As I wrote about in my last post, I argue that the way missionaries deal with investigators' concern of already having been baptized needs to change. I shared my ideas with multiple Facebook groups that I found, including an online missionary group, and an MTC teachers group. I got varied responses. Most of them admitted that they never had considered that there was a problem with the approach, or that there was another way to do it. This just confirmed to me the problem. For some reason we've only been teaching one way to do it, but as far as I can tell there is no manual or set of instructions that state it has to be done that way--we've just been doing it out of tradition.
Because it has only been done one way for so long I got some backlash for thinking that the way may be wrong. Some people did add some great insights to my thoughts, though. Some pointed out that when we emphasize that only our baptism is valid we are attacking their baptism, their beliefs, and probably an event that means a lot to them. The more I thought about that the more I decided that their baptism is probably actually valid in some ways in God's eyes. When someone is baptized into a church they are probably doing so because they have a desire to follow Christ and make a commitment to Him, and they are doing so to the best of their knowledge. When someone is baptized in another church out of the sincerity of their heart I don't think God frowns on that one bit. On the contrary, I'd bet He is delighted! Yes, I'm sure that He would rather they be baptized in His restored Church (and eventually they will have to if they are to live with Him in the Celestial Kingdom), but they are doing the best they can with the understanding they have. It's not our place to attack that. As President Hinckley used to emphasize, we need to invite them to bring the good that they have, and see if we can't add to it. We need to build on an investigator's faith, and the choices they've made to follow God up to this point in their lives, not tear down their faith, and minimize their previous righteous decisions.
I don't think there is a problem with focusing on authority. You mentioned in your last post that it really is important and true. I agree that the purpose of a person's conversion should be a desire to follow Christ and not to follow the Church but fundamental to a convert's understanding is that the authority has been restored. It's the pathos ethos logos combination that needs to be completed for a convert to really get it. If they only focus on the emotion that what the missionaries are saying is true, then they will leave the church when another pastor teaches them something inspiring. They need to understand that the authority has been restored. But missionaries like to "bible bash" too. They need to understand that logic isn't the only converter, in fact, it isn't the main converter. The spirit is.
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