Do you have the FAITH not to Baptize?

This week has been a great one! I love how much I feel that I'm learning and growing! We have been working hard to teach everyone we possibly can. We only taught two lessons this week to investigators. We have been working hard to find people to teach! We knock doors a lot so much in fact my hand started to bleed on someone's door as I was knocking on it! We have this "vision" or goal to double our baptisms as a mission, zone, district and companionship and everyone has been focusing on doubling our faith in baptizing. Nothing gets me more steamed than to hear some Elder tell me the reason why I am not baptizing is because I need to strengthen my faith! So I have been pondering that a lot lately. Especially since our faith is demonstrated by action and I feel that I am the hardest working Elder there is ...and Elder Parker an area authority said, "We don't care about baptisms." I have been pondering it a lot and one night I was laying in bed ...and received amazing spiritual revelation. My thoughts were directed to several things;  One, is from a C.E.S. Devotional by Elder Bednar;  Two, is who our faith is in;  Three, what is success. 

The first is amazing and can be applied to anything.  Elder Bednar related a story of a young newly wed couple who were amazing and it looked like the future was bright for them.  When, the husband caught cancer and there lives were turned upside down. This couple knew Elder Bednar and asked him to come and administer a blessing to this young husband. But before he did that he asked him some questions that are INSPIRED he said,  "I then posed questions I had not planned to ask and had never previously considered: “[John,] do you have the faith not to be healed? If it is the will of our Heavenly Father that you are transferred by death in your youth to the spirit world to continue your ministry, do you have the faith to submit to His will and not be healed?  I frankly was surprised by the questions I felt prompted to ask this particular couple. Frequently in the scriptures, the Savior or His servants exercised the spiritual gift of healing and perceived that an individual had the faith to be healed.  But as John and Heather and I counseled together and wrestled with these questions, we increasingly understood that if God’s will were for this good young man to be healed, then that blessing could only be received if this valiant couple first had the faith not to be healed. In other words, John and Heather needed to overcome, through the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, the “natural man” (Mosiah 3:19) tendency in all of us to demand impatiently and insist incessantly on the blessings we want and believe we deserve."

That talk reflected back to me and the question came to mind. Do you have the faith NOT to baptize? If it is the will of God that you do not baptize will you have the faith to be exactly obedient, to work your hardest, to give your whole heart, might, mind and strength and every effort you poses and never give up? I realized from that, that it is easier to have faith in the positive outcome with the least resistance, the one that would be more "appealing". Its easier to have faith when everything is going fine and dandy than when God throws you a curve ball. Now we always want the positive outcome but the key is to have the faith necessary to do the will of God! I absolutely love that. Only one condition that we have the faith not to baptize, will we have the faith necessary to baptize. 

Secondly, who is our faith in? It is in the Lord JESUS CHRIST not in baptizing, money, success, calling, or anything else. It is in Jesus Christ only and if it is not than we need to repent and do a self evaluation. Because if our faith is not in Jesus Christ then we are not built on a sure foundation and we will fall.   As it says in Helaman 5: 12:   Christ is our sure foundation, "a foundation where on if men build they cannot fall".  I love my Savior and only in HIM will I put my faith!

Thirdly, what is success? And success is NOT in baptizing. If that is our definition of success than we are failing to see the bigger ...or the whole picture! The work will move forward with or without Elder Johnson. Our success is in our very deepest desires, the way we follow the spirit, and as Preach My Gospel says, "Success is in the invitation!" 

From all this I learned a lot of important life lessons. This week when asked if I had a successful week and they look at my "numbers" and think no. But, I say YES. One thing numbers can never show is a face and a name! We have invited many to come closer to Christ and among those were several less-actives one of them being Brother Edge. Brother Edge is a police officer here and we gave him a call and set up an appointments with him. During that appointment he said he misses the spirit in his life. The way he feels when he is around the missionaries, when he goes to church, or even reads in the scriptures and prays. From that one lesson we invited him back.  He has accepted that invitation. It wasn't a baptism but it was a whole lot sweeter; to see someone enter back into the Fold of God.  

Love y'all,

Elder Johnson