Preach My Gospel

Learning the
Missionary Lessons

The "Preach My Gospel" guide to missionary service is not only a valuable tool for missionary service, but a wonderful means of establishing faith and strong testimonies for all members. In addition to the lessons to be taught by missionaries, "Preach My Gospel" contains helpful resources for effective study, recognizing and teaching by the Spirit, developing Christlike attributes, wise time management and so forth.

Unlike previous approaches where lesson plans were memorized and delivered verbatim, "Preach My Gospel" emphasizes the need for developing personal testimony regarding the principles taught and teaching these concepts in a more personal way as directed by the Spirit. The introduction to chapter three states that "It is essential to learn the concepts of the [lessons], but these should not be taught by rote presentation. The missionary should feel free to use his own words as prompted by the Spirit. He should not give a memorized recitation, but speak from the heart in his own terms." With this in mind, the role of memorization is stated as follows:

"Memorize scriptures to use in your teaching. Commit to memory the sequence of the doctrinal points in each of the missionary lessons.... [Missionaries] should memorize vocabulary, phrases, sentence patterns, and brief statements of doctrine as they appear in the lesson, but only after these have become personally meaningful. Do not memorize entire lessons"
["Preach My Gospel", pg. 30]

In an attempt to support this goal, and the direction of the Lord to "treasure up in your minds continually the words of life" (D&C 84:85), a suggested method for establishing a foundation for teaching and testifying of the doctrines contained in the "Preach My Gospel" missionary lessons is presented here. Although this approach is made easier with Scriptorian, it can be used independently.

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1. Read through each of the lessons
Learn what principles of the gospel are being taught. Get a feel for the way in which they are presented. Become familiar with the level of detail and depth of the content. Look at the organization and flow of the material. Review the reference information available for supporting the message.

2. Learn and remember the lessons and concepts

- Learn and remember the main topic of each of the lessons, and the order in which they are presented.
     (e.g. "The Message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus
     Christ", "The Plan of Salvation", etc. )
- Next, learn and remember the first lessons key concepts and the order in which they are presented.
     (e.g. "God is Our Loving Heavenly Father", "The Gospel Blesses
     Families", etc.)
- In a similar manner, learn the key concepts for each of the lessons
- Review regularly in order to retain what you have learned.

To aid in learning the lessons and concepts, you may want to use the Scriptorian "Missionary Lessons Study List" which is a free download that can be imported into Scriptorian. This study list is organized to help you easily learn the lesson's main topics and key concepts as suggested above.
An alternate resource is to use the Scriptorian Applet to learn the lessons and concepts.

3. Prayerfully study the doctrine in each lesson
It is important that the concepts of each lesson are taught in your own words based on your own testimony that they are true. In order to accomplish this, carefully and prayerfully reread the lessons. Ask yourself the questions found at the beginning of the lesson. Imagine how you would teach and testify of the doctrines. Study and ponder each of the scriptures associated with the lessons, as well as those found through the Topical Guide and footnotes. Study in such a way as to allow the Spirit to help you to develop an understanding of the doctrines and principles which is deeper than that which you will teach. Fill up the reservoir so that there is much to draw from when the time to teach arrives.

4. Select scriptures that support the lesson's doctrines
From your studies, select scriptures that have impressed you and which will support the concepts that you teach. These are the scriptures you should memorize so that they can easily be quoted when teaching. The Spirit can more easily bring to your mind memorized scriptures than those that are casually reviewed. Memorizing is the best way to treasure up the words of the Lord. In addition to memorizing scriptures, you should also learn where to find additional verses. For example, you may not need to memorize parables and events in the scriptures, but you should learn where they can be found without having to look them up in the index or Topical Guide.

There is no better tool for memorizing scriptures than Scriptorian. Many of the scriptures referenced in "Preach My Gospel" are found in the Missionary Lesson Scriptures study lists which can be downloaded and used with Scriptorian. Another approach for using Scriptorian would be to expand the Missionary Lessons Study List (mentioned in #2 above) by adding to it the verses you have selected to memorize. This way you can learn the scriptures in the context of the lessons and concepts that they will be used. (Tip: to associate the scriptures with a concept, modify the scripture reference by using a prefix derived from the concept sequence. For example, if you were to memorize Moses 1:39 with the concept "1.1 God is Our Loving Father", modify the reference to be "1.1.1 Moses 1:39")
In addition, the Scriptorian Applet can also be used to learn many of the scriptures associated with the lessons.

5. Remember phrases and thoughts
Along with the scriptures, as you prayerfully study the lessons the Spirit will impress certain phrases and thoughts upon your mind. It is also useful to note these and review them each time you study the lessons and concepts. If a particular phrase from "Preach My Gospel" is useful, you may want to memorize it. However, you may also want to modify it to use words and style that is more comfortable and natural to you. Just as you may mark your scriptures with notes and thoughts that came to you while you were studying, you should also note and remember impressions from the Spirit that have come as you have prayerfully studied and pondered the doctrines and concepts contained in the missionary lessons.
If you are using Scriptorian and the Missionary Lessons Study List mentioned above, you can also add these thoughts and phrases to it as you would scriptures.

6. Regularly review and expand
Remembering what you have learned requires regular review. Also, as in scripture study, new insights and understanding will come by regularly studying and pondering the missionary lessons contained in "Preach My Gospel". As these new thoughts and impressions come, record and remember them as before.
Using Scriptorian's study lists makes reviewing what you have learned easy and effective. It is also easy to include new scriptures and thoughts to your study list over time as well.

The approach outlined above is an effective way to "treasure up" the main doctrines and supporting scriptures contained in the "Preach My Gospel" missionary lessons. It will help you to develop the necessary foundation such that the Spirit can "bring all things to your remembrance" (John 14:26) and the gospel message "shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man." (D&C 84:85)

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Preach My Gospel

Learning theMissionary Lessons

Learning the
Missionary Lessons