I was in England when President Monson called me on the phone and asked me to write his biography. It was June 18, 2008, a Thursday, and the experience is forever imprinted in my heart and mind.

How many returned missionaries do you know who come home from their missions and find the transition rough? Maybe you even experienced it firsthand as a returned missionary. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Carrying the gospel to the world is one hundred percent about missionary work. But missionary work is far more than just what the full-time missionaries do. In this lesson President Benson provides us with many good points on how to become the kind of people the Lord can use to teach the rest of His children about their one and only path home.

Editor’s note: “This week from the pulpit” highlights recent messages by General Authorities and General Officers of the Church.

Matt. 11:28; 12:1-13; Luke 7:36-50; Luke 13:10-17

"Do you want a big rock or a little rock?" Dave Evertsen asked, weighing one in each hand.

INTRODUCTION:

For the first Mormon who ventured into outer space, the experience left a remarkable spiritual impact.

In 1960, I was living near Hamburg in West Germany and was called to be the mission YMMIA president. Half of the members of our mission lived in East Germany, which necessitated having counterpart Young Men’s and Young Ladies’ presidents serving in the same capacity in East Germany. Because the Church members were scattered over a large area, we made a special effort to plan as many activities as possible that could be attended by all the youth of the mission. This presented some problems peculiar to our mission, since half the mission was in West Germany and West Berlin, and the other half was behind the Iron Curtain. It was impossible to hold any activities in the eastern sector, so we scheduled all of our programs in West Berlin so that the East Germans could also attend. They could easily board a subway in East Berlin, ride across the border into West Berlin and attend the meeting, then return to their homes without difficulty.