As we invite neighbors into our homes and hearts, we will come to know and love them in a way that we haven't before. But what happens when we realize that our friends will not join The Church of Jesus Christ? And our friends realize that we may not join their faith? We will be sad. We will have offered them our pearl of great price, which, for now, they won't receive.
The words of Orson F. Whitney provide consolation.
"Perhaps the Lord needs such men on the outside of His Church to help it along. They are among its auxiliaries and can do more good for the cause where the Lord has placed them, than anywhere else...Hence, some are drawn into the fold and receive a testimony of the truth, while others remain unconverted...the beauties and glories of the gospel being veiled temporarily from their view for a wise purpose. The Lord will open their eyes in His own due time. God is using more than one people for the accomplishment of His great and marvelous work. The Latter-day Saints cannot do it all. It is too vast, too arduous for any one people."1
1 Ezra Taft Benson, qtd Orson F. Whitney "Civic Standards for the Faithful Saints," Ensign July 1972: 9.