I see this as yet another situation where the Lord allowed a bad thing to happen to a couple of good people (by all accounts). And the net result is that one Elder has received a transfer from Virginia to the Spirit Prison Mission, where he will convert millions.

Again, I don’t mean to be glib, and I don’t mean to impose a heavy dose of doctrinal reality, but I can’t help but think that the Lord knows his servants, and is watching over them. It’s incredibly sad and tragic for those still on this Earth, and without a testimony that the Lord pulls certain strings and allows other to be pulled, it’d make you crazy.

Newspaper link is: http://www.timaruherald.co.nz, but at that time, they hadn’t named the elders. One passenger from the other vehicle also killed.

At my work place three of my colleagues have lost parents in the last year, two of them untimely. I have been fortunate to approach each of them at an appropriate point and share with them my belief that they will see that loved one again. To the person, the response was that they thought that was a beautiful sentiment and that they hoped I was right. I share that not to toot my own horn (I will be the first to admit that I don’t share the gospel as I should) but to illustrate that this IS a beautiful doctrine and that in my experience it is recognized as such by members and nonmembers alike. I think I would say that this is the part of the gospel that is easiest to share for me.

Some one has said that without eternal families all of the other things we do in pursuit if exaltation really aren’t worth it. I think that is right, or nearly so.

We can try to analyze this and make sense of it (the forte of the bloggernacle?), but as for me, I am going to put my trust in God and enjoy the outpouring of the Spirit that has accompanied this tragedy.

I offer my sincere condolences to the Young family. It could have been my son that was killed, but it was yours. Please know I share your pain and pray that your sorrows and grief will eventually be turned to joy and rejoicing through our Savior Jesus Christ.

I agree that the Church isn’t what’s important here. But that doesn’t mean Elder Young’s life was empty of meaning. I guess what I’m reaching for is that his life isn’t separate from the meaning he chose for it and we shouldn’t gut his life of his chosen meaning. I believe that it would be disrespectful to him to dismiss his efforts to defeat evil when those efforts put him where he was when he was killed by evil. He stepped up and he paid dearly for it. To say that’s irrelevant diminishes the meaning to which he chose to spend, literally, his life.

Manaen, I seldom disagree with you, and I could be wrong, but my impression is that the mission presidents do have a lot of power over their missions. I know some who have refused to let missionaries go home to funerals of loved ones, which I think is indefensible. I do not know one, oh, yes, I take it back, I know one, but that’s all, who did not regret that. Well, criminently, his mother was in her 90′s. Are you with me?

I think not only should they be ALLOWED to go home when tragedy strikes, I think they should be encouraged to go home. I just do. I think if they are not allowed to grieve or be with their families, it leaves a hole in their soul.

To that extent, I agree with Ann. The church isn’t what’s important about what happened here, it’s the death of this boy/man. The church is secondary. But I also agree with those who feel that the missionaries need to be encouraged not to give in to despair, fear, and discouragement at a time like this. Do I contradict myself? Very well then…..

I have a resentment, oh well, I’ll share it another time.

We had a missionary killed while I served my mission. We all knew of other missionary killings from our friends on their missions around the world. Part of offering our lives to the Lord for two years was the understanding that he might take them entirely. That’s what a mission is — and we accepted it. We would feel somehow that the sacrifice was wasted if the work hadn’t gone forward.

I personally found your comment, “I’m more inclined to think it’s what the mission president told the missionaries to tell their families, so that’s what they’re doing” to be remarkably removed from the reality of a mission. Mission presidents don’t tell their missionaries propaganda to propagate to their families. They do encourage them in the totality of the mission: leaving home, enduring rejection, finding their own answers, leading others to the healing atonement, and becoming disciples of Christ through this struggle. “The work goes forward” to me is a statement that the missionary saying it has remained unshaken in his willingness to sacrifice whatever the Lord asks.

“this young man dying really isn’t about missionary work. It’s about a young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time being killed in a senseless crime. Taking this sad story and turning the focus to missionary work seems…disrespectful, somehow” also seems to me to miss the context of what happened. Missionary work is exactly about the causes of senseless crimes like this (and all other sins). Here we see the opposition between them and in this case, evil had a temporary victory. But it was to confront evil that Elder Young, and all missionaries, served. I agree that the physical confrontation that accompanied the spiritual one is tragic, but missionary work is the essence of what we see: evil needing remedy — which remedy is embodied in the missionaries. So I disagree with your comment: I believe that to turn the focus *away* from Elder Young’s quest to remedy the evil that took his life would be disrespectful.

That “the work is going forward” doesn’t make Elder Young’s death any less a terrible loss for his family and friends. It’s not the mission’s fault he died, of course. But this young man dying really isn’t about missionary work. It’s about a young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time being killed in a senseless crime. Taking this sad story and turning the focus to missionary work seems…disrespectful, somehow.