Can we learn the same information as missionaries teach, if we teach ourselves?
Yes, you can. When I was a missionary, I received a referral to a couple who were already studying from various books that are considered to be doctrinally much deeper than the Missionary Discussions. They were already committed to being baptized before my companion and I even met them. (In other words, they were the kind of people that every missionary dreams of finding.) However, we still had to go through the Discussions with them to make sure that they did understand all of the basic doctrines of the Church. As we did this, we did find things that they didn’t know yet. Had we not gone through the Discussions with them, then they most likely would have learned these doctrines as they went to Church and studied on their own. The doctrines that the missionaries teach are all available in the scriptures and Church publications. However, the discussions are designed to present the basic doctrines in a much more condensed form and to help the investigator to feel and recognize the influe
