Lately I have been pondering on success. What is it? Can I measure it? Do I have it? Well as a missionary often times people will weigh success against outward results. Those results always seem to be “baptisms.” This is a very dangerous thing; not because people are getting baptized, but because it is easy for a missionary to get caught up in baptizing and lose focus on what really matters. And when that happens everyone suffers, first—and most of all—the person being baptized, then secondly the missionary. Let me tell you a personal story to demonstrate what I mean.

When I first got to this mission my Mission President conducted interviews with all of us new arriving missionaries. I was the first to be interviewed and as he does with all his new missionaries he asked me what my goal was for “baptisms” over the course of my two year mission. I had never put any thought into that. So I asked him “what is the mission average?” He responded and told me. I then replied by saying “well, I’m really motivated, my goal is 50 baptisms!” after leaving the interview I then calculated it out, “I have 24 total months (that is 17 total transfers). So that is just over 2 baptisms a month and just under 3 baptisms a transfer.” I thought to myself; “It will be hard, but I can do it!”

I was motivated, and ready to hit the ground running. I started my mission off in the intercity of Philadelphia just like I had asked for so I was set. I even got the best trainer that I could ask for; obedient, hardworking, he loved everyone, and everyone loved him. “Let the harvest begin.”

First transfer: No baptisms.

“Okay… I’ll just have to make up for my failures last transfer, next transfer…” I thought. So let me just tell you now that I was getting desperate for baptisms. My goal, after all was 50! So if I didn’t get it together and baptize the next transfer I was going to have a really hard time reaching that goal. This is a perfect example of working for a goal, rather than having a goal work for you. I let my goal blind me rather than having my goal guide me. This is not to say that I didn’t care deeply about those who I taught, I wanted them baptized for their benefit, not just mine. But it shouldn’t have been about me at all. The question was, “when?” Was it going to be when I wanted them baptized, or when they should be baptized? Was it going to be in my time or in the Lord’s time?

Well the Lord expects certain requirements to be met of a baptismal candidate before he or she are baptized. The requirements are solely meant to help individuals become converted, and not just wet.After all, baptism without conversion isn’t going to do them any good. But a missionary as focused on baptizing as I was might not see that so clearly. Those requirements sometimes look more like hurdles to jump over than steps leading to conversion. This is what I call “not getting it.”

I didn’t get it. I taught people for baptism. I pushed, and I pulled with all my might. I would wake them up to get to church, I would get them rides, I would convince them to come to church and read their scriptures, I got them to do everything they needed to do to get baptized. To me, it was going to happen, and it was going to happen that transfer. And it did. My companion and I baptized them the last week of transfer. The next week they were confirmed members of the church and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost.

They did well for a while. I was so happy. Then the Adversary did what he does best, he put adversity in their path. Each Sunday I would wait for them and watch the doors for the moment they came into the chapel so I could escort them to some seats I had held for them, but to my disappointment, week after week, they stopped opening the doors, and their seats were filled by other families.

I was devastated. I never gave up on them, but I couldn’t do it for them. Like the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi; many a night my “tears watered my pillow” as I felt the anguish that comes from loss and failure. No, not this time, this time the failure wasn’t about me, this time the failure came from me realizing that I failed them. I taught them everything they would need to know for baptism, and I gave them the easy road to it. What I didn’t do was prepare them for conversion. I taught them to what mattered most to me, and so I met my goal, but it was filled with emptiness.

I realized I needed to repent. I needed to change. I privately and inwardly erased my goal of 50 baptisms with the hopes that never again would I make the same mistake of teaching for baptism. My new goal was to teach people for conversion no matter if it’s one convert or one thousand. My new goal was that I would never baptize someone unless I knew they were committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the end. Baptizing someone of itself means nothing. If I can’t walk with them to the Celestial Kingdom because I didn’t teach them correctly then what good did I do? If I merely bring them to baptism and not to the fullness of Christ, then whose servant would I be? I would be the servant of a baptismal statistic, or to put it more befittingly; a servant of Mammon.

So I had a choice. I had to choose to no longer serve the vain things of the world but to serve God alone. If I was going to really change I would have decide to choose charity over selfishness, and humility rather than praise. It all comes down to the great battle of “’my will be done’ vs. ‘Thy will be done.’”

The key to success is: Charity. It’s always charity. “Charity never fails” (see 1 Corinthians 13:8)! If we are found with Charity, we will be successful. If we have charity, we won’t think about checks in boxes like baptisms, or even temple endowments, we will focus on seeing someone to the Celestial Kingdom, which, and I testify, comes only through real repentance, not just doing repentant things. Despite common belief, not even a temple recommend qualifies someone for the Celestial Kingdom. Qualification comes only through real repentance (or in other words conversion) and a temple recommend.

But they have to repent of their own free will; we cannot do it for them. If we try, we aren’t being charitable, we are just being selfish. If we do the work for them, when the winds come and beat upon them, they will fall. If we teach them to get baptized, we will merely be getting them to do a celestial thing, without becoming a Celestial person. How dare I? Someday I will have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and answer for that.

And no missionary can fake charity, no, not with all the wisdom and eloquence in the world. A missionary’s heart will always be manifest above his words. Even when it is not acknowledged by anyone, even when no one notices, it is something that is perceived spirit to spirit. It is why “you cannot convert someone beyond your own conversion” (Preach My Gospel, 182).

Having an attitude of charity always comes with a blessing. If you have charity for others, the Lord will show you charity. If you charitably help convert others, you will be converted. If you charitably walk with someone to the Celestial Kingdom, you too will enter. This is our purpose.

But in order to fulfill our purpose we cannot fear. “Perfect love casteth out all fear” (Moroni 8:16; see also 1 John 4:18). Teaching the baptismal requirements and commandants must be taught as boldly as we teach the Restoration. If we are fearful, the investigator will be fearful; if we are unconfident then the investigator will be unconfident; and if we lack faith then the investigator will lack faith. Do not fear.

If we have perfect love (charity) we won’t have need to fear and the investigator will discern our care for them, and the truthfulness of our message. If we are confident in our message and the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion, then baptismal requirements will help rather than hinder. Commandments will ring true rather than offend. If we have charity, investigators will trust us, obstacles will crumble, doubt will vanish away, and in their place conversion will spring up and take root.

So is a missionary with many baptisms more successful than a missionary that has only a few, or even a missionary who, perhaps, has never witnessed a single baptism? In this mission the average for baptisms is 9.8 per missionary for a 2 year mission (Our Mission Stats). So if I had 50 baptisms would that make me successful? I would be above average right? I would be doing better than the next guy, that’s success right? Wrong. In fact that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The gauge of a missionary’s (or anyone’s) success is not a measure against the results of another’s. Success is measured completely independent of others and has no correlation to outward results. Success is judged solely off of an individual’s commitment to live—and helping others to live—Celestial Christ-centered lives (Charity). Asking how many baptisms one has is completely the wrong question.

Compare these two Book of Mormon Missionaries: Ammon who helped convert thousands of individuals and families and was able to continue to be with them for many years was no more successful as a missionary than Abinidi who was burned at the stake not knowing if his one and only convert ever even lived long enough to be baptized, the last he saw him, he was being chased by guards with the intent to kill.

The point is; the less focused a missionary is on “baptisms” and the more focused—and confidant—they are on conversion the more successful a missionary will be. I cannot promise outward results for those who work. But for those who exercise real charity and cast away fear and doubt the Lord does promise His blessing that “[He] will go before your face and be on your right hand and on your left, and [his] Spirit shall be in your hearts, and [his] angels round about you, to bear you up” (Doctrine and Covenants 84:88).That sounds successful to me.

How many baptisms a missionary gets shouldn’t even be on a missionary’s mind. The real goals that should be on a missionary’s mind are: “How many converts will I get to have joy within the Celestial Kingdom?” “How many children of God did I help bring back to Him?” If we do that, we will find joy in the work, goals will work for us, numbers will no longer be task masters, and charity will be our motive and not just something we wish for.

Spreading the Gospel is most important work in the world. Eternity is at stake. What we do with the light that has been given to us—how we use it, how we add upon it, how we share it with others—this is the measure of our success. Be fearless, be charitably, and be happy. Do so in faith that Jesus is the Christ, and that the Celestial Kingdom is real and obtainable. “The Kingdom of God or nothing.”