In giving our service to others, we need to remember
President Hinckley's counsel to extend the hand of
fellowship and to share our love with the hundreds of
thousands who join the Church as converts each year.
The greatest tool the Lord has to welcome new converts warmly
and "keep them in the right way" is the love each of us
extends by taking the time to introduce ourselves to new
members, learning their names, listening to them, and
learning something about them.
Joining a new church and starting a new life is never
easy and often frightening.
Each of us needs to be the friend that every new member
needs to remain active and faithful in the Church.
As friendships are built, new converts "are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the
saints, and of the household of God." When people are
baptized, "their names [are]
taken" and added to Church membership records, "that they
might be remembered and nourished by the good word of
God."
Referring to the miraculous change that occurs in the
lives of new members when they are properly nourished by the
good word of God, Elder John A. Widtsoe observed that "very
common, ordinary people, who accept the gospel from the
lips of some humble Mormon missionary become so changed
by those enlightening truths of the gospel that they are
not the same people any longer."