Attention youth leaders. If you have recently been called to lead the rising generation, I have a next step for you. Listen to an awesome presentation by Yvonne Hubert and Peter Vidmar who are both respective members of the Young Women and Young Men general advisory council for the church. Their presentation really helps clarify ways on how to effectively lead the youth using the children and youth program.
They also cover topics like youth led groups, how to lead through personal ministry, how to meet youth where they are, identifying the youth's strengths and capacities. This presentation is part of the Young Saints virtual library, and you can access it at no cost by going to leading saints.org/14. Again, simply click the link in the show notes or go to leading saints.org/14.
So my name is Kurt Frankem, and I am the founder and executive director of Leading Saints and, obviously, the host of the Leading Saints podcast. Now I started Leading Saints back in 2010. It was just a hobby blog, and it grew from there. By the time, 2014 came around, we started the podcast, and that's really when it got some traction and took off. 2016, we became a 501c3 nonprofit organization and we've been growing ever since.
And now I get the opportunity of interviewing and talking with remarkable people all over the world. Now this is a segment we do on the Leading Saints podcast called How I Lead, and we reach out to everyday leaders. They're not experts, gurus, authors, PhDs. They're just everyday leaders who've been asked to serve in a specific leadership calling, and we simply ask
them, how is it that you lead? And they go through some remarkable principles that should be in a book, that should be behind a PhD. They're usually that good, and, we just talk about, sharing what the other guy is doing. And I remember being a leader just simply wanting to know, k. I know what I'm trying to do, but what's the other guy doing? What's working for him? And so that's why every Wednesday or so, we publish these how I lead segments to share.
Another episode of the Leading Saints podcast. Today, I welcome in Christian McComber who is, in Los Angeles area, grew up in the Seattle area, and he has a great platform online called Missionary Universe. So this is especially for you youth leaders out there, definitely listen to this. Might be a resource that you recommend to your, your youth, the rising generation, as
they prepare to be missionaries. This is sort of a really unique approach to missionary prep and engaging in the principles of of missionary work as they they grow and develop, and so they're better prepared when called to serve comes, in their in their
email box. Right? And we also spend a good chunk of the time just discussing ward goals or state goals when it comes to missionary work, like, how do we involve the youth into developing a goal and then really leaning into some of these goals when it comes to missionary work, and allowing God to manifest miracles in the word mission? And so he has some great tips, some
great perspectives. I think you'll enjoy it. Just, I love Christian's, zeal for missionary work as he is so active in helping people come into Christ through missionary work. And I think you'll find it inspiring. So here's my interview with Christian McGomber. Alright. Welcome to the Leading Things podcast with, Christian McGomber here. How are you, Christian? Doing good. Thanks, Kurt. Nice. Well, I'm glad to have you here. You are, a force
to be reckoned with online. You've got an online platform called Missionary Universe. Maybe well, I mean, what what is this thing? What's the background to it? Give us the the whole story. Yeah. So Missionary Universe started around 2020, and I think the initial concept behind it was this was at the height of the the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Oh, cool. And we were thinking, there's so much momentum around this cinematic universe.
What if there was something like this for missionary training for you? And I had I was writing a book around that same time, and I didn't I wasn't even starting a YouTube channel wasn't really on my radar, but we dove into it. And Yeah. It's it's kinda just been a journey. We just realized this was an opportunity. We wanted to rally the youth battalion of the Lord using modern technology, and this felt like a way to do that. Yeah. And have you always just had a passion for missionary work? Does
it come from your your own mission? Or So, yeah, I I grew up loving missionary work. My dad was really into it, and we we growing up in Seattle, it was a place where it's kinda cold and dark and stormy. And then I went on my mission, and it was to Brazil. And it was this beautiful lush environment, and it really I mean, I had more vitamin d in, like, the 1st week than I had my whole life. Well, I I was just filled with energy arriving in Brazil, and I had all this
I I call it potential energy. Like, you had all this potential energy with my dad growing up where he was getting me all excited to serve. And then I just when I became a missionary, we really turned that into kinetic energy and just went wild. And I I had so much fun as a missionary, and helped many people come into Christ. And then I was really surprised when I came home and I started doing missionary work in my local area again.
And in Brazil, I learned a fast paced form of missionary work that we were able to help many people come unto Christ. And when I came home and I started teaching people with that missionary mindset again, I realized that even though the culture of Seattle and Brazil are like almost polar opposites, when you invite people to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized, their responses were so similar.
And I was like, you know, even though there's, like, a cultural difference, there is a person to person similarity. Like, even though we've come from different cultures, we're all people, and we all have pretty much the same concerns. And my dad, when we would do a missionary work growing up, he was always like, you know, there's gotta be a way to help many people come unto Christ even in a place like Seattle. And
I really held onto that. And I think that was actually one of I think there's, like, a thousand reasons why Missionary Universe began. Yeah. And I think a lot of it is just who I am as a person, my drive for missionary work. And some people experience the spirit in different ways. Right? Some people talk about the spirit like a fire is burning or like an ember or like a still small voice. And if I was Elijah on the mountain,
the spirit would be in the lightning. Like, it would be like I would feel it. And, like, you see in in Missionary Universe, like, on our channel, there's, like, a guy holding a sword and he's got lightning all around him. And that's how I experience the spirit. It's this high energy. It gives me excitement. It makes me wanna go take on the world and overcome the world, and that's really what we've brought into missionary work wherever we go. Yeah. So I wanna dig into this a little bit. You
you come up with your mission. I mean, we I think we all I would say the vast majority of return to missionaries kinda have this fire in them of, like, I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna baptize at least 1 person a year. I'm never gonna be that member, you know, who's who's not engaged in missionary work. And and then, you know, mortality hits, and we kinda slow down. We get distracted by school and work and life and
marriage and kids and all those things. And then suddenly you wake up and you're like, ah, man. I'm that member, that I despise of my mission. You know? So I'm just curious. Like, you come over your mission. Was it like this organized effort that you wanna do to continue sort of having that missionary fire? Or I mean, I I'm trying to visualize what that looked like. Great question. I came home from my mission actually a little bit early. So I had a health problem. And when I came home,
I came home 3 months early. So I I I had this health problem at, like, a year and a half. And then I held on the mission and held on and held on. And then finally, I just had to come home. Mhmm. And so I think because I came home a little bit early, I kinda had this edge, this feeling like, oh, I gotta I gotta keep going. And my dad Gotta finish.
Right? Right. I gotta finish strong. And even though you know, my mission president really helped me feel like you've completed your work here, I had set a goal as a missionary, of how many people I wanted to bring on to Christ. That goal was miraculously achieved in my last week. So I did leave the mission feeling a sense of completion, but I think the way that I left, I really wasn't mentally prepared for coming home
because I left so suddenly. The decision for me to come home was like 3 weeks before I was home. And so I think because there wasn't as much of a like, it was it was more sudden me coming home, I think there was less of a transition. But there was also a conscious decision on my part when I came home to continue that momentum. And, I did visit a lot of people. I had, like, 92 people at my homecoming that were visiting the church, many of them for the first time.
Oh, wow. And I went through You invited those people to come or oh, wow. Yeah. We went around and we went everywhere and invited everyone. Like everyone I knew growing up, I invited them to come and hear my homecoming talk. And after my homecoming talk, I went and contacted every single one of them and invited them to talk to the missionaries.
Wow. Okay. And and I think because I grew up in it and my and I saw my dad as an example of a lifelong missionary, I decided I'm gonna be a lifelong missionary. And, the the transition from my life on the mission to my life after was I actually felt a lot of pain because my my condition was a physical condition. I had chronic pain in both my hands, both my shoulders, and both of my feet. And I lived with that pain for a long time.
And that pain was really a reminder that that all the things I experienced as a missionary were real. I think so often we come home and it's been so long since we're on a mission and some people, they just kind of move on and they get into a new routine. And I didn't really have that luxury, I guess. Like, a piece of the mission was always with me. A reminder of the mission was always with me, sometimes painfully so. Yeah. But I'm grateful for it because it did keep me on that path.
I think the other thing that that really set me apart is where I place my goals. So when I came home, I took the goal that I achieved as a missionary. I 10 x ed that and I made it a life goal. Mhmm. And I was like, from now until the end of my life, I'm going to achieve this goal. And I'm still working towards that goal. In fact, I'm not even 20% of the way there yet. But Yeah. You have a lot of life ahead of you. Right? I do. And luckily I have a lot of life ahead of me.
You're right. And so and so I think because I set this goal, it really put me on the path where I would start Missionary Universe. And the truth is Missionary Universe started because I had a friend who came to me and he saw how many people we were baptizing during 2020. And he was like, you know, we're baptizing all these people. Like, what you have this momentum is amazing. What if it could spread, like, exponentially?
What if you could take this momentum that you've learned, that you've gained, and we spread it to other people. And we came up with the name Missionary Universe because of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Right? And we were like, oh, well, we're gonna create video content, and it's gonna be cinematic in nature. It's gonna be like Missionary Universe.
And we also like that the name also lent itself to, like, a universe of possibility, a universe like, there's and, you know, whatever we decided to do down the road as this as this project evolved, it would it could take on many things as missionary universe. It's kind of a nice catchall. Yeah. So I gotta ask, with those, 92 people you invited to church, did did any get baptized? Or any any stories behind the those invitations? No. Yeah. Yeah. People
some people did get baptized. Yes. It was it was a wide range, and, I I wish more people got baptized, honestly. There of, like, the 93 people I invited or 92, sorry, I invited, like, 100 and then 92 came. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So of the 92 people who came, there were I think there were, like, 3 people who ended up getting baptized. Nice. I guess my friends weren't as prepared
as I as I thought, but Yeah. Well, I just appreciate that approach because I'm just thinking, you know, in the in the perspective of a of a church leader, who has a missionary coming home, you know, you have such a, like, a fire in in their bosom, you know, that that you can really leverage at that point to invite people to church. So to invite that individual to say, hey. Invite everybody you know to come here and, you know, quote, unquote report on your
mission. And it's such it's maybe an easier ask for those individuals, plus they're they're sort of in the in the habit of asking. So I love that that approach. Yeah. And I I definitely am a strong believer that whatever momentum you have as a missionary, you maintain that and build on it. And I think setting a goal when you come home can really help you do that because at least it it keeps that habit of of goal setting in your life. Yep.
And I'm just curious, if there's anything else here as far as, like, tips you'd give to a bishop or somebody you know, here they are trying to integrate this missionary back into life.
Any any advice you'd give for them as far as, you know, leveraging that that missionary spirit they have or keeping them engaged in the work or because, you know, there's such a a a tough period of time, you know, in that that phase of life of many fall away or, you know, are disengaged with the gospel or just, you know, here they were, this this, zealous missionary. Now it's sort of gone. You
know, the fire blew out. Anything else you'd like advice you give to leaders as they're helping someone transition from a mission? Yeah. My like I said, my particular situation was very different because I came home early. I had all these issues, but I would say in general, if if I were Bishop, I would call them immediately as a ward missionary. I would keep as many things consistent as possible. Yeah. Like if they came from this lifestyle where they're being a missionary 247,
still give them that. Still give them those opportunities. I've also heard the temple is a great place. I know a lot of advice I've heard is when you come home become a temple worker. But I would say staying involved in the work and just never letting that work go will keep you strong. Mhmm. Now the the kind of miracles that you see in missionary work, you can never doubt your testimony if you're being consistent. In the past 48 hours, I've seen 2 people give up addictions.
In just the last 48 hours, I've been in the room and watched them go, okay, I'm going to take my coffee and some harder addictions in the last 24 hours. And they put that in the hands of the missionary. And you see that and, you know, earlier today I get a call, like, hey. I'm feeling that. Hey. It's gonna be okay. You
know, talking him through. And, like, having that constantly in your life and and having the people who need you while they're making that transition from whatever they're going through into a life that's more focused on Christ, that will keep you engaged. Yeah. That will keep you active. That will keep you strong in the gospel. And my invitation to missionaries is don't just have missionary fire, You know, level up. Have missionary lightning. Take it to the next level.
No. I love it. That's really encouraging and and motivating. So, one of the main things we wanna focus on in our discussion is as far as setting setting goals as a ward. You know, I I'm pretty sure it's pretty universal that most wards are asked from their area, you know, leadership that, hey. Submit a a number of baptisms you expect to have in the coming year or or some type of goal. And so and this can get tricky because sometimes it's like, I don't
know. We you know, do you wanna you just sort of pull a number out of the air thing. Well, I mean, that would be a stretch goal, I guess. Or, you know, we had, you know, 5 last year, so maybe we'll try for 6. You know? And, and so I think there's a lot to discuss here. So where's a good jumping off point when it comes to setting goals as a award? For setting goals as a award, you, like you said, it's tough to know where to start. And I would say to start with the youth.
You go to the youth and you say, what do you think is possible? And maybe you do like a night where you share different missionary stories and you you try to find people in the ward who have experienced a lot of missionary momentum because whether your ward is baptizing 5 people or whether they're baptizing nobody, really, whatever you want to achieve. Like something I often say to people who are thinking about setting a goal is
you're not just setting a goal, right? Setting a goal is something we do at work. You're setting a goal with God. And when you set a goal with God, 2 things happen. 1, you create space where you can rise to that challenge. You also create space for God to meet you, to fill that gap. And and this is this is where the miracles really happen. In my past ward, I was called as the board mission leader, and I really wanted to set a high goal for for number of baptisms.
And there was you know, we had to work through it as a council, and I was like, look, we just need to set a goal. Whatever goal you give me, we will achieve. We'll find a way. We'll make it happen. They ended up setting a goal of 12 and then 2020 hit. And, like, we had all these new challenges, but I was like, we set this goal. We're going to achieve this goal. And for a brief time during 2020, we were baptizing every single week. And while we were and we were like
like, this was LA. So we were shut out of church buildings. We had so many limitations. And every time we had a baptism, I had to call the stake president. I had to call the mission president. I had to call the bishop. I had to get ecclesiastical endorsements. I had to find either an ocean or a backyard where we could baptize this person at that particular week. Yeah. And we still were consistent and we achieved this goal.
But I I have seen often, when we're we're hesitant or we want a goal to be lower and more realistic. So I talked to our youth in my ward now, and I'm like, what goal should we should we set just us as a quorum, not even the full ward yet? And the guy and I talked to this young man, and he says and I'm like, so what do you think? We'll kinda talk about a goal, then we'll take it before the quorum. You know, I'm your adviser. Now
I've been called as the adviser. I'm now in a totally different ward. And during this conversation, I say, well, you know, what should our goal be? He's like, okay. Well, you know, tell me a little about what we should expect. And I share with him some missionary stories. And he goes, I think we could set a goal of 100. And I'm like, oh, wait. What? Like, a100? And my wife, overhearing the conversation, she's like, you're not gonna let him set a goal
of a 100. I am like, hey, it's not my like, I don't wanna squash his faith. This is so so common that we do this. Like, someone has faith. They're like, we can do it. And we're like, woah, calm down. We don't want them to calm down. Like a missionary who's just come up from his mission, we want to turn up the volume. We want to make we want to help them accelerate. Right? We don't want to slow them down. So this young man, I
I counseled with him. I was like, well, in my experience as a word mission leader, if we wanna baptize 100 people, we need to bat you know, we need to invite at least 800 people to be baptized. Right? It's like, I would say about for every 8 people you invite, like, one person that really happens. Right? According, you know, to a award 20 minutes from here in another part of LA. And he's like, okay. You know, break it
down for me a different way. I'm like, how many people have we had at activities over the last couple of weeks? He goes, we've had, 2 people at activities and and 3 people who visited last week. I was like, if I connected with them, these people, with missionaries, and we invited all them to be baptized, and we did this every single week, I think by the end of the year we could baptize 16 people. We did quick
math together. And I was like, whenever I set a goal with God, I never want to set for what I think is realistic or possible. I want to expand the possibility a little bit more so that when we reach that goal, we know it was only through God that that was possible. So the young man goes, I wanna set a goal of 20. And we did. We set this goal of 20. And and then I I had to I I wanted to prepare him because I wanted this to come from the young men. So I was like, alright. Did you see
the thought process we went through? And he's like, yeah. You know, we have this. We have that. And sure enough, when we got to the when we got to the quorum council, this young man goes, yeah, we're we're gonna set a goal of of 20. What do you guys think about that? And every single young man in the room is like, yeah, we're gonna set a goal of 20. Like, there's total confidence.
And then an adult leader, know, and who knows what kind of missionaries experiences he's had, what what things has held him back in the past, you know, kind of raises his hand. He's like, woah. You know, how are you guys gonna achieve this goal? And luckily, because of our prior conversation, young man's like, yeah. You know, we we're averaging, you know, 2.5 people at activities a week. We're gonna connect those people with the missionaries, and we're gonna help them progress.
And he was like and the adult was like, okay. I I am curious, like, so at the you're coming from the standpoint of the the word mission leader, and so you're you're not necessarily the, like, the preschooler advisor, but you're you're working with the youth leaders saying, hey. We'd love to talk with the youth about coming up with a missionary goal. Is that the dynamic that's happening? Yeah. It could be it could be our
mission leader who meets with the youth. It could be the bishop who counts with the youth. Yeah. Mhmm. So one thing I didn't explain well between those two stories is in my last word, I was word mission leader and then I moved on to
be a youth adviser. Okay. Gotcha. In my new word, when I was a youth adviser, around this same time, president Nelson actually came to California and gave a historic address where he prophesied that the youth, the youth battalion of California would be the hope of Israel. And so knowing that that prophecy was out there, I was like, okay. You know, it's possible for us to have
the youth be the hope of California. And now I have this very line upon line experience of being a ward mission leader during COVID and we still overcame despite the challenges that we faced as members in California. What what can we build upon this with the youth, with the youth battalion of the Lord? And I knew from Preach My Gospel chapter 8, by goals and plans, our hopes and dreams are transformed into action. So the next step was to set a goal.
And once we had the youth with a goal and they were armed with a rationale for their goal, it wasn't long before the ward accepted the goal. The ward was like, yeah, we're gonna adopt this youth goal and make it our we're gonna support them. We're gonna help them achieve their goal. And I think as we empower the youth battalion to set the goals, we don't we don't introduce, I think, what often happens, which is where we let our past failures inhibit our future success.
This next generation, they haven't failed. They haven't ever been in an area and and struggled to find people. And so if you tell them empowering stories and they believe they can achieve it, then they'll set those goals that drive the rest of us to meet them. Yeah. And so was there anything specific you did to go from the working with the youth to then sort of introducing the the goal to the ward? Was it a email message? Did you gather everybody together? Did you involve the ward
in general? Was it just the ward council? How'd you go about that? So as we so the first thing I did is I talked to our bishop, and I said, our youth have set this goal and, you know, what can we do to achieve it? Is there anything we can do to support? And initially, because of my experience in 2020, our initial goal was to focus on baptism. We were going to baptize 20 people. And my my Bishop had a really unique
missionary experience. He served in Chile and his mission was very focused around bringing people back to church who had been baptized. Yeah. And he felt like that was a strong focus. And I was blessed enough to, have access to my brother's mission president who had a really great program for bringing people back to church. And so I incorporated that into our youth plan, and we, and I I just basically said, look. This is our goal. I'm gonna start running with
this. And what I would do is you know, we're busy. You know? You gotta have a job. You have you know, you're advising these youth, and they're setting up all their all their activities and things. But in the hour before Young Men's, I would take a different young man every week, and we would go and visit people. And I just asked the elders quorum. I'm like, hey. Give me a word list of all
the people who are less active. We're gonna start there, and we're gonna bring these people back to church, and we're gonna, you know, con help their help their kids meet with the missionaries. And while they're preparing their kids, you're building spiritual momentum for the whole family. And so that was our initial focus was bring people back to church, and we used, this style. We call it the Taggart approach. So it's from my brother's mission president.
And through this approach, you're able to get through your award list very quickly. Mhmm. Because you essentially walk up to the door, you say, hey, we only have 5, 10 minutes of your can we just have 5, 10 minutes of your time? You start with a prayer, and then you just tell them the truth. You're, like, you are unique in all the world, and the Lord has blessed you with unique talents and abilities, and we need your help. Will you heed the call of the Lord? It's that simple.
And when a young man shows up at your door and they're the one delivering that message, it's a little disarming. Yeah. Because you're you're not gonna this is that's just a young man. You know? You're not gonna, like, launch into the you know, this massive you know, all of the spiritual doubts that you have. But But when this young man comes to you and he's confident and he says, hey. You have unique abilities that come from the Lord. Will you heed this call?
They they feel that, and I I've seen time and time again, their concern just melt away. And and and what we do is after that invitation, we just wait. We let the spirit work on them, And oftentimes they just say yes. And if they say no, I just tell the young men, like, say, okay, why not? And then you wait and they'll share something. And so often our concerns, they're like an iceberg. Right? 10% above the surface. And I think even for that person, so much of why they're not at church
is below that iceberg. They don't even realize maybe why they're not at church. But when you have a young man who's at your doorstep and saying, okay, why not? It simplifies everything and it makes everything more clear and and maybe they they vent for a little bit and then you say, okay. Okay. What else? Because you want to get to the whole iceberg. You don't want to stop at the first, like, okay. You know, we'll answer that. But what else is on your mind?
What else? And it's very common that we'll be like, okay, what else? And they maybe they'll vent. Maybe they'll be like, oh, so and so really offended me or this happened or that happened or I rented all this material online and it really made me second guess. And you're like and if you're just confident, you're like, okay. You know, we can address that. But before we do, you know, what else? Oftentimes, people,
they will just, like, talk and share. And by the end, they're like, no. Now that I, like, got this off my chest, like, I think I am ready to come back. Or maybe, like, they we leave and it it nothing's, like, fully resolved or, like, we're, like, okay. Going back to all your concerns, here's some quick thoughts. You share it. You move on. And we see these people often, like, 2 or 3 weeks later, I see them at church. And they're like, you know what? Like, I
moved past it. I'm good. But just having someone someone visit you, and and once once we started actually getting momentum, once we were on the street weekly, and it was just me and a young man once a week. But if you visit 2 people in an hour, in a month, you visited 8 people. Mhmm. When you have 5 of those 8 people come back to church, pretty soon the ward wants to get in on it. They wanna know what you're doing. And you can take this really simple formula, the the Taggart approach.
You can apply it to your ward. And there are so many people who are ready to come back. They just got out of the habit in 2020, and they're just waiting for someone to show up and say, we need you. Again, the Lord needs you. Will you come?
Yeah. So just so I have the the flow right here that with the the tag this tagger method, you're looking at the word list as far as individuals who are less active, and then you're making it a focus to to visit them so that you would you would take a youth with you. Maybe in an hour, you'd you know, with driving time and everything, you'd get to about 2 or 3 individuals, and you'd have the short conversation with them and invite them to to come come to church and and
reengage in the gospel. Is that and is that connected with your your mission goal as far as, like, if those individuals come back, do you count them as part of your 20? Or is that kind of a separate goal on its own? No. I would I would count them. I I think it I think it's good to be open minded Yeah. For how the goal is achieved because we I originally set off thinking, okay. We're we're gonna get this goal in this way.
And when my when our bishop was like, well, I had this missionary experience, I realized, you know, he is the Lord's chosen servant. Right? Like, the bishop is he's the guy in charge. And if he's had this experience, we need to broaden how we measure this goal. And so we made coming back to church a a part of that goal. Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. That's great. And I just love, you know, involving the youth there.
And so the youth would come with you as almost like a ministering type of visit. Mhmm. And you would rotate through the different youth and maybe have other other leaders doing the similar thing. Right? With that there's a lot of youth to to involve them. Yeah. So one thing we did to spread what we were doing is so there's 2 things that happened. 1 was the we we started getting momentum on our own and then the bishop, when he saw that this was working
with just our youth, he's like, okay. I want you we had a 5th Sunday mandate from the 1st presidency. It has to be about missionary work. And the bishop was like, present on this. Have the youth present on this. So, you know, the youth, they were able to stand in front of the ward and say, this is what we're doing. This is how it's done. Will you help us?
And that that started to to spread it, and we immediately started getting references essentially from members of, like, I know this person who's not at church, or I know that person. Can you go visit? I have an an aunt, a niece, a nephew, or whatever. Can you go visit this person? And then, you know, now we're juggling the word list and we're juggling essentially references directly to our youth of people we wanna go visit and not and they're already integrated into
people in the ward. So that helped. The second thing we did that helped broaden this beyond just the youth and into everybody, we did what's called a fishers of men activity. And the tradition of a fishers of men activity actually started when we were gonna take the young men to go fishing and something went wrong with the boat. And they're like, we're gonna have to cancel. And I called the bishop and I said, hey, these guys can't be fishers, but maybe they could be fishers of men.
What if we turn this into an activity where we where the entire ward goes out and does visits led by our youth using this approach? And it's become a tradition now. We do it, you know, once or twice a year where we all rally. You know, we'll we'll give a quick training on how it's done. We go out. We visit people for 2 hours. Then we come back. We eat a meal, and we we talk about it. We tell you how many
people we visited. And this really simple, this really simple approach of, like, you show up on a Saturday, you visit a bunch of people, you come back, and you have a training, that has become one of the core things that we do at Missionary Universe.
We we go and give trainings. People invite us, and we and that's been able that's how we've been able to spread what our youth are doing in my ward and spread it to wards in San Diego, awards in, you know, Arizona, awards in, you know, there's there's a award in Irvine we're looking at doing this for, and it's starting to spread. There's a real groundswell. That's cool. Yeah. And it's just a good way to rally your your word around this
effort. And because a lot of times, the mission work can feel heavy or, like, does this mean I have to, like, you know, walk across the street with a book of Mormon and have this awkward conversation with my neighbor and you know? But these these tactics really make it, oh, you know, I can do that. That's doable, and and that's encouraging. So, any other point principle story, related to this method or approach or goal setting that you wanna make sure we we we include?
The the other thing I would wanna mention is you can set this goal, like, let's say a goal of 20, which to me felt huge. Right? But it's really the start and you start getting momentum. And in our ward, we didn't reach our goal of 20 in 12 months. But I had learned that if you don't reach your goal in the time you've set, you hold on to the goal. We ended up reaching that goal, at 14 months. So 2 months later, we we achieved that goal. And I think a lot of Wards, they
they're afraid when you set a goal. Oh, I have to achieve it in the time I've set or I have failed. Mhmm. And I I think we need to remove failure from goal setting and focus on, are you learning? Are you growing? Hold on to the goal. And so we but here but here's what's interesting. We reach this goal in 14 months. Well, then our youth are like, well, now that we've reached that goal, we need to set a higher goal. And at this point, I'm feeling a little tired.
Yeah. I bet. And I'm like, okay. You know? But I'm I'm committed, and I I'm the Missionary Universe guy. I gotta support these guys. Now if I'm not gonna do it, who's gonna do it? So I'm like, alright. What goal do you guys wanna set? They're like, we wanna help 30 people this time. And when your youth do this, just ride that. Like, you're like, okay. We're gonna help 30 people now. I don't know where they're gonna come from. I don't know how it's gonna happen, but we're gonna do it.
We reached that goal of 30 people in 10 months. Wow. That's cool. So you so and and it's because from 0 to 20, we learned things we could have never learned had we not set that initial goal. And then this year, which is the our 3rd year of doing this, our youth shocked me and they set a goal of 50 in a year, which brought me back to that first conversation with that young man who said, I'm gonna we're gonna help a 100 people.
Yeah. And then he me, the adult, right, trying to hold him back, trying to keep it realistic, trying to keep this young man grounded in reality. I lowered that goal. And, you know, I think there's poetic justice in the fact that since he set that goal of 20, we've helped 82 people. And I'm confident that by the end of this year or shortly after, we'll have helped a 100 people. Mhmm. And it's because I went to a young man and said, hey. What goal should we set?
And I I think too often the youth are underestimated, and we need to see them the way our prophet sees them. We need to see them as the youth battalion of the Lord and be prepared to follow them. Yeah. It's powerful. Love it. That's good stuff. So I'm just curious, you know, being like you said, that you're the missionary universe guy. So you're it's it's part of your personal brand suddenly. Right? You gotta be the missionary guy. I I mean, what does it look like for you,
just day to day? I mean, this is cool. Like, do you mainly can you just keep them focused, keep your efforts focused on these maybe organized efforts or I mean or is there other ways in your life you personally engage in missionary work or try and encourage people to, come into Christ or, you know, whether it's a direct conversation or or how you show up at the grocery store or anything like that? Being the Missionary Universe guy is really something that has just been line upon line.
You know, when I was a child, my dad held me when I was a baby, my dad held me in his arms and said, this is my opportunity to prepare a future missionary. And I I had learned the 4th section of DNC by the time I was 3. And I I was out visiting people shortly after. I was very engaged in learning and growing, and I took that into my mission. And and wherever you are on your missionary journey, if you keep moving forward, you know, when I was young my dad dreamed of being like Ammon.
And if you actually read there's like the what what are those books that we used to read in Elders Quorum that was, like, the the life of the prophets or whatever? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Teachings of the prophets. Uh-huh. Teaching of the prophets. If you read Spencer w Kimball, my dad's actually in there. Oh, cool. They they were, like, hey. You know, you're he was like, we're gonna flood the earth
with Book of Mormons. And my dad was like, okay, I'm going to knock doors in my local neighborhood as a return missionary and I'm just gonna give away Book of Mormons. And he ended up baptizing like 3 families from it in Seattle. And so but then we went through, like, a long kind of, like, periods of long drought together where we, like, went through times where we didn't baptize. But throughout that time, my dad was like, I believe we can be like Ammon. I believe we can bring 100. We just have
to figure out how. We just have to figure out how. And I think having that as a young man made me the Missionary Universe guy. And I look and, you know, whatever, like, missionary dream or dream for the gospel you have, maybe maybe it won't happen with you. Maybe it'll happen with your kids or maybe even your children's children. But like it but like any goal that you set, you just keep going. And to answer your original question of what do you do in a day to
day life? Like, I think fitting Missionary Universe into my schedule is always a challenge because this isn't my job. This is a cause that I care about. Yeah. You know, I I work in advertising, which is why I wanted to set up to make video content to begin with. I felt like so much of the world's resources and how we create video content is used on things I I would say, like, some of the biggest budgets maybe don't go to the best
ideas. Right? I I would I would love to imagine what Missionary Universe could do with the same budget that, say, The Heretic got to create a film or maybe that, the secret lives of Mormon Wives. Like, imagine if Missionary Universe had a budget like that. Yeah. What could we achieve? What kind of stories can we create? What how many youth can we inspire around the world? It would be,
I think, world changing. And so I I started this and I I really I'm still figuring out how to turn it into something that's real, but I do believe in that goal. I believe in the goal of of creating content. And so I just I just chip away at it. So my the big project we're working on right now is telling the story of our incredible youth Mhmm. And doing it in a way where we can harvest these insights and and turn it into, like, an engaging documentary. And
that will I'm filming it now. It probably won't come out till next year. A project I'm also release currently releasing right now is Preach My Gospel on Film. So we've taken the Lord's inspired playbook. We've turned it into a film.
And so somehow in between coming up with ideas for Burger King and Grandma's Cookies and Pepsi, I find time to interview one of my young men or I find time to go on a visit or I find time and and I've learned that as I put God in the center of my life, everything else falls into place. Yeah. Magically, there's just time for all the things you want to do As long as you keep your goals, your focus on Christ, everything else falls into place. And that's how I kinda juggle this in my daily life.
So how can individuals who are listening participate in this? Do you want them just to sort of share your content, make sure it gets to, you know, shared around? I I I assume it's just for like, it's the content's for Latter day Saints. It's not necessarily general, you know, proselytizing type of of content? Or how how how can people, you know, leverage your content and use it? Yeah.
I would say the first thing would be that our our core of of what we're doing is is empowering and arming the youth battalion of the lord to achieve their divine potential. And I would say the best thing that someone watching this could do would be to share Preach My Gospel on film. They can find it on our YouTube channel. If they go and they search Preach My Gospel on Film, they'll find our content.
And if you're a seminary teacher and there are youth in your class who are thinking, oh, maybe I wanna go on a mission, maybe I don't, check out Preach My Gospel on Film and share that with them. Luckily, Preach My Gospel is now part of the seminary curriculum. So it's pretty amazing that we came out with this at the same time that that adjustment was made. So I'm really thinking the seminary would be a great opportunity.
But whether you're a bishop who's looking to get your award excited, you know, share Preach My Gospel on film with them. If you're a young men's advisor, young women's advisor, having the youth in Preach My Gospel is going to help them accelerate their missionary preparation. Too many missionaries go into the field, and they're not really proficient at missionary work until, like, a year or a year and a half, and some of them never become proficient.
And what happens is is if you're not proficient as a missionary, that experience isn't fun. It's not enjoyable. And now you come home from your mission with a negative association with the gospel.
But if you have the skills and the abilities and the spiritual power that comes from preach my gospel and you enter the mission field with that, you're looking at 100 of thousands of members that are like me, people who are so excited we make missionary work central in our life and position, you know, our our family time and our and our efforts and our time and our talents and our abilities around building the kingdom.
And so I think getting this resource in the hands of youth like never before is our is our top concern. That being said, I do create content for people who are looking to explore the church, but I mostly do that on Instagram. And I do this through, like, Book of Mormon reaction videos where I see someone talking about the gospel. Maybe they're Christian, or maybe they're just talking about, like like, overcoming an addiction or a gospel adjacent topic, and I'll invite them to read the Book
of Mormon. And that gets a lot of engagement. The other thing I'll do is I'll create you know, I'll look at comments and see what kind of concerns are people having in my comment section, And I'll make videos around that on my Instagram. So if you have friends that are outside the church, check out our Instagram, look at some of the responses that I have, and feel free to send them to
your friends. And then for for really empowering your youth, I would say check out Preach My Gospel on film or reach out to us and maybe we can be given a training in your award. Awesome. Really good stuff. Well, we'll link to everything in the in the show notes so people know where to go, where to find it, and and watch, and and follow along and subscribe. So I I'm excited to, for people to jump
in. And, last question I have for you is, as you reflect on your time as a leader or as a missionary, how has being a leader helped you become a better follower of Jesus Christ? One thing I've learned, especially as a as a, I would, I always tell our youth, there's 2 kinds of leaders. There's a designated leader, like a Bishop or a, you know, a, like a quorum president. There's also natural leaders. There's people who start a YouTube channel or rally behind a cause.
And something I've learned as a natural leader is the importance of unity and seeking to build on common beliefs. And, you know, like like we did with our Bishop where, you know, we set off with one course of action and the Bishop was like, well, I want us to focus on this and be like, okay. Yeah. We'll bring that in. And, you know, I wish more people in the world who believe in Jesus Christ and love Jesus Christ could go, really? He appeared to the people in the Americas?
Yeah. Let's take that on. I'm gonna take that with me. And so I think being a leader has helped me to find a group of people, align our passions towards a common goal, a common cause, and I've realized that as we are 1, we are his. And inversely, if we are not one, we are not his. So when we are leading, always seek for unity, always seek to build on common beliefs, and that would be really my key takeaway at this juncture of my own journey with Jesus Christ is
I want to seek unity. I want everyone to come unto Christ. And while that may sometimes require a sword and a shield and a youth battalion to achieve that goal, we serve the Prince of Peace and everything from our tactics to our mindset should be aligned with that. And that concludes this how I lead
interview. I hope you enjoyed it. And, I would ask you, could you take a minute and drop this link in an email, on social media, in a text, wherever it makes the most sense and share it with somebody who could relate to this, this experience. And this is how we, how we develop as leaders, just hearing what the other guys doing, trying some things out, testing, adjusting for your area. And,
that's, that's where great leaderships discover. Right? So we would love to have you, share this with, somebody in this calling or a related calling, and that would be great. And also if you know somebody, any type of leader who would be a fantastic guest on the how I lead segment, reach out to us. Go to leading saints.org/contact. Maybe send this in individual an email letting them know that you're going to be suggesting their name for this interview. We'll reach out to them and,
see if we can line them up. So again, go to leading saints.org/contact, and there you can submit all the information and let us know. And maybe they will be on a future How I Lead segment on the Leading Saints podcast. Remember, check the show notes to listen to the powerful presentation by the General Young Men, Young Women advisory council members, or go to leading saints.org/14.
It came as a result of the position of leadership which was imposed upon us by the God of heaven, who brought forth a restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And when the declaration was made concerning the only true and living Church upon the face of the earth, We were immediately put in a position of loneliness, the loneliness of leadership from which we cannot shrink nor run away, and to which we must face up with boldness and courage and ability.