https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/093-30-44.pdf

And where the whole "only write home inspiring things", and the shunning if you dared come home early.....here it all is.

Start at "The Demands of Growth". Prepare to have your mind blown.

"He even instructed parents the boys they had to be baptized into
and Church leaders to ignore letters from youthful missionaries who complained about any aspect of the new proselytizing program." Referring to Henry Moyle's instruction to the missionaries as he got the church deeply in debt trying to building an empire.

(The missionaries were being severely overworked and baptizing countless random boys through baseball and other sports outings. Some felt that they were exploiting the young men and writing home and to the GA's complaining).

The first I learned about "baseball baptisms" was in the summer of 1961 while serving a mission in Texas. We were told that the MP of the British Mission had gone big time with it there. Word came down from Salt Lake that we were to establish the program in Texas. We set up some "little league" type teams and coached them. We were to use the kids to get to the parents ("and a child shall lead them") rather than just bringing in the kids alone which was a major complaint of the British Mission program.

It really didn't make a lot of difference in the number of baptisms since coaching time took away from "door knocking" which, back then, was our main source of converts and was actually productive. A major problem was that we were competing against the real little league program. My companion and I really just went through the motions to satisfy the MP so he could report favorably back to SLC. We were never really sold on it and what we did was mainly for show. We never had a single baptism from the program which was true of most of the other elders as well.