Mission work filled with trials, triumphs

IDAHO FALLS – They’re lucky if it’s 20 degrees outside – sans wind chill – when they start their morning walks.

The 19- and 20-year-olds trudge through the morning snow, ice patches and drifts.

A passing car showers them with mud-blackened slush from an easily avoidable pothole, posing an occupational hazard to their pressed white shirts.

No one would begrudge them a few words of blasphemy in this situation.

“Oh my heck,” they think instead.

They’ve been spit on, had doors slammed in their faces, seen more middle fingers than a New York taxi driver.

And they shrug it off. Those gentiles aren’t yet prepared for the message.

Missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in eastern Idaho have also been invited into homes for sodas and chats and received tender smiles or kisses blown from passing cars.

It’s tough, preaching the word in an area where half the population believes and the other half rejects, sometimes bitterly.

The church calls the young men when they turn 19, tells them when it’s time to leave home and trains them to go out into the world, armed only with their name tags and their scriptures.

No more phone calls, no more dates, no more teenage shenanigans.

For the next two years they’re working and learning lessons that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Elder Benjamin Chapman, 20, remembers how easy the work looked, growing up in Queen City, Texas.

His family regularly hosted missionaries for dinner, and the fresh-faced men and women smiled, talked about their hometowns, and said blessings from the scriptures.

That was before the 6 a.m. alarm clocks, the 15-mile days.

It was before leaving his family seven months ago, and before he started spending his only weekly semi-free day — Wednesdays are reserved for preparation – doing laundry.

“It pays off for itself,” he says, despite the difficulties he encounters. “It’s something I love to do, and basically, since I’ve been a little kid, I’ve wanted to do.”

With three fellow missionaries nearby, Chapman – as do the others – makes frequent mention of “the Lord” when asked about the hardships of missionary life. Waking almost two hours before the sun, missionaries study scripture and exercise, put on their identical suits, and pound the pavement. They wave to every car, smile at every passerby. Most people are friendly and wave back but others wave with four fewer fingers, proudly, as if they were the first to think of the concept.

“If I was home, I’d probably try to chase them down, but here it really doesn’t bother you at all,” says Elder Joshua Jeffrey, a 22-year-old from Apache Junction, Ariz. “I guarantee you, almost every missionary, as soon as someone cusses you out and slams the door in your face, you just laugh it off. It doesn’t hurt you anymore.”

The best two years in a male Mormon’s life are supposed to be his mission.

Whether that’s the case, he’ll refer to his mission as the best, even if at this point it has become more of an inside joke or cliché.

The Idaho Pocatello Mission, which oversees all missionaries in eastern Idaho, is home to 152 of the church’s 53,000 missionaries serving worldwide.

Current eastern Idaho missionaries represent 22 different countries, estimates Idaho Pocatello Mission President Colin Bricknell, himself here from South Africa. When a male Mormon is called to his mission he has anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to kiss goodbyes and then it’s off to one of 16 Missionary Training Centers, of which the largest is in Provo, Utah, for three to 10 weeks of training, depending on language requirements.

Training assuages fears of homesickness. It eased Chapman’s concerns about leaving his family. It calmed Jeffrey when he worried about giving up his scholarship. It told Elder Chris Webb he’d date again.

“The Lord calls you, the Lord calls you,” Chapman shrugs. “We’re not really sacrificing anything because the Lord just wants to see if we have faith, and we do. That’s what the life is about, you know, to strengthen our faith and get back to our Heavenly Father.”

Of course, missionaries are human. They miss girls and video games and movies and music and telephones and Internet and television and picking out their own clothing.

“I hate to be like the odd one out, but, like, I miss things,” says Webb, a 20-year-old from Findlay, Ohio, looking to his fellow missionaries for support and receiving affirmative nods in return. “We don’t listen to music, you know, we don’t have our cars, you know, like, I miss those things, don’t get me wrong, I hope that you guys …”

Understand? They do.

Missionaries spend two years with only postal and electronic mail connecting them to the people they love. Phone calls aren’t an option. Two years, and the only familiar faces are their fellow missionaries.

An awkward companion tries one’s faith – that’s a missionary joke; they’re full of them – but it’s an issue that’s covered in training.

“Sometimes you have companions that – not because they’re bad people – but you just have different habits, different ideas, and so you kind of butt heads with them a little bit,” Jeffrey says. “Once you put that back in perspective, everything works out for yourself. You’re not here to do what you want to do. You’re not here to do what your companion wants you to do.”

For an organization that meticulously tracks the conversions and departures of its members and ex-members, the LDS Church is tight-lipped when it comes to releasing numbers. Fewer than half of eligible 19-year-olds choose to go on missions.

Of those who do choose to, one outside estimate – the church rejects speculation about retention of former missionaries – says that a majority of missionaries remain in the church after their missions.

Of those who leave the church, few are eager to talk about their experiences for publication for fear that it might affect their businesses or social standings, especially in heavily LDS communities like Idaho Falls. Others, even those who have left the area, express concerns about reopening old wounds with family members who are still active in the faith.

It’s a transitional period, a life-changing trip to somewhere exotic or familiar, but seen from a new perspective.

“We will knock on every house in a town, you know, in a matter of three months if someone’s really working hard, and lots of times you don’t think they’re going to want to listen to you,” Jeffrey says. “Once they finally do – and that’s all it takes – is for some reason they’ll decide to let you in and then it touches their heart.”

And when that happens, the long walks in the bitter cold that lead to confrontations with bitter people – they just don’t matter anymore.