Sometimes it can be a good idea to slow down in missionary work. Had Elder Friend (yes, that really was his name) and I been in too much of a hurry on this day, we would have missed finding this lady who would become the second person I participated in teaching who was subsequently baptized.
We knocked on this door with a no soliciting sign. Typically we did not knock on doors with no soliciting signs, but we did knock on this one -- stay in tune with the spirit so you catch the prompting to break the routine. We waited about a minute but no one answered. So we started off toward the next house, which was across the street on the next corner. I lagged behind a bit to close the gate to this house’s yard.
As I turned to follow my companion, I happened to look back at the front door of this house, and in that moment I saw that someone had finally answered it. I looked at Elder Friend and saw that he was stepping onto the curb across the street. I signaled the person at the door to wait and then tried to get my companion’s attention. Elder Friend, by now realizing that I was not catching up, turned around, saw me and then saw the person at the door. He turned around and came back and we went up to the doorstep. I gave the approach and this lady let us in.
As we sat down in her living room, this lady mentioned that her back was giving her trouble. My companion talked to her about priesthood blessings and we ended up giving her one. Then we taught her the first discussion; she was very receptive and also very open. She agreed with most of the things we talked about. We got her phone number and were going call her to set up a return appointment.
About a week later we called Elizabeth to set up an appointment for the second discussion. We asked her if she had started reading The Book of Mormon. She said that she had and that she knew it was true! I am not able, even now, to describe the joy I felt when I heard that.
A few days later we taught her the second discussion and committed her to pray about a date for baptism. A week and a half later we were surprised to see Elizabeth at church -- if I recall correctly, an invitation to church typically followed the third discussion, which taught about the Sacrament.
Despite these pleasant surprises, we occasionally had some difficulty getting a hold of Elizabeth. One day we were ten minutes early for a teaching appointment with her and we hopped over for what we hoped was a quick visit with Trudy – who lived like a block away – but we were twenty minutes late getting back to Elizabeth’s and she did not answer the door.
Nonetheless, we were surprised again, after not teaching her for a couple of weeks, to see Elizabeth at church a second time. Now we just needed to finish the rest of the discussions. I felt certain that we could baptize her before another month had passed. Two days later we taught Elizabeth the third discussion and set a date for baptism.
When we taught her the fourth discussion a few days later we ran into a problem over the Word of Wisdom. Elizabeth would not commit to giving up coffee. She said she only had coffee three or four times a year for health reasons; she said it is better than eating when you have gastritis. She could not promise that she would never have another cup of coffee. That was very discouraging.
In any case, when we went back to teach Elizabeth the fifth discussion she did not have any more concerns and we were able to resolve her concerns from the fourth discussion. But we had to push back her baptism date about a week. We also gave her another priesthood blessing.
We had a member of the ward fellowshipping Elizabeth and he was doing a great job. She had called him a few times and had also told him that she was determined to be baptized. This is the only church that she had attended and felt comfortable with. She felt that the members there were very kind. Oh, what joy I felt when I heard that, and with it came tears -- a rarity for me.
Elizabeth came to church for a third time on the date we had originally set for her baptism, so everything looked good for the following Sunday. That is, except for exactly where we were going to hold the baptism. The water heater for the font at the stake center had not been replaced and we were calling every member in the area that had a pool – baptizing in the ocean was not allowed. We taught Elizabeth the sixth discussion on Thursday, but we were still having trouble finding a pool for Sunday. As it turned out, we had to delay the ceremony until the following Tuesday.
On Sunday, Elizabeth came to church for a fourth time. This was unprecedented! In my experience, investigators typically only came the required two times before their baptisms.
Tuesday was the day transfer calls came out, and we found out that my companion was being transferred. Fortunately for Elder Friend, we had the ceremony that night.
At 6:00 p.m. we went to Elizabeth’s and she followed us in her car to the member’s home, the one with the pool. The service went great as Elder Friend baptized her and I confirmed her – after baptizing Trudy, I decided that I didn’t need to be the one doing the actual baptism and was quite happy to allow others to have the honor.
The member who was fellowshipping Elizabeth was supposed to give the talk on the Holy Ghost but he never showed, so I volunteered to wing it. There was one hiccup as my companion and Elizabeth were getting out of the pool after the baptism; she slipped and fell on a wet spot. But compared with my first baptism, this one was rather uneventful. Still, one of the ward members commented to me about the safety factor of my baptisms.
The next morning we took my companion to meet the transfer van and later in the day returned to pick up my new companion. So that was pretty good timing for Elder Friend. I thought we had a pretty good companionship, this elder and I. We worked hard and we had more things going on than I had with my previous companions.
We were also tested, as most of the appointments we set ended up canceling on us. Elder Friend was discouraged one day, and he said that his previous areas had been better. I said that he should count his blessings, as he could be in Palo Alto, my previous area, which was extremely slow. We persevered, and we were blessed, not only with the baptism of Elizabeth, but with other things.
In many companionships, each elder has things they do that the other could potentially find annoying and Elder Friend and I certainly had those. I thought that, for the most part however, we were more than just companions, but also friends. I still look back on those two months as a happy time.
