When you reach your fields of labor, do the best you can; and when the enemy comes along and tells you that you are somebody, say, "Mr. Devil, it is none of your business. What I have spoken is what the Lord gave to me. I have presented it to the people, and that is all I have to do with it." If you cannot preach as nicely and smoothly as you wish, and a feeling rises that you cannot preach at all—that you had better return home, tell Satan to get behind you—that he has no power to dictate whether you preach a word or not, for you are in the Lord's service. So live that the Spirit of the Lord can instruct your minds at all times, and you can then defy the Devil and all his emissaries. If you have nothing from the Lord to present to the people, be as willing to be silent as you would to preach what might be termed a splendid discourse. 8:55.
I do not think there was worse said about the Savior and his disciples in ancient days than has been said about the people of Utah in modern times. Take no notice of this, but attend to the business about which you have been sent. Tell this generation the truth, and pass along. Do not contend or argue much but pass along peaceably and preach the first principles of the Gospel. 8:56.
If you should have visits here from those professing to be Christians, and they intimate a desire to preach to you, by all means invite them to do so. Accord to every reputable person who may visit you, and who may wish to occupy the stands of your meeting houses to preach to you, the privilege of doing so, no matter whether he be a Catholic, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Baptist, Free-will Baptist, Methodist, or whatever he may be; and if he wishes to speak to your children let him do so. Of course you have the power to correct whatever false teachings or impressions, if any, your children may hear or receive. 14:195.
When men enjoy the spirit of their missions and realize their calling and standing before the Lord and the people, it constitutes the happiest portions of their lives. 8:53.
Some inquire, "Why cannot we serve God in other countries as well as here?" You can just as well in England, in France, in Germany, in Italy, on the islands of the sea, in the United States, in California, or anywhere else, as you can here. 2:253.
The Returned Missionary—Come home with your heads up. Keep yourselves clean, from the crowns of your heads to the soles of your feet; be pure in heart,—otherwise you will return bowed down in spirit and with a fallen countenance, and will feel as though you never could rise again. 2:253.
I wish to make this request: that the Elders who return from missions consider themselves just as much on a mission here as in England or in any other part of the world. 14:220.
We frequently call the brethren to go on missions to preach the Gospel, and they will go and labor as faithfully as men can do, fervent in spirit, in prayer, in laying on hands, in preaching to and teaching the people how to be saved. In a few years they come home, and throwing off their coats and hats, they will say, "Religion, stand aside, I am going to work now to get something for myself and my family." This is folly in the extreme. When a man returns from a mission where he has been preaching the Gospel he ought to be just as ready to come to this pulpit to preach as if he were in England, France, Germany, or on the islands of the sea. And when he has been at home a week, a month, a year, or ten years, the spirit of preaching and the spirit of the Gospel ought to be within him like a river flowing forth to the people in good words, teachings, precepts, and examples. If this is not the case he does not fill his mission. 14:100.
Do not come from your missions leaving behind you people whom you have oppressed, from whom you have begged their money. I would work my way there and back again, or beg from strangers, before I would take one dime from the Saints, unless they of their own free will and accord wished to make me presents, and were able to do so without distressing themselves. True, I have seen the time, and so have many of my brethren, when my heart has ached to see men and women go without food day after day for the sake of feeding me, when I could feed myself; but any other course would not satisfy them. Under such circumstances you must humor the people and yield to their feelings. 8:55.
Those faithful Elders who have testified of this work to thousands of people on the continents and islands of the seas will see the fruits of their labors, whether they have said five words or thousands. They may not see these fruits immediately, and perhaps, in many cases, not until the Millennium; but the savor of their testimony will pass down from father to son. 8:142.