--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young, Brigham collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 15 number: 10 published: 1912-08 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Brigham Young, "How the Elders Should Live at Home and Abroad," *Improvement Era* 15, no. 10 (August 1912): 869.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera15010unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera15010unse start_page: 869 end_page: 869 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1912-08) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera15010unse publication_year: 1912 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1912, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # How the Elders Should Live at Home and Abroad How the Elders Should Live at Home and Abroad No other instructions to missionaries can be more pertinent and timely than these given by President Brighain Young, Aug. IS, 1852. They are as applicable today as they were then : "When I heard the brethren exhorting those who are going on missions, I wished them to impress one thing upon the minds of the elders, for it is necessary that it should be uppermost there, which may be the means of preserving them from receiving stains on their characters from which very probably they may never recover. If we get a blight on our characters before the Lord, or in other words, lose ground and backslide by transgression, or in any other way, so that we are not up even with the brethren, as we are now, we never can come up with them again. But this principle must be carried out by the elders wherever they go, whatever they do, or wherever they are. One thing must be observed and be before them all the time in their meditations, and in their practice, and that is, clean hands and pure hearts, before God, angels, and men. If the elders cannot go with clean hands and pure hearts, they had better stay here, and wash a little longer ; don't go thinking when you arrive at the Missouri river, at the Mississippi, at the Ohio, or at the Atlantic, that then you will purify yourselves, but start from here with clean hands and pure hearts, and be pure from the crown of your heads to the soles of your feet, then live so every hour. Go in that manner, and in that manner labor, and return again as clean as a piece of pure, white paper. This is the way to go, and if you do not do that, your hearts will ache. "How can you do it? Is there a way? Yes! Do the elders understand that way? They do. You cannot keep your hands clean, and your hearts pure, without the help of the Lord; neither will he keep you pure without your own help. Will you be liable to fall into temptation and be overtaken in sin ? Yes; unless you live so as to have the revelation of Jesus Christ continually, not only to live in it today, or while you are preaching in a prayer meeting, or in a conference ; but when you are out of the meetings. You must have the Holy Spirit all the time, on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and every day through the week, and from year to year, from the time you leave home until you return, so that when you come back, you may not be afraid if the Lord Almighty should come into the midst of the Saints and reveal .all the acts and doings and designs of your hearts in your missions, but be found clean like a piece of white paper : that is the way for the elders to live in their ministry at home and abroad."