Part VII. The Last Six Months: More Vision, Skills, and Reinforcement at a Higher Level 

Overview 

January 1981. A new year for the mission, but only a half-year for me as mission president. I expected to be released at the end of June that year, and I did not yet feel I had done what I had been called to do. For the past seven or eight months we had been baptizing at a rate of about 500 new converts per month. We had been on the plateau President Kimball (Kikuchi, 1981) had talked about: "We have paused on some plateaus long enough. Let us resume our journey forward and upward" (p.4).

President Kimball (Kikuchi, 1981) had asked for thousands of converts. At the mission presidents' seminar I had attended he made it clear that he meant thousands. First, he quoted from the Book of Mormon:

            Yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed: yea, and it shall be given unto such TO BRING THOUSANDS OF SOULS. . . (Alma 26: 22. ) 

Then he continued,  

            DID YOU HEAR THE WORD THOUSANDS? THAT STRUCK ME AS I READ THAT IN ALMA. . . . "AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN UNTO SUCH TO BRING THOUSANDS"--NOT HUNDREDS, NOT DOZENS, NOT TENS, BUT THOUSANDS. WE HAD A WORD FROM A GRANDSON LAST NIGHT, IN WHICH HE WAS DELIGHTED BECAUSE THEY HAD BAPTIZED FOUR PEOPLE. HE THOUGHT THEY WERE DOING WONDERFUL WORK, AND I THINK THEY ARE, TOO, BUT WHEN IT COMES TO THOUSANDS, THE LORD MUST HAVE MEANT THAT. HE KNOWS WHAT THESE WORDS MEAN, AND WHEN HE USED THE WORD THOUSANDS, HE MEANT THOUSANDS. AND THAT'S TEN HUNDRED IN A THOUSAND! (Kikuchi, 1981, p. 213).

            If I were to influence that to happen in my mission, I had to motivate and train my missionaries to do it. President Kimball had said that, too, at the same mission presidents' seminar (Kikuchi, 1981): 

            Speaking of the motivating of people, and getting them to work, that's our responsibility--to give. ELOQUENT SERMONS MAY BRIGHTEN THE LIFE: TO USE EXPRESSIVE WORDS MAY STIMULATE: BUT THE EVIDENCE OF OUR GREATNESS, THE PROOF OR OUR EFFECTIVENESS IS IN THE AREA OF MOTIVATION, TO GET THEM TO DO SOMETHING (p. 217).

I felt a personal responsibility to work even harder and get the missionaries to reach for new levels of performance. On January 2, 1981, I wrote the following in my journal:

            Well, the new year has begun. I am thankful to the Lord for the many blessings He has blessed us with this past year and look forward to the blessing of this coming year. I believe it will be a good one. But so much depends on me. The Lord works through people and I am in the position at this time and place. So if it's to be done, it will be by the Lord working through me. And, if He is to work through me, I must WORK! (Groberg, 1978-1981). 

I didn't feel I had much new to offer. Rather, I had to continue to reinforce the things I had been emphasizing (vision, skills, reinforcement) at higher levels. 

44. Removing "Seniority" from the Mission 

Problem or situation. In a way, many Mormon missions operate on a "seniority" system. All missionaries are divided into paired companion sets. One of the missionaries is designated as "Senior" companion, and one of them is the "Junior" companion.

The mission president has the discretion as to who will be made "Senior" when. At any given time, approximately half the missionaries are "Seniors." Thus, in order to make new seniors, the mission president either has to wait until some seniors are released and go home or "demote" current "Seniors" back to "Juniors".

The missionaries' progress does not always parallel the "openings." With the training given by some of my "best" missionaries, many new missionaries were often qualified to lead out as "Seniors" long before "Senior" openings were available. Even if a new missionary rapidly learned the lessons, mastered the teaching techniques, became effective in contacting, introduction lessons, etc., and qualified in all phases of missionary work necessary to become a "Senior," he still might have 20 or 30 missionaries ahead of him waiting for the passage of time to open the opportunity to them.

At the same time it seemed there were sometimes a few missionaries who, although they were already "Seniors," were not leading out and carrying on the work. They needed someone to push them. The relationships between "Junior" and "Senior" were such that it was difficult for the "Junior" to push, and to resort to making these faltering missionaries "Juniors" again would be devastating to the missionary and was used only in extreme situations. Fortunately, I found a means to solve both of these "Senior" problems at once. 

Action taken. (1-80) MAKE WIDE USE OF CO-SENIORS TO ALLOW MANY NEW, YOUNG SENIORS, AND SUPPORT FALTERING SENIORS. '(Productivity label: Organizational.) 

Rather than letting time and release dates control when missionaries were made "Seniors," I let qualifications determine it. If two young missionaries were ready and qualified to be "Seniors," I sometimes put them together as companions and made them both "Seniors.” We referred to them as "Co-seniors:” Since it was often necessary for one to be in charge, they had the option of switching off as official “Senior" every other day, every other week, or working it out in any other way that they mutually agreed on. Sometimes a missionary needed a companion with certain strengths to compensate for certain of his own weaknesses" When a current “Senior” needed pushing, I could make him "Co-senior” with another more aggressive missionary.

The use of "Co-seniors" started very slowly with one set here, another there. Then, as the benefits of it became more evident, it was used more widely. By the end of my mission, "Co-senior” was the most prevalent title. 

Results of the action. The most significant result was the increase in motivation to work hard and prepare early to become a “Senior.” The determining factors for becoming “Senior” became preparation and qualifications--things missionaries could control--rather than time and release dates--things the missionaries could not control. As a result, many missionaries became "Seniors"--prepared to lead out in finding, teaching, baptizing and fellowshipping--earlier.

The “Co-senior” relationship also allowed me to pair any two missionaries together, without limitations as to whether they were currently "Juniors" or “Seniors.” I could put two “Juniors” together as “Co-seniors,” or even two “Seniors" together, and strengthen both of them without embarrassment to either. This both solved the problem and saved face and, I believe, resulted in much better combinations of companion sets.

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