Two baptisms. Sat, Jul 11, 2009.

07/11/2009. Journal entry. A man and his wife were baptized tonight. I met the man back in April of 2007. It's interesting to read what I wrote about him from my first impression over two years ago. He called me back in December 2008, and started investigating that month.

That makes three so far (that I know of), out of about 1200 encounters. Not very efficient, a baptism per 400 encounters.

Update, July 12, 2009: Another way of looking at it is that he was about my 812th encounter, making a baptism every 270 encounters. They were confirmed today in Sacrament meeting.

Next installment in the story here.

Chinese, Tagalog, Ilokano at baptism. Sat, May 9, 2009

05/09/2009. Books to Missionaries. Our ward had a baptism of a young married couple. Three sister missionaries from a neighboring ward attended. While the new members were getting dressed two of the visiting sister missionaries bore their testimonies. One of them said she was from China. The other didn't say where she was from, but by her accent I guessed the Philippines.

After the baptism service, I went out to my car and got some Chinese material to give to the one from China, three copies of the simplfied script Chinese Book of Mormon, and one traditional script, two issues of the Chinese Liahona, a Chinese/English bilingual New Testament, a "Finding Happiness" DVD, and a couple English copies of the Book of Mormon. I gave them to her, and told them about my success in placing material at Chinese restaurants. I asked the other sister missionary if she spoke Tagalog and she said yes. She also spoke Ilokano. So I went out to the car and brought back in two copies of the Tagalog Book of Mormon, an Ilokano copy, and two copies of Tagalog Liahonas, and another English Book of Mormon or two.

I told her about the Filipino restaurant in town, and she was excited about that, but it's pretty far from her ward.

Anyway, I told the sisters that I was pretty confident that now that they are "armed" with language matierial, they'll meet people who speak their languages.

Contact to investigator to convert. A baptism! Sat, Nov 18, 2006.

11/18/2006. Yes! He got baptized tonight! A young man who investigated the church got baptized. (I don't want to give his country of origin or other identifiers in order to respect his privacy.)

He has friends in other cities who are members. I was not his first contact with the church. But I think I was his first contact in Indianapolis when I gave him a pair of Books of Mormon, and he started formally investigating here. While receiving the missionary lessons, he was very accepting and a "golden investigator". He was so golden that I kept thinking something was going to happen and he'd change his mind.

Earlier this week, I made contact with a member in a nearby ward who served a mission in this man's home country. The RM moved into this area just a few weeks ago. He and his wife attended the baptism tonight. He spoke to the new member and his family in their native language.

Wow. Wow. Wow. I am so happy for this man, and for the ward.

The only tinge of sorrow is on my part. As I sat in the baptismal service, I felt about 2 inches tall knowing I was unavailable to perform the ordinance of baptism if he had requested it of me, as I have not been rebaptized myself yet. But such feelings should serve well to remind me not to stray off the path in the future.