PROVO, Utah — To help missionaries apply the inspired updates in the second edition of “Preach My Gospel,” Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles announced a new “Preach My Gospel” app on Thursday, June 22.
The updated app — which “broadens and deepens digital goal setting and planning tools for missionaries” — replaces and enhances what has been the “Area Book Planner.”
Speaking during the 2023 Seminar for New Mission Leaders at the Provo Missionary Training Center and focusing his remarks on “Preach My Gospel” Chapter 8, “Accomplish the Work through Goals and Plans,” Elder Stevenson demonstrated many features of the new app.
“As they learn doctrines and principles through ‘Preach My Gospel,’ the app provides practical application for missionaries to accomplish the Work through goals and plans,” said Elder Stevenson.
The new app provides the functionality to support missionaries with their weekly planning sessions, helping them “prayerfully consider the needs of each person with whom they are working.”
“As missionaries review where each person is in their spiritual progression, they seek inspiration to know the next invitation or commitment they should extend and record this in the app during the planning session,” said Elder Stevenson.
Reflecting on the first edition of “Preach My Gospel” released in 2004, Elder Stevenson spoke of the then-state-of-the-art tools that helped missionaries set goals and make plans.
But in the almost two decades since that historic release, much in the world has changed, he said.
In fact, nearly every young missionary entering missionary service was not even born when “Preach My Gospel” was introduced in 2004, he said. In addition, virtually all 67,800 missionaries serving today are “digital natives who have grown up with rapidly advancing technology.”
Elder Stevenson, who was serving as a mission president in Japan in 2004, had the only Church-issued cellphone. And the only “app” on his phone was to make and receive phone calls.
“Today, virtually all missionaries have smartphones,” he said, noting that the teaching tools found in Chapter 8 of “Preach My Gospel” now match the rapid advances in technology.
“For our digital native missionaries of today using print-based tools is like operating in a foreign language,” Elder Stevenson said.
The updated “Preach My Gospel”:
- Simplifies the goal-setting process.
- Emphasizes the principle of agency, goals and accountability.
- Focuses planning on the needs of individuals.
Elder Stevenson shared a video featuring a discussion with missionaries and leaders from the California Ventura Mission and the Washington Spokane Mission. Both missions have been using the new Chapter 8 for the past several months. “These missions have enthusiastically embraced the updates that have moved them into the digital age of accomplishing the work with goals and plans,” he said.
Sister Rebecca S. LeBaron, a mission leader in the Washington Spokane Mission, said she and her husband, President Christopher J. LeBaron, teach their missionaries that they are building a foundation for the rest of their lives. In a video meeting with the LeBarons and some of the missionaries who piloted using the second edition of “Preach My Gospel,” she said Chapter 8 helps Latter-day Saints prioritize the things that matter most. Missionaries who used the new manual began to “recognize the importance of aligning their will with Our Father in Heaven’s will.”
“That’s the most important thing that they can learn for the rest of their lives,” Sister LeBaron said.
Elder Stevenson, with his wife, Sister Lesa Stevenson, was blessed to begin his service as a mission president with the implementation of “Preach My Gospel” in 2004, he said. “How I wish I was in your shoes right now, implementing the second edition of ‘Preach My Gospel’ — especially these exciting changes in Chapter 8. Embrace them. Don’t stress too much about implementing all this technology. This will come so easily to your missionaries and ultimately it will come to you as well. Do all you can to continue a tradition of a ‘Preach My Gospel’ mission.”
Quoting a video message shared by President Russell M. Nelson announcing the second edition of “Preach My Gospel,” Elder Stevenson closed his talk by noting that “‘over 5 million copies of “Preach My Gospel” have been printed. It has had a profoundly positive effect on our missionary efforts. And our missionaries have been more deeply converted by using it.’ … I offer my witness that this is His work.”
