Posted by:
No_Hidden_Agenda
(
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Date: May 21, 2014 05:07PM
Sorry for the misleading title. These aren't "baseball baptisms" but are closer to the type of quick tactic dunkings of Japan from the early 90s or whenever that have been recently talked about on this board.
http://sistersydneyhughes.blogspot.com/Paraphrasing the first part of the entry and a editted down: "Last week Sister Croft and I went contacting in a little park by the church where people go to exercise. An older gentleman named Noy saw us, ... A few days later, he saw us again and set up an appointment to come to the church on Saturday. ... talked at us for 20 minutes, told me he couldn't believe that I ride my bike every day and am still fat, and that I didn't speak Thai very well compared to my companion (that happens a lot because Sister Croft is half Taiwanese so people think they can understand her better...). And then he left. ... He showed up to church the next day and was instantly friends with everyone. We taught him all the lessons this week ... He was baptized yesterday and it was probably one of the happiest baptisms of my life. He was so happy and ready."
Sure, some people just are "ready"... But here's the next section of this sister's blog to consider:
"In Saphaan Suung, all the way back in September, we started asking people on the street if they wanted to be baptized. We would hold up a little pass along card of someone getting baptized and say, "Will you be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority on such and such day...?" That was when we started seeing a lot of success in our street contacting. President Senior had everyone in our mission start contacting that way for 2 hours a day in October. In November we had over 100 baptisms for the first time in mission history. President Senior told us that other missions in Southeast Asia had started using our contacting method. In February we had over 200 baptisms in Thailand. That is the first time that Thailand, or any mission in Asia, has achieved a goal of this magnitude. This week Sister Jackson told us that her cousin was recently instructed by her mission president in POLAND to use this contacting method. "If it works in Thailand, it can work in Poland," is what the mission president told his missionaries."
History has shown the church over and over that these types of approaches will make your dunking number look good for a sort while but then you will have branches with 500 inactives and 15 active members in very short order.