It was Sunday morning at about 8 a.m. when a recently returned missionary was to report on his mission in front of a stake council. The presiding authority gave the elder about ten minutes to tell his story. This elder had a small deformation and a hint of a speech impediment. He was a self-proclaimed hyper and troublesome boy in his youth, but here he now stood in front of the stake leaders, calm, collected, and curiously majestic. He looked at his watch as if to be mindful of his time, and then started telling his story. This boy was a man now, and the words that were coming out of his mouth were not the words of a typical twenty-one-year-old young adult.
A few of the men in the room had quietly relayed to me what kind of challenge it was for this young man to get ready for a mission. As he spoke, the thought played over and over again in my mind: “You cannot argue with the positive and visible effects of serving a mission.” This boy—now a man—acknowledged his own conversion as being a critical factor in shaping who he was now. Spiritually and intellectually speaking, he was better, stronger, and faster. He was visibly powerful in his delivery. He had a room full of seasoned leaders in awe of the change that had occurred in him. Where else!? I silently asked myself. Where else on this planet can a person go to get this kind of education on life? I felt as if there were no college or university that could approach the powerful educational experience that a mission is.
Near the end of his remarks, this returned missionary said something that I’ll never forget. He said that we should “love Christ for who He is . . . and not just for what He is.”
We have hundreds of names that describe Christ for what He is (Savior, Redeemer, Only Begotten, etc.). While many of His names describe His role in the plan of salvation, I think they fall short of painting a mental picture of who He really is. People can have many titles in life that describe what they are. But only a person’s character can show you who that someone really is. Elder Neal A. Maxwell once said, “There would have been no Atonement except for the character of Christ.”1
Christ accepted and fulfilled His mission because of who He was. The big questions here are “Who am I?” “Who are you?” and “Who are we going to become?”
