What countries were you in and just share your experiences about countries hardest for baptisms. I am asking cuase i am a Pole and according to cumorah there are just 300 active mormons in my 40 mil country (which makes me kind of proud). 25 years of LDS activity in my country hundreds or maybe thousands of mishies and just 1800 members on the rolls (and as i said 300 active).

If you baptised more just tell me about countries or regions hardest for baptisms. I will love to hear you.

I never went on a mission, but my grandparents only had 1 baptism while they were on their mission in Australia.

I was in Finland in the sixties. We did have a few baptisms.

2 baptisms. Can't count one because he was actually stalking one of the attractive divorcees in the ward. He was later arrested and had a restraining order put on him.

The second one was an 18 year old girl. Don't think she lasted long. Her family moved to CA after I came home. She made a visit when she turned 19 and stayed with me and my family. I got to third base with her. I don't think she stayed active after she to got CA. Lost contact with her.

I was in the bible belt. Ohio to be exact. People don't like Mormons in Ohio. At least when I was there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2015 09:08AM by shodanrob.

They didn't like Mormons in the 1830s either.

My DH (Elder Strangelove) had zero baptisms in Denmark. He had one scheduled at one point, but the lady died a few day before it was supposed to happen.

Did he submit her name? :)

I taught three people who were baptized (missionaries in my mission were not allowed to do the baptisms, so the new member would bond with a member who baptized them, this didn't work out so well in practice.)

There were approximately 100 missionaries ins my mission and we baptized less than 300 people a year in a country with 4 million people and 4000 members in 1978.

The district leaders and APs always reassigned themselves to children of members or young women and so some of them taught 8 to 12 people who joined the church. Considering the mission average was about 2.5 baptisms per year per missionary, this meant that there were many missionaries without a single baptism each year.

I went back this year and visited and there are still only about 4000 members in the country and less than 1000 active. I visited a chapel on a week night which would have been full of people when I was there many years ago and it was closed, the building run down and the beautiful garden behind the church is now a weed page.

I find it odd how badly the LDSchurch does in Poland yet the Jehovahs Witnesses are quite successful 125,000 active members!

Russia - 1 - she has turned 8...

*had

Russia - want to say about 45 total baptisms the 1st year and ~60 the 2nd year for the entire mission, early 2000's.

About 94 missionaries in an area with 6 million+ all the way up to Murmansk.

~2,000 on the rolls, less than half were active.

Notoriously difficult mission

I went on a mission to French Canada in the early 1980s. I had no baptisms. Mine was deliberate. I had by that time decided that my joining the LDS church was a mistake, and I wasn't going to lead anyone else into making the same one. So I didn't even try to get any baptisms.

Worked out well that way.

ZERO BAPTISMS: Spain Madrid Mission 1976-1978

Zero baptisms for me. Not only was I never in a companionship that had a baptism, I was never in a district that had a baptism when I was in that district, and only a couple of times was there a baptism in a zone that I was in at the time.

No baptisms was very common for my mission (Thailand, late 1970s).

Zero baptisms in Holland. Not too unusual for that country.

^^^This. Technically, none of the people I taught were baptized by me.

I served in Poland from 94-96. I had zero baptisms.

One woman I gave a book of Mormon to read it a decade after I left. She and her son are baptized now. Sob!

I was in France, '79-80.
It was a notoriously difficult mission for baptisms. Well over half of the mishies never had any during their two-year stints.

I had 4, and was considered something of a "rock star." Held up as an example by the MP, used to show "see, you can baptize in France!" Except all of my baptisms left the church shortly after, and I went home and left the church. Oops.

Ireland 96-98 Baptism = 0 Almost Baptism = A few but they all flaked out.

I am so glad I was in a hard mission now. :)

Wanderinggeek, I was also in Ireland from 96-98. I wonder if we know each other!

I was in northeastern Germany (in and around Berlin) in 1999-01. My companion baptized one person we taught. He was never active in the LDS Church after I left the area, so it was basically zero.

There were quite a few people who signed up for Moromonism in the early days after the Soviet Union withdrew it's tight grip on society in the Warsaw Pact nations and missionaries were allowed in. So you had some long time Mormons, people who joined in the late 1980's and early 1990's (a small fraction of which stuck with it), and whoever may have recently joined.

By the time I arrived the people who were baptized generally fit into one of the following:

1. Older people, who wanted some social company; but generally weren't much aware or seem to care what they were getting into.
2. Immigrants and asylum seekers (they didn't generally tend to stay on long, because they didn't fit in with the German members)
3. Teenage girls, who (for whatever unthinkable reason) become infatuated with LDS missionaries.

The other odd thing (from my perspective at the time) was that there seemed to be no relationship between the obedience to the rules of missionaries and their baptismal success. If anything it was the inverse (see #3 above). Your knowledge of the scriptures or obedience to mission rules is generally not going to have much effect on your ability to scam those three groups of people.

Some of our most "successful" elders now try to lure people into "real estate investment seminars" using a lot of hype. They are the same gooey smooth talkers, just in a different business now.

And that one promptly dropped away (within a month)

So-no-one's-on-my-conscience-ly yrs,

S

Germany Frankfurt, 1975-77. When I started the mission average was 2 baptisms/missionary. I got 2, and they were both people who were already taught and ready to go when I was transferred in to an area. My mission president told me when I was leaving that the average was now down to 1 baptism/missionary.

Contra perspective: I was in the Philippines ('99-'01) and baptized somewhere around 50 people. That was pretty average, and there were others who baptized over 100. I ascribe the high baptism rate in the Philippines to a number of factors:

1) Lack of internet access.
2) Highly superstitious population (people there actually believed in fairies, gnomes, folk magic, etc.)
3) Generally pro-American country
4) People are fascinated by white people (who they rarely see), and invite young Americans into their homes for the novelty.
5) Super friendly people who don't like to disappoint or offend others (even if it means they have to change their religion to keep you, the missionaries, as their friends).

I actually spent a lot of my time (30 hours/week) reactivating. Several of the areas where I was assigned had over 1200 members on the roles, but only 80 people attending regularly.

Italy Rome '97-'99. Not only did I get zero baptisms, but I never made it past the 3rd discussion with any investigators.

Our mission president once said in a zone conference that maybe we were all there to give people a chance to hear the gospel so that they would be held accountable in the afterlife for their rejection of it.

Che casino.

France Toulouse mission, 76-78. Zero baptisms for my two years. I felt like a complete failure for long time because of this. Of course, now I'm just happy that I didn't contribute to screwing up someone else's life.

In Seoul, 80-82, I baptised one and he disappeared right after. His apartment was cleaned out and none seemed to know what happened. As a DL, I did go to work cleaning up all the <8 y.o.'s, clueless teen girls hot for american boys, and even a couple long since dead people. One Elder was treated like royalty for baptising 17 in one branch. A little detective work wiped all out to two. Who were inactive.