Minyue was first introduced to the gospel by a couple of her friends online while she still lived in Singapore. For a the last couple of years she had been reading from the Book of Mormon and praying about the things she was learning.
She eventually came to America and married her husband who was a recent convert himself. Her friends encouraged her to continue to pray and gain her testimony of the gospel. She wanted to know more about the things her husband was experiencing, such as receiving the priesthood and his patriarchal blessing. She said she felt prompted by Heavenly Father that she needed to be baptized.
Over time she understood more and more about Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and His gospel. For two months she was meeting with the missionaries and coming to church. She knew baptism was something she wanted to do but didn’t yet feel prepared. Something that strengthened her testimony was reading from the Book of Mormon every day.
While she felt nervous to make the commitment to be baptized, she knew this choice would bring eternal blessings, that will last forever. She accepted the invitation to be baptized and was baptized and confirmed on June 28, 2025.
.
Minyue is very excited to stay on this path and be able to be sealed to her husband in the temple for eternity. After her baptism, she has felt much happier and more confident. She knows that God cares about us no matter where we come from or what circumstances we’ve experienced. She knows that Heavenly Father knows her, loves her, and has a plan for her.
Luis and Marco had been friends since high school. When Marco started asking about God, Luis knew it was time to invite him to worship with him at church. In April, Marco started attending sacrament meeting and meeting with the missionaries. Marco was filled with honest questions and curiosity. After two months of being taught, his heart and countenance began to change and he said he knew he needed the gospel more deeply in his life.
Grace and Addy also met in high school. Addy invited Grace to come to church, and when she came to church, she started meeting with the missionaries. The missionaries invited Addy to come to two other baptisms. After watching those baptisms, she knew she wanted to be baptized too.
Grace loved the idea that God was a loving God and she didn’t need to fear Him. She learned she could use the power of the Atonement to repent and actually change. She had an aunt who she was very close with who passed away a few years ago, and she felt like she had seen many signs from her aunt leading her in the right direction.
Luis baptized Marco and Grace on June 15, 2025. They felt great joy as they received the gift of the Holy Ghost.
.
Marco said that he feels like his life has been easier now that he has the gift of the Holy Ghost. He said that his family has noticed a change in him. Because of the change she has seen in him, Marco’s sister is now interested in learning more about the church. Marco has loved coming to church every week and says he couldn’t see his life without the gospel.
Grace said that she knows the Spirit will help her as she moves to Crossville, Tennessee for the next couple of years to attend college. She doesnt know what she would do if she had never learned about the gospel.
Grace and Marco were able to attend the temple shortly after being baptized. They loved the peace and joy they felt there.
In late April, Luis saw an invitation online to meet with missionaries and filled out a request. When Hermana Brunner and Hermana Briggs reached out, he expressed that he hadn’t gone to church in a while, but was looking to get closer to Jesus Christ. Luis has lived in the United States for 5 years taking care of his dad. He is only 19 years old, yet still he had felt something pulling him to the Savior.
His first week while being in contact with the missionaries, he came to church and enjoyed the peace and refuge he felt there. His second week at church, the sisters showed him the baptismal font and taught him the doctrine of baptism. Later that week they invited him to be baptized, but Luis declined the invitation. Hermana Briggs and Brunner invited him to pray about it and study the scriptures.
After a week and a half with little to no contact, Hermana Brunner and Hernandez were able to reach Luis. He said he had received an answer to his questions and wanted to attend church more. He then attended the Chattanooga Stake Conference and was able to meet the two General Authorities who were presiding and President and Sister Barlow. Later that week, Hermana Brunner and Hernandez once again extended the invitation to be baptized, to which he said “Yes! I meant to tell you before, I really want to get baptized now!”
.
Luis was baptized on June 29, 2025 by a recent concert, Ricardo Quintanilla, into the Spring Creek branch. When asked about his experience he explained that as he was receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost he “felt a spark within [his] heart.” He said the experience was indescribable. After his baptism, a member asked him what made him decide to get baptized. He shared, “One night I prayed about my fears and doubts about being baptized, and that night I had a dream, filled with peace and power. When I woke up I knew I needed to be baptized.”
Since being baptized, Luis has received the Aaronic priesthood and has expressed interest in serving a mission of his own! He is excited to help in missionary work and helping others to receive these great blessings from God.
In the April 2022 General Conference, President M. Russell Ballard gave a talk titled, “Missionary Service Blessed My Life Forever”. He said, “Of all the training I have received in my church assignments, none has been more important to me than the training I received as a nineteen-year-old elder serving a full time mission…My missionary service prepared me to be a better husband and father and to be successful in business. It also prepared me for a lifetime of service to the Lord in His Church.
.
He concluded, “When you are released from your mission, remember that you are not released from activity in the Church. Build upon the good habits you learned on your mission, continue to strengthen your testimony, work hard, pray, and be obedient to the Lord. Honor the covenants you have made. Continue to bless and serve others. I pray that you young men and young women and your parents will see and know how missionary service will forever bless your life.”
We’ve seen that these promises are true. Missions change lives! They change the lives of the people you teach and build their faith. But even more importantly, it changes the life of the missionary. The Lord knows them and gives them experiences that help them come to know Him better. They grow spiritually in remarkable ways. They learn that they can absolutely trust Him. A mission teaches them that their Heavenly Father and their Savior, Jesus Chris love them and have a plan for them. We are witnesses of these changes happening in every missionary.
As missionaries finish their service in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission, we invite them to share what they’ve learned that will help them be a lifelong disciple of Jesus Christ.
As missionaries finish their service in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission, we invite them to share what they’ve learned that will help them be a lifelong disciple of Jesus Christ.
Behold, I will hasten my work in its time. (D&C 88:73)
The Lord is hastening his work across the Tennessee Knoxville Mission! His hand is very evident all across the mission.
In the last six months we have seen this in:
The creation of the Johnson City Stake from the Cumberland and Kingsport Stakes.
The creation of the Cleveland Stake from the Chattanooga Stake.
Our mission complement has increased from 170 missionaries to 190 missionaries.
Elder Quentin L. Cook announced at the June 2025 Mission Leader Seminar that the 12 month period ending in May 2025 was the highest convert baptisms in the history of the church.
The Church News announced that the 12 month period ending in June 2025 set a new record.
June 2025 was the highest baptizing month in the history of the Tennessee Knoxville Mission (in the last 10 years we can see).
July 2025 was a new record in baptism for a four week month.
As we met for our July 2025 zone conference, it gave us an opportunity to reflect on how the Lord is hastening his work and to focus on areas where we can continue to help more people receive the blessings of baptism and confirmation.
We’ve been working on teaching the doctrine of baptism simply and frequently. We want everyone to know how Heavenly Father wants to bless them through making covenants with Him. To do this, we’ve focused on pages 28-29 of Preach My Gospel. Sister Barlow has role played teaching the doctrine of baptism and confirmation with every missionary in the mission. We are focused on sharing this doctrine every time we meet with friends.
.
We’ve studied the importance of increasing our faith and acting in great faith. We want to make sure everything we do connects back to our missionary purpose and we see everything through a lens of faith.
.
Central to much of the success we are seeing in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission is focusing on inviting everyone to worship the Savior with us and feel His Spirit. Preach My Gospel teaches us, “One of the most valuable experiences you can help people have is attending a Church service. Invite them and explain what it will be like. Tell them how attending a sacrament meeting will bless their lives.” Elder Quentin L. Cook teaches us:
.
We have been working to connect these principles in powerful ways. We have faith that if we can stack these habits and keep stacking days, we will have friends at church and friends who desire to be baptized.
.
Faith is a principle of action and power. Acting in faith is what brings power to our efforts. It all begins with being willing to invite EVERYONE to church. To help us do this, missionaries are focused on inviting 100 people to church every day. This requires a lot of faith and effort. To accomplish this, missionaries have to overcome every fear of talking to people. We know that if we do this consistently throughout the week we will have friends at church on Sunday. Our missionaries track these invitations every day, then each night they send a picture into their zone chat of how many people they invited to church that day.
.
As soon as we find someone who says yes to coming to church, we immediately work to connect them with members. We ask every day, “What can we do today that will help this friend come to church on Sunday?” Meeting members and feeling a connection to them makes a huge difference. We now call Saturday “Sacrament Saturday”. On Saturday, we schedule time to go out with members to visit all these friends in person and commit them to attend with us on Sunday. The members offer to give them rides, meet them at the door, sit by them, answer their questions, and introduce them to other members. We’ve found that this is also a great time to teach our friends the doctrine of baptism. They’ve just participated in an ordnance for the first time in their life with the sacrament, we are in a dedicated building, and we have members with us. This is a great time to show them the baptismal font, teach them the doctrine of baptism and how Heavenly Father wants to bless them, and invite them to act.
.
It has been amazing to see these missionaries act in such great faith. Their courage to invite EVERYONE is inspiring. They are making extraordinary efforts to help friends come to church. The members are making an incredible difference with by helping the people we’re teaching feel they have a friend that will support them as they connect to a new church family.
At our July Zone Conference, we continued to work on these principles, including:
“Rewind Time” and how we can find great success in following up with friends who have been taught in the past but stopped progressing.
Creating Lesson Plans before each lesson to be prepared to teach with power.
“The Power Flow” which is a set of Preach My Gospel principles we teach missionaries to use as they invite friends to church. This gives them a process to practice and role play which builds their confidence to talk with EVERYONE.
A highlight of the zone conference was Sister Barlow sharing “Three Promised Blessings That Will Change Your Mission”. 1) Focus on your missionary purpose to successfully find, teach, and baptize. 2) “Your success will be multiplied exponentially as you harness the power of members with whom you serve.” – President Nelson 3) Power comes as you daily immerse yourself in the Book of Mormon. Help your friends to do the same.
.
Sister Barlow also prepared a powerful video of missionaries sharing their experience and best practices with four areas we’ve been focused on these last few months.
.
It is such a privilege to work with these missionaries. Their faith and willingness is remarkable. We are seeing miracles happen across the mission every day. Most importantly, through these efforts and acting in such great faith, they are becoming lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ.
Chattanooga, Cleveland, Cookeville Zones
.
Cumberland, Knoxville, Smoky Mountain Zones
Asheville, Johnson City, Kingsport Zones
.
The timing of zone conference created the unusual experience of having MLC on Friday right after zone conferences ended. Our monthly MLC meeting is one of our favorite meetings on the month. We sit in the back of the room as these leaders counsel together about what’s working and what we need to change to help more people receive the blessings of baptism and confirmation. This is the group that sets the goals for the mission each month. They come to the meeting with bottoms-up goals from their zone, and then set goals for the mission. For the month of August, they set a goal of achieving 100. baptisms in the mission. This will require great faith and a lot of work, but everyone across the mission is engaged and working incredibly hard. Please join your faith with ours in praying that we can reach this goal..
.
Lastly, it’s exciting to see the progress of the Knoxville Tennessee Temple happening right down the street. As a mission, we feel we are helping to prepare a place and a people for this new temple of God.
As missionaries finish their service in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission, we invite them to share what they’ve learned that will help them be a lifelong disciple of Jesus Christ.
As missionaries finish their service in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission, we invite them to share what they’ve learned that will help them be a lifelong disciple of Jesus Christ.
As missionaries finish their service in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission, we invite them to share what they’ve learned that will help them be a lifelong disciple of Jesus Christ.
Barlows in TKM 