Below is an article submitted by President and
Sister Clayton
October 2001
Zion’s Harvester, October 2001 Message
Zion’s Harvester,
October 2001 Message
President
and Sister Clayton
In the month of August we had 59
baptisms and in the month of September, which had five full weekends we had
only 65 baptisms. But for the extra weekend in September we would have had 54 baptisms.
Our question to each of you missionaries is: What ever happened to our goal of
having 100 baptisms in a month and 1000 baptisms this year? As the year has
progressed we have been sliding down rather than moving up toward this goal.
Lest any of us forget, we are here to
do two things - teach and baptize. Everything we do must be done with those two
goals. When we work with members for example, we are not there to just make
friends, we are there to help those members do their part in helping us teach
and baptize.
Even when we work with less actives
in an effort to bring them into activity we should be teaching and seeking to
obtain referrals so we can baptize. Service hours bring the Spirit and teach us
to do for others. But even service ought to be done with a missionary purpose
(teach and baptize) whenever possible. Before we came to
In our last zone conference we
learned about faith. Our greater understanding of faith ought to be directed
toward our goals of teaching and baptizing. If we fail to apply what we have
learned to our missionary work, we have failed to do what the Lord would have
us do. We learned that faith is really a process, an interactive cycle in three
phases - hope - a trail of faith or action based on our hope - and a confirming
witness. We also learned that faith must begin with humility. (
We would plead with each of you that
you humbly go before the Lord, and exercise your faith that our recent slide in
baptisms be turned around and that we get back on the
track of reaping the harvest with all our might, mind and strength.
First, you must focus your hope to
baptize weekly. Second, comes the trial of your faith.
You must do all in your power to reach our goal to baptize weekly. Act with
specificity. Don’t just go out and work, - work smart. Third, seek for the
confirming witness of the Spirit to direct your work and provide spiritual nourishment, that you may find and teach with power.
We testify that with faith we can
baptize 100 souls in a month and we can baptize 1000 souls this year. To do so
we must strengthen and build our faith. This will require, a brighter, more
focused hope; work with all our might mind and strength; and the confirming
direction of the Spirit.
Love,
President and Sister Clayton
Mission President,