Letter from the Mission President

Letter from the Mission President of West Virginia Charleston Mission

Dear Elder Hicken,

This letter is one of congratulations for having met the Standard of Excellence in the West Virginia Charleston Mission.  It shows excellence in your obedience, in your faith, in your hard work and in your sacrifice.  These have all come together to allow the Spirit to be with you so that you could see someone come into the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is a great experience.  "And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!"  (Doctrine and Covenants 18:15)  And so for you this has been a very special period of time.

May you know that the Lord loves you and he has blessed you.  This is really His labor and His fruits.  He allows us to experience this joy as we participate in His work.  As you know, we never begin at the beginning.  He has done much preparation as we seek the elect.  That having been said, you need to be congratulated for your diligence.  What a great blessing to have these experiences.  There are many factors that come into play to accomplish this work and companionship unity is one of them.  Important also is the fact that now that you have met these standards you know that you can do it again.  The privilege and honor of what you have put into place will yield the fruit of your labor time and time again.  "I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." (Doctrine and Covenants 82:10)  You have done what He has asked you to do.  Your standard has been high and you have met it.  I congratulate you immensely for all that you have done.  May you know how grateful I am for the service that you are rendering.

Sincerely,
Bruce G. Pitt
President

Standard of Excellence

Performance in certain key categories of missionary labor:

• One baptism in a two month period of time
• Two investigators with a baptism date during one given week
• Two investigators at Sacrament Meeting during that given week
• Three lessons taught to investigators with a member present during that given week
• Three new investigators found during that given week