introspection

In our stake conference today it was announced that one ward had 22 baptisms last year. Do you know which ward that was? The Spanish-speaking ward (surprise, surprise). This started a 15 minute walk down memory lane as I thought about all of the times on my mission when I was soooo frustrated because I felt like I was giving it everything that I had and people just weren't interested. And then we would go to meetings with other missionaries and they would tell us that we just needed to have more faith like the Spanish-speaking missionaries had. I didn't feel like faith had anything to do with it, and I still don't. Yes, there are probably more people in the Spanish-speaking wards that are more open about their faith. But I think it has a lot more to do with culture than with anything else. I think that in Latin cultures, you are taught to be open and inviting to those around you. Whereas it seems like in American culture, we are taught to not make people feel uncomfortable. However, even as I type this, I think about all of the blogs that I've come across (I blog stalk a lot) that are written by Christian moms all over the country and they seem very open and unapologetic about their faith in Christ. And I guess I just wonder why I am not more like them.