My First Mission

The Faith-Promoting Series began in 1879 with the publication of this book, My First Mission. At that time George Q. Cannon, who was a member of the First Presidency, desired to produce a series of books that would both teach faith and other important gospel principles as well as be entertaining enough that youth would be willing to read them. The results were some of the most important and widest read books in the early-LDS cannon. The series totals 17 volumes.


This book describes some of the experiences that President Cannon had as a missionary in the Hawaiian islands 1850 to 1853.


He states:


“When a youth, it was my good fortune to live in the family of President John Taylor. It was my chief delight in those days to listen to him and other Elders relate their experiences as missionaries. Such conversations were very fascinating to me. They made a deep impression upon me. The days of which they spoke were days of poverty when Elders traveled without purse or scrip among strange people who were ignorant of the principles, and too many of them were ready to mob and persecute. They traveled by faith, and were pioneers for the Lord in strange lands, and He was their only reliance. Their missions were rich in instances of His power in their behalf. What I heard strengthened my faith and increased the desire in my heart to be a missionary. No calling was so noble in my eyes as that of a standard-bearer of the gospel.


“The thought which prompts me to publish ‘My First Mission’ is that perhaps it may have the effect upon some of the youth of Zion that the recitals of faithful Elders had upon me.”


It is a powerful account of a faithful missionary, as pertinent today as it was in 1879, especially with the explosion of elders and sisters entering the mission field following Thomas S. Monson’s landmark announcement of the adjustment of missionary ages in 2012.


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