Strategies for Fortifying Faith in Teens and Young Adults in a Challenging World

Amy Lundquist:
Okay, Brother Prieece, you work daily with many young people who are either preparing to serve missions or returning from their missions. What do you think are the most challenging issues facing these young people, and how can we as parents, grandparents, neighbors, and friends support them—especially those who are struggling to stay engaged with the Church after they return from missions?

Michael Preece:
Wow, what a question, right?

I don’t have a—a great answer for that other than—I just—here’s the thought about preparing. I help—I deal primarily with young people preparing to serve missions at the moment.

And I think one of the things that I want to instill in them is that there is this—they want to meet a certain standard or a capability before a mission. And absolutely, we want to be the best possible missionaries when we hit the mission field.

But I love in Matthew chapter 5 when the Savior turns to all of us and says, “Ye are the light of the world.”

You’re already light.

I think sometimes we have a—a false sense of what light can actually do. And we feel like we have to have this incredible searchlight. No. God said, “You don’t have to meet any kind of requirement. You’re already my light.”

I love a poem by an ancient poet, Hafiz, who said—and I love this invitation, I’ve been trying to wear it kind of as a mantra in my life, like Rob was talking about. He said this—it’s love, the invitation:

“You could carry your heart through this world like a life-giving sun.”

You could.

And if our young people understand that missions and mission service is just an opportunity to be light, then I—hopefully the stigma comes down and the worries go down a little bit. That they could—if they wanted—they could be that life-giving sun carrier to the world.

And that can be service missions. That can—you know, like, there are so many options and opportunities.

And I just—I want to instill that in the young people. So that’s how I’ll answer that part of that question. If others have other wisdom, please.

Rob Dixon:
I—I sense—this is not everybody—but I sense that so many of the youth that I’m around all the time, they’re just frozen in the decision. And because we all have our reasons when we think about a mission—whether that is a service mission, a proselytizing mission—we all know that there’s a big variety there.

But there’s just like a sense of—they’re just kind of frozen. There’s a lot of expectation, or whether it’s felt, stated, or not. And there are some prophetic statements that make it—that are pretty bold, right, about serving missions. And I sense this—this feeling of like, “I’m frozen. I’m nervous about doing this part of it,” or “I feel like I can’t do this part of a mission, so I just don’t want to talk about it.”

And my mom, and that lady that’s two rows back that always sits there in church, is always asking me about my mission—and it just makes me want to run the other direction.

And I think we’re aware of that, right? But one of the things that I’ve found that’s so helpful—and you just taught it just brilliantly—and that’s just like: “What is your mission right now?”

Like, what’s—how can you use the light right now? And let’s not worry about the decision of if you’re going to serve in three years or not. Let’s worry about what we’re doing this week—in your high school, in your Young Men’s, Young Women’s group, or in your young adult circle, whatever that is.

What’s that mission right now? What’s your ministry? What’s your discipleship looking like?

If you can imagine being at a grocery store—I use this analogy because it’s helped me a ton—you’re at a grocery store, and you look down the aisle, all the way down the aisle, and there’s someone that drops a loaf of bread. I ask my students, “Would you run and go help that person pick it up?”

And they’re always like, “Well, depends. How old is the person?” And then we go off, right? But when we get down to it, no one is going to sprint down and help with the bread, right? The problem is often the distance, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a huge need to it.

And then I say, “What if right next to you, somebody accidentally bumps the shelf and jugs and jugs of milk fall over and they’re exploding, and you’ve got milk on your face, and they’re on the floor,” right?

So, are you going to help this person out?

And they’re like, “Well, duh, I’m going to help them out,” right? Like there’s no chance I’m not going to engage and support.

And I say, “How do you feel about the gathering?” Right?

Is it a distance? Is it down the aisle? “I’m not sure if I’d do it that way… might look weird if I did it,” right?

If a mission and the gathering feels like a down-the-aisle problem, we’re always going to be stuck in our head. And we’re not going to engage.

When our relationship with the Savior and the way we feel about how His gospel changes our heart—when that is, like, so compelling that it’s like a ten-jug milk spilling all over the place kind of a problem—we don’t ask questions about how we’re going to serve. We know we’ll figure out a way.

Right? Like, “I don’t know how to help you with your milk problem, but I’m in it with you.” And I feel that way about the gathering. When students, and when youth, and when I feel like the gathering is a big deal, and it’s a problem in the world, then I know—I’ll figure out a way how to help.

Amy Lundquist:
Thank you. And Sean, tell us a little bit about your podcast that dovetails with these two groups that we’re talking about.

Sean Dixon:
Yeah. Me and another teacher at the Institute—we both served as mission leaders in California at the same time. And we came home, and we’re just across the hall from each other.

And so, just in talking to each other, we—one day I just went into his office and we got to talking about helping to prepare people for missions. And I stuck my cell phone in between us and we had a little conversation.

And it kind of evolved into something called the Preach My Gospel podcast. Season one is for people preparing to serve missions. We have an episode for every week of the year—there’s 53 episodes for pre-missionaries.

And then when we finished that, we got thinking about all of our missionaries who had come home and who were struggling in their faith and having such a difficult time—and students that we have at the Institute.

And so season two is for the return missionary. And we’ve just had guests on, and we interview them, and they talk about different things that will help the return missionary continue to be lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ.