How often do we Baptize others, how engaged in the work should we be?

[JohnsonJones]

So, currently I am working with Activity Day kids and working as a Font Coordinator. 

The last time I actually Baptized someone was around 2 years ago, it was one of my grand children. 

This weeks Come Follow Me has me thinking about converting others and baptizing. 

One of my friends, we'll call him Rod, has been very active with the missionaries and with his friends.  I've seen him three times over the past two years.  He has baptized several of his friends into the church.

I find that very respectable.

I look at myself and find that I am far too hesitant in my approach to my peers, but I am unsure how to overcome this.  I wish to respect their beliefs and desires, but also wish to introduce them more to the gospel.

Have you had success in overcoming this shyness to talking to others about the Gospel and the Book of Mormon in your life and what have you found to be successful. 

 

Edit:  On that note, I will say I LOVE the current homepage of the Church.  Right at the top it introduces topics for those interested in the Church and covers basic ideas that will help interest those who stumble upon it.  https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/?lang=eng&cid=rdb_v_ldsorg

Edited February 22 by JohnsonJones

[Ironhold]

What's most important is the converts themselves, not the number that get brought in. 

Four people converted to the church in whole or in part because of me. I physically baptized two of them. 

I've lost contact with all of them, with three of the four going inactive *at best*. 

If we look at it from the standard of what a previous stake presidency was trying to drum into everyone, I've done naught for the church. 

If we look at it from the perspective of "I helped make it so that the internet was relatively safe for members of the church to gather, was part of a group that convinced a former member to look the church over again, and am one of the more prominent members of the faith in regards to public awareness", however, then one could argue I've been rather successful even if I'm not the one actually performing said baptisms. 

[SilentOne]

I've never baptized anyone and never will. I am perfectly happy with that.

[SilentOne]

7 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

I look at myself and find that I am far too hesitant in my approach to my peers, but I am unsure how to overcome this.  I wish to respect their beliefs and desires, but also wish to introduce them more to the gospel.

Have you had success in overcoming this shyness to talking to others about the Gospel and the Book of Mormon in your life and what have you found to be successful. 

What I found most successful was being about six years old. It felt really easy then.

More recently, just being open about the fact that I do believe, and mentioning stuff in conversation like that general conference is happening or I went to a Relief Society activity or something. No baptisms that I know of, but I've gotten a couple questions and someone checking out a session or so of conference from that, and brought someone from complete disassociation from the church to reading scriptures again.

[HaggisShuu]

15 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

So, currently I am working with Activity Day kids and working as a Font Coordinator. 

The last time I actually Baptized someone was around 2 years ago, it was one of my grand children. 

This weeks Come Follow Me has me thinking about converting others and baptizing. 

One of my friends, we'll call him Rod, has been very active with the missionaries and with his friends.  I've seen him three times over the past two years.  He has baptized several of his friends into the church.

I find that very respectable.

I look at myself and find that I am far too hesitant in my approach to my peers, but I am unsure how to overcome this.  I wish to respect their beliefs and desires, but also wish to introduce them more to the gospel.

Have you had success in overcoming this shyness to talking to others about the Gospel and the Book of Mormon in your life and what have you found to be successful. 

 

Edit:  On that note, I will say I LOVE the current homepage of the Church.  Right at the top it introduces topics for those interested in the Church and covers basic ideas that will help interest those who stumble upon it.  https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/?lang=eng&cid=rdb_v_ldsorg

That hesitancy is something I sympathise with. I've managed to have some really good discussions with friends, family and colleagues, they won't join, but after we're finished talking they understand and respect the church. This is a good thing in my opinion. 
 

People who hang round the missionaries will always be more involved, I tried to support them in my ward but gave up. Our ward is the one safe ward, in a stake of quite dangerous wards. So the mission presidency has only assigned sisters for like the last 7 years. Our missions safe guarding practice makes supporting them as a male ridiculous. For every male in attendance, they want 2 females. So if I was to support a male investigators lesson, it would require 5 members in attendance (2 females for the investigator and 2 for me + me).

A) This can hardly ever be organised.

B) nobody wants a panel of people trying to teach you. 

So I stopped supporting the missionaries in my ward.. I'm happy to support the work by serving in my calling to the best I can and having discussion independent of the missionaries as and when they are appropriate. I will likely only ever baptise my kids and that's fine with me. 

[HaggisShuu]

13 hours ago, Ironhold said:

 

If we look at it from the standard of what a previous stake presidency was trying to drum into everyone, I've done naught for the church.  

Absurd proposition. 

And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!

You have furthered your own salvation by bringing souls to the gospel, it's not your fault they didn't stick around. 

[laronius]

19 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

 

Have you had success in overcoming this shyness to talking to others about the Gospel and the Book of Mormon in your life and what have you found to be successful. 

 

That's a tough one. I have no problem answering questions and talking about the Church but it's difficult to initiate the conversation. For me the easiest thing (though still not always easy) is to make Church references in normal conversation to open the door for them to ask questions. Because religion is one of the topics that we aren't "supposed to" bring up in friendly conversation I think by simply making religious references we show to others that we open to talking about that subject. Social media can also be a lower-stress way of sharing the gospel as well.

But we need to remember that it's not our job to convert others. That's the Spirit's job. It's our job to give the Spirit something to bear witness of. 

[Ironhold]

13 hours ago, HaggisShuu said:

Absurd proposition. 

And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!

You have furthered your own salvation by bringing souls to the gospel, it's not your fault they didn't stick around. 

As I've noted elsewhere, when I was younger the local stake presidency spent the better part of a decade chanting "all young men must serve missions; all young women must regard any man who did not serve a mission as ineligible for marriage, no excuses". 

We basically lost an entire generation of young men because of it, and those of us - myself included - who stayed were made to feel less than. 

It's been 15+ years and we're still feeling the consequences. 

[LDSGator]

I baptized two people, but I never served a mission. One was a lady from Africa and the other was a kid whose father was non a member but mother was. 

[HaggisShuu]

49 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

As I've noted elsewhere, when I was younger the local stake presidency spent the better part of a decade chanting "all young men must serve missions; all young women must regard any man who did not serve a mission as ineligible for marriage, no excuses". 

We basically lost an entire generation of young men because of it, and those of us - myself included - who stayed were made to feel less than. 

It's been 15+ years and we're still feeling the consequences. 

That's a really terrible story and a shameful legacy for this particular stake president to leave behind. 

[NeuroTypical]

On 2/22/2025 at 11:13 AM, JohnsonJones said:

Have you had success in overcoming this shyness to talking to others about the Gospel and the Book of Mormon in your life and what have you found to be successful. 

I've spent 25+ years discussing religion with folks online.  I was part of the amateur apologetics wave of the 2000-2010's that pretty much ended the antimormon book publishing and speaker-fee-generating industry.  The only things that are even close to being successful, are a genuine dedication to open transparency, a willingness to learn and grow in opinions, and a willing commitment to loving my neighbor even if he hates/fears/distrusts/attacks me.  I've made maybe a dozen or two actual impacts on folks' thinking, all of them by just responding honestly and lovingly to criticisms and issues.  Never really trying to persuade, or win.

 

That's online.  In real life, I do not seek to talk to anyone about the Gospel and BoM.  I will, however, answer questions like "are you doing anything fun this weekend" and "got any plans".

When I think about 'successful', I don't think about people getting baptized.  I think about it as representing myself and my faith in a transparently honest light, to people who are either wary or critical, or honestly couldn't care less.  Folks who tend to get defensive or anxious when talk of religion comes up.  Or go on the offensive when anything LDSocentric is mentioned.   So from that perspective, I try to talk in terms those folks would find relatable.  Lighthearted, self effacing humor tends to go a long way.   

"How was your weekend?"
"Well, us crazy Mormons think it's fun to go to church 5 times across 2 days twice a year, for a total of 10 hours total.  So I had a blast!"

90% of any successes I've had, came by by learning LGBT lingo, evangelical/atheist beliefs, and church criticisms, and then expressing common ground and agreement and empathy and understanding whenever possible.  I think humans in general are more open and willing to listen to the other side of the story, when they're talking to someone who doesn't get defensive or shut down or fight back when crap gets brought up.

These folks come to me when they've got a question or a pain, and then I talk gospel.  That's when the missionary work happens - when they invite it in.

 

And, in real life, I've had the honor and privilege of baptizing both my kiddos, and participating or attending in half a dozen others.

Edited February 24 by NeuroTypical

[Ironhold]

19 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

These folks come to me when they've got a question or a pain, and then I talk gospel.  That's when the missionary work happens - when they invite it in.

For me, success is all too often "did I make someone's head asplode today?". 

Sometimes the best way to deal with a critic of the church is to just let them keep talking. Either they'll confound themselves and thus have to fight their way out of the quagmire they created for themselves, or they'll make such a spectacle of themselves that other individuals - including their co-religionists - will round on them and call them out in public for their actions. 

In the process, there will be witnesses, especially if it's on the internet. 

A person might not *directly* get any baptisms that way, but they will expose the haters and potentially make onlookers ponder what they've just seen. 

[DurangoUT01]

I recently got a new boss and she just came to town.  I took her on a tour of The Conference Center and told her about my daughter’s recent mission call.  It’s not much but it’s a start.  I’m trying to figure out how to presen5 her w a BoM.