Quote:
Originally Posted by ute4ever
I think you misunderstood the context. Quantity vs. Quality. Rush through the discussions, have them attend church once, and they're in. And when they're inactive a month later? Too busy rushing more through the discussions to go find them.
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The point is, it wasn't missionaries or even their presidents being rogue or disobedient or misunderstanding what they should have been doing. They were faithfully following the direction of those who instructed them how to proceed on when to invite someone to be baptized. And those instructions came to them at the MTC and from their mission presidents who got it from the prophets and apostles of the time. So what. Ok, a few people got baptized who may not have been fully prepared, however you want to define that.
The Lord is merciful and won't come down on anyone who didn't really understand what they were doing or even those leaders who felt at the time that baptizing quickly was the way to go. The Lord's church has the authority to administer saving ordinances, but the Lord himself also recognizes that part of our purpose in this life is to try our best to figure things out sometimes the best we can and learn from our mistakes and correct and move on. That goes for non-members, regular members, and all the way up to the prophets and apostles. But I'm willing to be patient and don't have the need for every single policy and practice to be 100% perfect in order to believe the church is still true. And it's my weakness, but it's a littler harder for me to be as patient with members who are so quick to condemn other members and give them a dirty look for not wearing the right color shirt when passing the sacrament or using the wrong hand, or whatever other perceived weakness, including not believing things in the right way however we define it. That kind of nonsense is frequently all over cougarboard and sounds like kind of garbage within the church that the Book of Mormon comes down pretty hard against.