What I have learned from 0's

We had very little lessons and no one at church this week. This entire 6 weeks we have walked all day and have had a total of 1 person at church and he isn't progressing right now. Gotta just be optimistic and have faith cuz if you don't than there isn't a point in the mission.

Because of these hard times I have been trying to study a lot more and in my studies I have come across three examples of missionaries that passed through some tough times in the mission as well. 

The first went on his mission and in every area he was in he didn't have a single baptism but right after he left the missionaries after him had success. After a year of having no baptisms he wrote his dad and told him he was coming home. His dad told him to just get to work and forget himself. He did and ended up finishing his mission with a total of 0 baptisms. His name was Gordon B. Hinkley.

The second example was a missionary who was recently married when he got called by the first presidency to serve a mission. He decided to leave his wife and answer the call. During his mission his wife got seriously sick several times but he decided to have faith and kept working for 2 years. He ended the mission with 0 baptisms. His name was Joseph Fielding Smith. 

The last example: There was a Missionary who was getting a lot of attention because He was able to work miracles and He spoke by the power of God. He taught the true doctrine by the Power of the Holy Ghost. But the majority were only listening to this Missionary because of His miracles and not because they had genuine faith in His teachings. In order to divide the real believers from the sign-seekers this Missionary taught a stronger doctrine than the majority were ready to handle. He lost a lot of investigators that day. (John 6:53-69) His numbers dropped drastically. And by the end of His ministry His true converts were very few. And about 400 years after He died no one believed  the true doctrine that He taught. His name was Jesus Christ.  

Something that is kinda sad about today's mission field is there is a lot of emphasis on numbers. Missionaries (me included) love to look at their progress report with a lot of numbers more than at the people they are teaching as literal children of God. It's really hard to see a bad progress report and believe that your still doing your best, that God still is here helping us. But if we measure the success of these three missionaries just by their numbers these two prophets of God and Our Savior left their missions as failures.

I guess the lesson that God has tried to give me in a transfer of 0's is the mission is so much more than the number of baptisms. If it were all about numbers the Lord could send angels to teach people and their numbers would be awesome, but instead He sends weak, whiny, inexperienced 19 year old kids to teach the gospel. It's about the souls of men, missionaries and investigators alike. If we give it 100% and still we get nothing in numbers, we are just walking in the same path that Prophets have.