With the lowering of the mission age, the Mormon
Tabernacle Enquirer is doing its part to help train young men for the rigors
and blessings of doing God’s work. As part of this effort, Elder Kory Anton,
who is hoping to clear things up and return to the mission field very soon,
offers his insights to help others prepare.
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| God wants you to use all means possible to get people to enter the yoke |
As a missionary, your sole purpose is to baptize. Talk
all you want about getting close to God or growing spiritually or becoming a
better person—those are really just things that loser missionaries say who didn’t
baptize as many people as they should have. Missionaries might make up lame
excuses, like “we served and loved many people” or “I hope this or that family
eventually feels like baptism will bless their lives” or “I honor and respect
the lives and agency of those I met,” but all of that is cover for their
failure to baptize thousands like early missionaries or anyone in South
America. We know that the Lord is bound when we do what He says, and what I’m
about to say is bound to give you the highest number when people back in your
ward ask how many you baptized.
The key to getting people baptized is using guilt and
manipulation. Others may not really say it like that, but trust me, you
probably have already had some youth leader (or parents!) who used plenty of
both, probably to get you on a mission. Guilt and manipulation can be the very
key to heaven; they are truly a bright, shining, morning star!
If you are unfamiliar with how to use guilt and
manipulation to baptize more people, let me explain. The key is to use someone’s
beliefs or relationships against them. Say, for example, you are working with
someone who says they believe in the Bible. Your goal is to force them to see
how if they believe in the Bible then they must believe everything you are
teaching and get baptized. Read some scripture like Amos 3:7 about prophets,
and then say that if they believe the Bible then they must believe that there
are always prophets all of the time and since you have a church with a prophet,
you must be right and, since they believe in the Bible, they have to get
baptized. Or read the scripture in John about other sheep not of this fold and
prove that that means that the Book of Mormon is true and that if they believe
the Bible then they must believe in the Book of Mormon and be baptized. As you
can see, your study time should be spent finding scriptures you can use to
force people to see that if they believe the Bible then they must believe you
and be baptized. It is as easy as that!
Some people are either not yet convinced or they don’t
believe all that much in the Bible. Fair enough. Then you ask them if they love
their children or parents. If they say yes, then you say that if they really
love them then they will join the church that helps them be together forever
and that they must get baptized. If they dodge this, then show something like “I’ll
Build You a Rainbow” or something else that makes a powerful emotional appeal, and
show them that if they really love those people, they will get baptized.
Some missionaries lose sight of this. Instead of being
bold, denouncing sin with the power of the sword of truth, they talk about
creating a mutually respectful environment where they are as open as they would
want the investigator to be. Those missionaries have lost sight of the fact
that they are the only ones with the truth and that you have been commanded to
baptize. Missionaries who have lost the true vision of missionary work love and
weep for people who decide to no longer hear their message. True missionaries
keep going back, keep using powerful emotional pressure, and keep making
arguments that are tighter and tighter until every investigator enters the yoke
of the Lord. It may be hard work keeping investigators anxious and feeling the
heavy load of guilt and manipulation, but trust me, if you want get rid of ambiguity and doubts and if you want to tell your mission president, parents, ward members back home, and
friends that you had lots and lots of baptisms, there is no other way!
The Best of Luck,
Elder Kory Anton
PS: This article is probably from Satan--Avoid!
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