Pass the Word Along

by President Spencer W. Kimball

We are baptizing many people. A hundred thousand people and more will be baptized this year through the efforts of the missionaries and the good Saints. We are grateful for that. Do you know that we baptize enough people every day to make a ward of the Church? It pleases us greatly to know that.

We are not satisfied, however, because we dream and we think of that important day when the Savior had filled His mortal mission here upon the earth, when He had been crucified, when He had risen from the dead, and when He had spent a few days getting His brethren ready to take over the responsibility so that He could leave. Then He walked up the hill on the Mount of Olives. We know it was a long, hard walk, because some of us have climbed it, too.

At the top He gathered His brethren around Him and probably told them many things, gave them final instructions. Then he said, “Go ye into all the world.” I can imagine Him gesturing with His hands and saying, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Every creature—every man, woman, and child—must hear the gospel. Then He said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” (Mark 16:15–16.) That is the gospel of Jesus Christ and perhaps the final instructions He gave to His apostles before He left them in charge of the Church.

So we are looking forward now to a great increase. We have been talking about lengthening our stride, extending our efforts. We are expecting that of all our people (including you, my young friends). The responsibility is yours and mine. We are not to be satisfied with membership alone. It would be glorious just to sit down and enjoy membership in the Lord’s true church, but we have a responsibility. President David O. McKay, some years ago, coined the phrase, “Every member a missionary.” Now that means that every man, woman, and child who has the gospel, who has been baptized, has a responsibility. That came from the Lord. It is just an extension of what the Lord gave us to start with. Every man, woman, and child among us has that responsibility, and we can never satisfy ourselves nor the Lord unless we exert ourselves in that respect. There are a lot of good people who need the gospel; oh, how they need it so that they, too, can have the blessings that will come with membership!

Brothers and sisters, we need not only more missionaries, we also need local people as member missionaries. We need fathers and mothers and sons and daughters who will extend themselves and try to bring the gospel to many people. We have evidence and we have record of numerous little girls and boys who are only six and eight and ten and twelve who have told their teachers about the gospel, who have told their school friends about the gospel, who have taken their best friends to Primary and to Sunday School, and to the meetings, and who thus have started an entire family toward the Church. We have numerous situations where the members of the Church have done unusual missionary work.

Elder Robert D. Hales told me recently of a young man who was asked about his missionary work in Mexico. Brother Hales said that when he was asked, “How many have you baptized?” he was happy to answer. Eight hundred and forty people that boy had baptized! He was just 19 years old, and hadn’t had a college education yet, and hadn’t had all the blessings that many of you have had. Now that record has been repeated.

One mission in Mexico had 3,000 convert baptisms in a month, if you can believe that. It is almost unbelievable because of its greatness. Well, that means that we must get in with all our souls and go to work.

When we were in South America, in Uruguay, a woman there told us that she had only been a member of the Church for a year or two but that she had brought 92 people into the Church. She went to the market to get her food for the day, and there she would spend a little time with other women whom she had met before, and she would say to them, “Have you heard the Mormon elders from America? Well, you had better listen to them. They have a great message that will change your life. Ninety-two people had listened to her, and she had contacted the missionaries, and they had baptized them.

We went over to Cordoba in Argentina. As the president of the mission and I were going down the street, we met a young woman in her early 30s, and the mission president said, “Sister, tell Brother Kimball how many people you have brought into the Church. She said, “Oh, I didn’t do very much.” He said, “Well, tell him.” She said, “I think it’s about 32.” Thirty-two of her friends had come into the Church because one woman was willing to accept her responsibility—not only a privilege, but a responsibility—to bring people into the Church.

You will remember too, that when the brethren first went to the British Isles they were baptizing in large numbers. My grandfather, Heber C. Kimball, said, “I preached one sermon, and then talked to the people and baptized 20 people.” Then he baptized 1,500 people in eight months from his preaching and his teaching. President Wilford Woodruff was also a great missionary. He went down into the Midlands of England, I believe. At any rate, he found a community there, taught them the gospel, and baptized 600 people. I think he converted 40 ministers to the gospel. I tell you that this is the work of the Lord, and it is your job. Every person in the Church has the responsibility to pass the word along.

Illustration by Craig Poppleton