If we saw somebody being injured, being killed—in New York, some time ago, a girl was stabbed and cut all to pieces by some maniac; and there were many people who saw it and did nothing about it! She yelled for help, screamed for help, said, "He's killing me," but nobody would move. They didn't even call the police, and there she lay—finally dead on the street. Nobody would involve himself.

It's time we begin to get involved when involvement is proper. And when any missionary in any mission begins to break mission rules, it's time that all his companions should become involved. It doesn't mean that they take over. It doesn't mean that they get ugly and mean. It just means that they are interested and involved. There is a nice way to do it. I tell you that there wouldn't be very many broken rules if one missionary would just say to the other, "Brother, let's not do that. Let's not stand there and talk to those girls. That isn't good."

And if we stop it when it's fresh—when it's young you can stop it, but when it gets deeply entrenched, that sin is awfully hard to dig out. And many times we have to send missionaries home to their families in disgrace, with excommunication frequently because maybe their companions didn't love them enough. Maybe their companions weren't helpful enough to say, "Well, now, you're getting off the line just a little here. Let's not do that! Let's get busy and do this, and this, and this."

This one program we are all concerned about. These mission rules, you see, are very important. We've had 137 years of experience. Now, that ought to be enough experience to prove something, shouldn't it? Through 137 years we have come to the conclusion that if two people will stay together, the chances for sin or serious trouble are reduced about 98 percent. Once in a great while two companions will both go sour at the same time, but it isn't the usual thing.

If missionaries will, when they leave Salt Lake City, the Mission Home, the day they are set apart—if they will just lock their hearts! If you've got a girl in there, that's all right; lock her in. But if you haven't got one in, then lock it against all other girls of every description! Though the same applies for young women, I am talking mainly to you elders. You lock your heart and you leave the key at home. And you never open it here. It's impossible to fall in love with someone unless you open your heart. Your heart is the only organ that has any ability to get into love, you see; and when a missionary says, "I just fell in love with a girl," well, that's as silly as it can be. Nobody falls in love unless they want to, unless they're trying to. Nobody does, nobody ever did.

So we just don't fall in love unless we are fooling around. We never fall in a crater unless we are somewhere near the edge of it. I have been up to Vesuvius and on a number of craters and volcanoes, and I know you just don't ever fall in a crater unless you are on the edge of it. And so you just keep your hearts locked. I said lock them in Salt Lake when you leave the Mission Home, and don't give a thought to it. But if you go around and say, "Well, she is kind of a pretty girl. She surely is a sweet little thing. She's a nice girl. I'd like to talk with her—I'd just like to visit with her," well, you are in for trouble and that trouble can bring you a lifetime of trouble, a lifetime of regrets if you continue on with it.

So, can I impress that again? Lock your hearts and leave the key at home! Wherever you live, leave the key home with your folks. And your heart—it's only that part of it that deals with people generally that you open up. We just can't tolerate it, can we? We can't individually, we can't totally.

Someone said, "Well, is ere any harm in marrying a Mexican girl if you are working in Mexico?" No, that isn't any crime, but it proves that some missionary has had his heart open. He has unlocked it. Is it wrong to marry a German girl when you have been on a German mission? Why, no, there is no crime in that, if you met her some other way. But when you meet her in the mission field and you have opened, I tell you it isn't right! And you have shortchanged your mission.

Just keep your hearts locked. Your whole thought should be missionary work. How can I make it more plain and more important than that? I'd like to because there is no reason whatever for any missionary to ever become involved, not even in a decent way, with any girl in the mission field. It isn't the place! You guaranteed, you promised. You went through the temple. You remember what you did in the temple? Remember you promised you'd do all the things the Brethren request of you, to live the commandments. That's one of the commandments when you go into the mission field: "Thou shalt not flirt. Thou shalt not associate with young women in the mission field, or anyone else, for that matter, on any other basis than the proselyting basis." You promised, and you would not want to break a promise you made before the Lord in the Holy Temple of the Lord. And when you wrote your letter (of acceptance) to President McKay, that was implied in it. You knew, of course—every missionary knows— that he isn't going out to court, at he isn't going out to find a wife. He's got plenty of opportunity when he gets home, and the mission field isn't the place.

Sometimes we find a young man who has not been popular at home; he has been very, very backward at home and he hasn't had many dates. And so when he gets out into the mission field and somebody flatters him a little—some girl shows a lot of interest in him—why, he's flattered. He thinks all at once, "Well, that's whom I should marry." I say this once more by repetition and for emphasis: you lock your hearts at home, and if you haven't done so, do it now and send the key back. You will not permit any impression, any romantic thought or impression in your mind. For two years you have given yourself to the Lord, totally to teach the gospel to the world. When you have done this perfectly for two years and then you go home, you are infinitely more attractive, more able, more dignified, more mature to make those important decisions for your life in the matter of personages to enjoy eternity with you.

Well, I didn't intend to get on that, either, but I've been on it, and I hope I have not been offensive in it at all. But I hope you got the spirit of it. And should you know of any problems that are aborning, problems that are beginning to develop, some missionary who is getting off the tract, some group that is getting a little careless about mission rules, you can talk to them in a sweet, kindly way. If they persist, then there is something else to do and you have a loyalty to it.

God bless you, missionaries, and I hope to visit with you a little longer later.

(These remarks were made by President Spencer W. Kimball, then a member of the Council of the Twelve, while on a mission tour in Latin America sometime in 1967 or 1968. They were spoken prior to Brother Kimball's interviewing the missionaries in that mission.)