While on my mission I ended up spending half of my time as a zone leader. That's the next step up from district leader. One of my jobs was to interview potential converts to make sure that they were "worthy" to be baptised. Becoming a Mormon is pretty simple but there are steps you must go through.
1. You must be taught a series of lessons about Mormonism called "discussions".
2. You must be interviewed by a priesthood leader (usually a missionary). Here are the questions you must answer.
If you make it through those two things, the missionaries then set a date and arrange a baptismal service.
I first met Mike when I interviewed him for baptism. He was a sort of former Hell's Angels type and to be honest he gave me the creeps. Well we got him baptised but Mormonism is a very bureaucratic religion. We found out that Mike was in the wrong ward (geographic area). The guy lived on the wrong side of the street. He was supposed to be introduced to a new ward, but I was transferred out of the area and I suppose that Mike was lost in the shuffle. Given the type of withdrawn personality that he was it would have been best to leave him in the ward he was baptised in. But rules are more important in Mormonism than people are so much of the time.
But we got to count him as a statistical baptism! That's what really matters.
I sometimes wonder what happened to Mike, but I can guess. The Mormon Church has over 13 million members world wide but won't disclose how many of those members are active. Each year LDS missionaries baptise thousands who almost immediately go inactive or leave the church altogether. I think Mike was just one of that great throng of thousands.
I hope he made it in life okay but he came from such a harsh background. I still feel bad that we didn't do more to help him....but helping someone didn't transfer into statistical progress.
