#18 Nidia 的受洗 (Nidia's baptism)

Hello everyone! Another great week has passed here in the great California Ventura Mission. We received our transfer news and I am going to be staying here in SLO and I will be receiving the one and only Elder Maloy! We were in the same zone down in Newbury Park, so this is going to be an exciting transfer!

In other exciting news our friend Nidia got baptized and confirmed a member of the church this Saturday! It was truly a sweet experience that I will never forget. She is truly one of the sweetest people I know of. 

I had an Interesting thought following Nidias baptism that I would like to share. 

For some reason I was expecting this great overwhelming sense of joy after having baptized Nidia, but nothing came. Now don't misunderstand, I was happy. But I wasn't any happier than I would have been if I was sitting in the audience. And this led me to an interesting realization. 

We as missionaries (and most members) have an unrealistic or unhealthy stigma towards baptism. There is this attitude of "Your success is directly linked to the number of people you baptize". Let me make it clear for those missionaries and/or members who may feel like they (or the missionaries in their life) are unsuccessful until they stand in the font, or until their people get baptized.  

That is a false doctrine. 

It's that simple. It has no doctrinal backing, and there is no scriptural evidence to support this stigma. 

Consider this question. Was Abinadi an effective missionary? As far as we know he never baptized anyone. In fact all we really know is that he taught 1 lesson his whole mission, and he only had 1 person believe in what he said. After which he was burned alive for his testimony. 

So by the standard I hear of too often from both members of the church and missionaries, we would say no. Abinadi was not an effective missionary. But if we look at the impact he had a few chapters later we see an entirely different story.

In Mosiah 18 we read about the baptism of two hundred and four members of the church, directly due to Abinadi's efforts. 

In short: number of baptisms is a really stupid way to weigh the effectiveness of a mission. Don't do it. It's stupid. All that comes from it is an unhealthy attitude and unrealistic expectations. To quote Preach My Gospel: "Your success as a missionary is measured primarily by your commitment  to find, teach, baptize, and confirm..."

Sorry for such a long email but I feel strongly about this. I love you all! Keep putting God first!

1. Filling the font pic

2. Nidia!