<span style=”font-size: small; font-family: Arial;”>Mitt Romney is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often known as a Mormon. Mormon is a nickname, however, not the actual name of the Church. The church is a lay church. This means that the extensive programs of the church are carried out by volunteers. Members of the Church become accustomed to finding themselves in positions for which they had no real prior training or experience, and simply jumping in. They consult more knowledgeable people, study, practice, and most importantly, they pray. In time, they become skilled at the task they’ve been assigned. Mormons learn to do whatever needs doing.
This has been the background of Mitt Romney’s life. He learned throughout the years to do whatever needed doing. In 1968, when he was a young man, he accepted a call to go to France for two and a half years to teach the people there about the church. Missionaries are sent away from their homes and families and expected to learn to thrive in and understand the new culture they’re placed into.
France was a troubled place, and an unnerving experience for a young American man. There were riots, disrupted communication, and a government near collapse. Romney, who had already faced the hardship of trying to teach religion in a country filled with chaos, was just preparing for a new challenge as assistant to his mission president. Already he was consistently a leader in the accomplishment statistics of the mssion. He worked hard and got results. He was ready for leadership.
Unfortunately, as he drove the mission president, the man’s wife and Romney’s missionary companion to an appointment, another car came speeding around a curve, missed a turn and swerved into Romney’s lane, hitting his car. Romney was pronounced by police to be dead. He wasn’t, but for a time, no one was sure he’d survive. The mission president’s wife did die. Romney’s grief was intense.
However, despite grief and the physical pains of the accident, Romney was not allowed much time to recover. His mission president left for a time to take his wife’s body home. Romney, only 21 years old, and his companion, found themselves in charge of an entire mission, a task normally assigned only to much older men. They were to oversee two hundred missionaries and assist in serving 3000 church members. Another mission president, assigned to Geneva, was sent in to provide emergency training and support, but he quickly found the young men knew what to do, and so he returned to his own mission. He said they were quite capable. Romney pushed aside his grief and pain and focused on the task in front of him. He was excited by the opportunity to learn to do something extremely difficult under difficult circumstances.
The expectation was that they would do the minimum required to keep things functioning, a tremendous task in itself. However, Romney was not then, as he is not now, content with doing the minimum. He decided that although they’d only baptized 70 people the first half of the year, they’d baptize a total of 200 for the entire year. He went around the mission, speaking to the young missionaries and getting them excited about this new goal. He learned to speak to large audiences, a skill which has benefitted him greatly in his secular life.
Mitt Romney’s mission introduced him to a life of unselfish service, of putting the needs of others before your own, even in the midst of great trials. This is one of the blessings that can come from a well-served mission.
Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/18/romney.missionary/index.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/14/america/romney.php
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20070701/ai_n19342537/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1
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