Ophélie Lechat

When I lived with a whole bunch of people, the girls and I would talk about the Mormon missionaries that walked around the city all the time.   They are usually good looking young men, wearing short-sleeved white shirts, black pants, and backpacks.  They do what no one else in this city seems to do: they strike up conversations with strangers and ask them intimate questions about their beliefs.  They also wear mysterious underwear.

I watched the PBS / American Experience documentary, The Mormons, a few weeks ago, and it was a fascinating look at something so vastly different from my own experience.   Growing up, my family wasn’t religious.  I went to church a few times a year, either with my choir or with the scouts group I belonged to.

(Looking back, the Scouts were a terribly religious group, and I’m not sure my parents would have kept me in there had they known what kind of proselytising was going on)

The last part of the documentary, about the young missionaries,  was especially interesting to me.  These boys (some girls do it, too, but it’s an overwhelmingly male institution) leave home for two years.  They get two phone calls home per year, on Christmas and on Mother’s Day.  They learn a new language.  They live with a semi-stranger in close quarters.  All day, they try to talk to people who want nothing to do with them.  They do it because they truly believe that they need to get this message out.

I’m not any kind of religious sympathiser.  I’m well aware of the anti-gay-marriage propaganda that some Mormon groups put out.   I just find it really interesting to see people my age sacrifice so much for a cause they believe in.  What would it take for me to dedicate two years of my life to one exclusive pursuit?