Tonight, we had dinner with the missionaries, and they encouraged us to share the gospel with others. We call this doing "missionary work," but I don't know if we should call it that. Work has a negative connotation, and we should avoid the implication that this role/task/activity is something that is primarily done by full-time missionaries.
Rather, I think we should call it "sharing the Gospel," because sharing is a good, generous thing that people do for the benefit of others, whereas work is an arduous thing that people do because they have to or because they're being paid to do it, and the Gospel should be the focus, not the missionaries. Personally, I'm not keen of the idea of doing missionary work, but I am far more willing to share the Gospel with anyone I think it could help. I may not go around, passing out copies of The Book of Mormon or urging people to get baptized, but I would be much more comfortable promoting the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Naturally, the difference is merely mental and semantic, but it makes sense to me. Sharing the Gospel sounds nice and easy and much more appealing, whereas missionary work sounds a bit too much like work.
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