Success Quote by Richard G. Scott

Success here is framed less as spiritual revelation than as relational infrastructure. Richard G. Scott, speaking from within a church leadership tradition that prizes order, accountability, and measurable growth, treats missionary work like an ecosystem: missionaries plus members equals an environment, and the environment yields results. The phrasing is telling. "Close relationship" and "working with members" pushes conversion away from the lone, door-to-door missionary and toward a networked model where local congregants provide trust, social proof, and daily contact. It is pastoral language with an organizer's logic.

The subtext is pragmatic and, quietly, managerial. "Successful" is the operative word, implying outcomes that can be assessed: lessons taught, baptisms, retention. Scott avoids overt coercion by foregrounding warmth and proximity, but the goal is explicit: "bring more into the Church". Relationship is positioned not merely as care, but as strategy. That dual function is the tightrope: genuine community on one side, instrumental friendship on the other. The sentence doesn't resolve the tension; it depends on the idea that the method and the motive can align.

Context matters. Late 20th-century Latter-day Saint missionary culture increasingly emphasized member involvement and retention, responding to a basic reality: converts stick when they have friends, roles, and routines, not just a one-time spiritual experience. Scott's intent reads like a directive to make belonging contagious - to turn the congregation from audience into active participants. The rhetoric is soft, but the architecture is hard: build relational pipelines, and growth follows.