Prepare Now to Succeed on Your Mission

Loren C. Dunn was serving as a member of the Seventy at the time he wrote Prepare Now to Succeed on Your Mission. His callings throughout his life have given him multiple opportunities to provide missionary service. Using this experience, he counsels those who plan to serve on what they need to do now in their preparation to help them hit the ground running when they answer their call.

Preparation for a mission begins at an early age. Missionary candidates must qualify themselves through worthiness, capability, and desire. Candidates need to know beforehand about the ups and downs of missionary work. Most returned missionaries don’t dwell on this part of the mission; they dwell on the wonderful spiritual experiences. But missionary candidates needs to know that these great experiences come after experiencing trials. If candidates go into the field expecting missionary work to actually be work, they will have an easier time adjusting.

Some other topics covered by the author include building and maintaining a testimony, having somebody waiting for you while serving a mission, and what parents and others at home can do to support their missionary. One chapter I really enjoyed was about finishing your mission. He declares that in the long run, it is much easier to finish a mission than to leave early. This hit home with me because I have a good friend who left his mission about a year into it and spent a whole year at home. He was miserable during that year, and finally was able to return to the field, in fact, returning to his original mission. He told me once in confidence that he learned that if you leave your mission early, life will not work out for you until you have finished your service to the Lord. Loren C. Dunn concurs with this and says that whether a missionary chooses to stay or leave, his call sticks with him.

Although this is an older book and is out of print, the principles contained in it are eternal and are certain to help any prospective missionary.