  They are training someone who may be coming from a different culture or a different language.  Each of us is unique in what we are.

So often we all are called on to “build a ship.”  We are asked to walk out of our comfort zones and do something new and often important.  We have to rely on the Spirit to fill in our shortcomings and make it possible for us to be an instrument in God’s hands.  Ship building and person building is hard work!