Influence of One

I’d like to relay a powerful story from LeGrand Richards’ book Just to Illustrate. In the book, he tells the story of meeting a man who claimed his father was one of the first converts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mississippi in 1840.

This was shared with LeGrand in 1940. Since the conversion of his father in 1840, his father and his father’s descendants had contributed 100 YEARS of missionary service to the Church of Jesus Christ. Fifteen of the man’s descendants were at that time serving active missions. LeGrand relates that a couple years later he met that same man who told LeGrand the number was now 160 years of missionary service.

“You see,” said the man, “when you add ten or fifteen years each year from ten or fifteen missionaries in the field, it does not take long to add another hundred years.”

LeGrand then says, “The missionary who brought that man into the church back in 1840 might not have felt that he had accomplished much, especially if he were his only convert. Yet in a hundred years there was one hundred and sixty years of missionary work from that one man and his descendants. Add to that all the converts made by their converts and their descendants, and you would almost have a nation of men, all as the result of that one conversion.”

This is a great follow-up to “Teaching in heaven.” 

We should never be discouraged about our small efforts in sharing the gospel. We don’t know how the world could be changed by that one invitation.

Think how much joy that missionary is having in heaven, watching as light, love, and peace is brought to thousands upon thousands of individuals because of the one person he shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with in 1840.

What a powerful thought and what motivation to share the light we have with others.