Stake Conference, Baptism, and Promised Blessings

This week was really great. Its always nice to be able to see the fruits of your labors. But before we get to that. At the beginning of this week we had a bit of a struggle. Everyone we talked to on Tuesday just wanted to be argumentative. A lot of those individuals didn't really believe that there is more scripture. they brought up that verse in Revelations that talks about not adding to the bible. We explained what it meant by that and she still didn't budge. So then I asked her before we left if i could ask her a question. She agreed and my question was very simple. "So you're telling me that you have prayed and asked God if the bible is all that we need and it is the only sacred scripture on the earth. Is that right?" She then began to stumble over her words and then before she answered just closed the door. We saw that a few times this week. I am very grateful for the knowledge that we have this gospel restored back to the Earth with the priesthood and the other things that help us return back to him. The longer and longer i have been out on my mission the less and less patient i get with people who don't want to listen. ha ha but don't worry I'm working on that though.

We had some really awesome lessons this week and were able to continue to help those we are teaching progress. With one of the investigators we are meeting with he finally decided that he is ready for baptism. It is a part member family and he has been investigating a while. We have been teaching him since i got here but we were finally able to make the connection with the fact that he has already gotten his answer. He is excited and ready for baptism. 

As a mission leadership two Mission Leadership Council's ago we prayed and decided that it is possible for EVERY companionship to baptize at least one individual EVERY month. With goals that we set though we must set action plans to measure our progress. So as a leadership council we came up with 4 things that if we do as perfectly as we can then we can obtain the promised blessing to baptize someone every month. The four things are as follows.

1) Set every investigator with a baptismal date for 4 weeks away. (this is for us to be able to sift through those who aren't prepared and don't keep commitments)

2) Give every investigator a copy of a baptismal calendar on the second visit. (on the days we write the things that will help them progress towards baptism like reading and praying everyday, having 2 set lessons every week and the time, church, etc. This has made a HUGE difference with helping people progress. It helps them track their progress towards baptism.) the interview questions are on this side to help them see if there ready.

3) Have new investigators and all investigators say the closing prayer at lessons. (this one is a little harder. Its amazing how many people don't want to pray)

4) As we are teaching strive really hard to focus on asking inspired questions. (a little harder to measure)

But if we do those 4 things in our work plus other things that we should always be doing we will have a baptism per area per month. 

Since this was decided we have put it to the test and man are we seeing some AMAZING results from it. We had a baptism this past week, we are going to have one next week with 3 people getting baptized, and then the next two weeks after that we should be having a baptism so we are definitely seeing the blessings. 

Stake Conference was this weekend and it was awesome. The talks were so good. I needed to hear a lot of what was said. 

And this weekend we had a baptism. It was a part member family. They are awesome. It was a great service. 

So all in all it was a great week.  I hope that yours was the same.

Have a great week.

-Elder Loertscher

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