Unto What?
Dear Elders and Sisters:
In Doctrine and Covenants 50:13 the Lord asks a question:
"Unto what were ye ordained?"
And then in verse 14 He gives us the answer - "To preach the gospel
by the Spirit, even the Comforter which was sent forth to teach the
truth". We do this by
"inviting others come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored
gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism,
receiving the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end." And the mark of a successful missionary is
one who "is committed to find, teach, baptize and confirm people and to
help them become faithful members of the Church who enjoy the presence of the
Holy Ghost".
Now I want to repent!
Over the last year I have pushed to have you focus on three things, not
necessarily in this order - find, teach, and baptize. I remember about this time last year we
focused on baptizing and had for our goal to baptize 100 people in May, 2015. We baptized 97. The following month we baptized over 60. This is not what I'm repenting of. From there I became concerned we had become
casual in our teaching so I asked that we teach more and we did. But we baptized less. And recently, being concerned we were
baptizing less, I asked that we focus on finding more, believing we would
baptize more. We have found more but we
have not baptized more. So here is the
part I am repenting of. I have not done
a great job of keeping you focused on baptizing. I didn't mean that we focus
less on baptizing by focusing more on teaching and finding, but that has been
the case. I repent! I apologize!
I am sorry! I have come to
understand by focusing on finding and teaching we have lost our focus on
baptizing.
Each week I read your letters and enjoy such wonderful
accounts of how you've found and who you've found. I see missionaries setting and achieving
great goals as to their Line in the Water time and number of lessons
taught. All this is wonderful but
baptisms are not going up. Line in the
Water time, Finding, Teaching are all means to an end of fulfilling our
missionary purpose - "To invite others to come unto Christ by helping them
receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement,
repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost and enduring to the
end." I fear we have allowed the
tools and our desires (a good thing) to sharpen and hone them distract us from
the "why" of their purpose - to baptize! To what end do you find? To what end do you teach? In other words, unto what???? To baptize!!!!
I believe the Lord wants us to be a great finding mission
- through the Members and on our own. I
believe he wants us to be a great teaching mission - using PMG and the
scriptures as our guide. But most
importantly I believe He wants us to be a great baptizing mission! We have in the past and we can in the future
if we will make sure we remind ourselves "Unto What" purpose do we
have our Line in the Water? To
Baptize! "Unto What" purpose
do we find? To baptize! "Unto What" purpose do we teach? To Baptize!
The mantra: Find Truth Seekers, Teach Repentance, and Baptize Converts
must be together in its compound always!
No one activity stands alone.
They are inextricably connected!
They are almost and eternal round because when we find we teach and when
we teach we find and when we baptize we ask who and who else and start finding
all over again....but always to the end of baptizing!
Now, I asked you to fast and you've received great
guidance on what to do differently. I've
asked you to make course corrections of a matter of a few degrees to make sure
you are on course....to baptize! I've
asked you to set goals and make plans to baptize at least one this month and
then two next month and to do whatever is necessary to be halfway towards your
unit's goal by halftime (July 1). I
challenge to accept this and do it! I
know you can and will do so if you'll exercise great faith, work diligently, be
exactly obedient and remember "Unto What were you ordained?" In short, TO BAPTIZE!!!
GO FIND TRUTH SEEKERS, TEACH REPENTANCE, AND BAPTIZE
CONVERTS!!!!!!
With much love and confidence in each and every one of
you to “Rise to Your Call” "Unto What" you were ordained to do,
President
Clark
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