Sorry for the misleading title. These aren't "baseball baptisms" but are closer to the type of quick tactic dunkings of Japan from the early 90s or whenever that have been recently talked about on this board.

http://sistersydneyhughes.blogspot.com/

Paraphrasing the first part of the entry and a editted down: "Last week Sister Croft and I went contacting in a little park by the church where people go to exercise. An older gentleman named Noy saw us, ... A few days later, he saw us again and set up an appointment to come to the church on Saturday. ... talked at us for 20 minutes, told me he couldn't believe that I ride my bike every day and am still fat, and that I didn't speak Thai very well compared to my companion (that happens a lot because Sister Croft is half Taiwanese so people think they can understand her better...). And then he left. ... He showed up to church the next day and was instantly friends with everyone. We taught him all the lessons this week ... He was baptized yesterday and it was probably one of the happiest baptisms of my life. He was so happy and ready."

Sure, some people just are "ready"... But here's the next section of this sister's blog to consider:

"In Saphaan Suung, all the way back in September, we started asking people on the street if they wanted to be baptized. We would hold up a little pass along card of someone getting baptized and say, "Will you be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority on such and such day...?" That was when we started seeing a lot of success in our street contacting. President Senior had everyone in our mission start contacting that way for 2 hours a day in October. In November we had over 100 baptisms for the first time in mission history. President Senior told us that other missions in Southeast Asia had started using our contacting method. In February we had over 200 baptisms in Thailand. That is the first time that Thailand, or any mission in Asia, has achieved a goal of this magnitude. This week Sister Jackson told us that her cousin was recently instructed by her mission president in POLAND to use this contacting method. "If it works in Thailand, it can work in Poland," is what the mission president told his missionaries."

History has shown the church over and over that these types of approaches will make your dunking number look good for a sort while but then you will have branches with 500 inactives and 15 active members in very short order.

"Hi, will you do something you don't understand next week?"

And there will be NO retention problems at all.

ANother missionary says its based off "The Challenging and Testifying Missionary", a concept taught by Alvin Dyer about 50 years ago.

Here's that talk: http://www.ldsinfobase.net/rh/missn/chall_testify.html

And yeah, he specifically says its absolutely right to dunk 'em quick and not worry about how much they know about the church.

"If you are testifying to them and say you are a servant of God and they are to be baptized because the Lord loves them and wants them in the Church, they don't have to wait. Go out every day and challenge every person who will listen to you. Tell them you are going to have a baptismal service and the spirit of God will bear record through you in such a way that they will be baptized.

I know missionaries who cling to the idea that they can't be baptized until they know what they are being baptized for. You teach about the Godhead and the apostasy. often they don't know what you are talking about. Neither did you until you studied it for a few weeks. Now these lessons are important. I'm not saying they are not. When people are baptized they have an eagerness to learn everything about the Church. But you can teach them. But be alert to the investigator challenge from the first time you meet them. The Lord knows who he wants in his Church."

"Last week we had a baptism!! But it wasn't the one that we were planning on. So the security guard at the church used to work at the office and we had given him a Book of Mormon but have never really been able to talk to him for sure. When he moved to the church some other Elders started teaching him. He really wanted to be baptized but being a guard he works like 36 hours on and 12 off so it's just hard. It was Saturday and they said that he wanted to be baptize he just needed to learn. So Elder Smith and I sat down and taught him everything in the missionary lessons and he was interviewed that night and got baptized! He was so humble and willing to submit to our Father in Heaven. That's one of the most important traits of a baptismal candidate."

Quality... Taught everything he needed to know and dunked him the same night.

Nice. So the ZL missionary teaches all discussions, or "everything in the missionary lessons", does the interview himself, and then fills up the font and baptizes the guy?...probably with no witnesses? You aren't supposed to baptize people that haven't even attended church, but this guy lives at the church, so it's all good.

"History has shown the church over and over that these types of approaches will make your dunking number look good for a sort while but then you will have branches with 500 inactives and 15 active members in very short order."

Or worse. My first area on my mission was a ward with 1,200+ on the rolls and less than 15 attending. The bishops was the only priesthood holder and the missionaries had to teach and/or speak every week. It continued on like this, still designated as a "ward", for years. We used the ward list for "reactivation" but most of the "inactives" seemed like they'd never even heard of the church. One guy we met had been baptized when he was 6 years old.

"We had a lot of good things happen this week. Mostly because of this new training we got. It sounds pretty harsh, and that's how I felt at first, but it really does work. It involves tons of people, a picture of baptism, and filtering. We talk to as many people as we can about baptism. The usual stunt is "Hey do you know what this is? It's baptism, it's being cleansed from our sins. We can have eternal life and happiness (other blessings, anything really). The 21st of December we'll be having a baptism service. Do you want to get baptized on that day?"

Basically we try to find the people who are really prepared by the Lord to hear our message. We know they're out there and every missionary loves finding them! But that's usually the hard part.

Now the goal is to filter through those who aren't interested right now to find those who are. Obviously about 90% of people aren't interested at all. But that's okay. We move on! And move on! We get rejected so many times but when someone is interested they're really prepared and the Spirit has already been working on them. "