Preach My Gospel Chapter 2: Effective Study

I saw this chapter was about studying, and I kind of already wrote about that two weeks ago, but there was something in the lesson about lesson order, because again, the purpose is to teach with the Spirit, and it turns out I have a story about that too.

There was more structure to the lessons back in my day, and in the second discussion it was traditional to go over the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel (faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost) and invite the investigator to be baptized.

When you were teaching baptism, one of the suggested scriptures was 2 Nephi 31, where it points out that even though Christ was holy, he was baptized to show obedience, so how much more necessary was it for us to be baptized? And it feels really natural after reading that passage to invite them to be baptized then, but the gift of the Holy Ghost and the part about enduring to the end was still coming, and really,  you should ask all the way at the end. Therefore, sometimes I would have the Spirit there really strong, and I remember feeling like I should invite, but decided to get back to it, and then it just made things awkward. We recovered, but it could have gone better.

The first problem is really a logical fallacy. We were asking them to be baptized on the second discussion out of six anyway; clearly it was possible to commit without knowing everything. Surely it would be just as valid to ask after principle five as principle seven.Also, if the Spirit is telling you to ask, just ask. Don't beat around the bush.

So part of effective study there could be the decision to save that scripture towards the end, or go through the four principles as a group quickly, or maybe to change it around based on how it feels with the investigators. Working with Lao people, who primarily had Buddhist backgrounds, there were some concepts we spent more time on because there was less built in familiarity.

I don't know how different being out in the field right now would be, but even here and now I periodically get asked questions, and it is good to have knowledge ready. It is perfectly fine to tell someone you will get back to them, but I know that sometimes that I have already thought about something and learned about it really helps.

Also, this reminds me of an old favorite, so I am going to link there:

http://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2009/01/december-2007-scriptural-literacy.html