When the saints go marching in

Mormon missionaries abroad lead a life of evangelism, community service and mind-numbing austerity.

By Tara Zahra

Nov 20, 2000 | It's not easy to attract attention in the capital's Vaclavske Namesti. Thousands of tourists pack the streets, almost as many cellphones ring and people in Mozart costumes foist concert tickets on you. It's not easy unless you're a gang of 10 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint missionaries, and you are in the midst of conducting a weekly "street display." With clean-cut, clean-shaven faces, white shirts and ties -- no matter the heat -- and North Face backpacks, the Mormons look a bit like a very lost American high school debate team, except that they sing hymns and work the streets in fluent Czech.

And they take themselves far more seriously. "We see ourselves as ambassadors of God and our country," one sister (or female missionary) says.

Their mission: to make "contacts," who might then become "investigators" and receive instruction on church doctrine, and ultimately to "bring people to Jesus" by converting them to full-fledged membership in the LDS Church. There were more than 300,000 such conversions around the world last year, in no small part due to the efforts of over 60,000 missionaries, 77 of whom are stationed in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The term "missionary" evokes images from the past -- Jesuits in South America or the London Missionary Society in Africa. Rarely do we think of 19-year-olds from Utah proselytizing in Prague across from Dunkin' Donuts. But the mission is a rite of passage among young Mormons, or at least among young unmarried males deemed "worthy" by the church (i.e. observant of the church's ban on alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and premarital sex). Men serve for two years and are eligible beginning at age 19.

Women's missions begin later, at 21, and last only 18 months. While the mission is considered a duty for male LDS members, for women "the church would say you should not put off marriage just to go on a mission; you should only go if it really feels right," explains Trisha Randall, a 23-year-old former missionary in the Czech Republic. Since so many Mormon women are married by the time they are 21, almost 80 percent of those who choose to serve are men.

But conversions seem like an unlikely consequence of the street display I observe. One man seems to mistake the missionaries for Disney World characters, handing his camera to his girlfriend and strolling over to have his picture taken. An elderly woman insists on teaching the missionaries a hymn or two of her own, which she sings for them and all of Prague. Another woman comes out of her apartment across the street to ask the singing elders how they like her new haircut.

The "flirt to convert" strategy is strictly forbidden by the church, and officially, male missionaries in the Czech Republic are allowed only to "contact" (or touch) other men, and women only to "contact" women. But it seems that exceptions are made for women of a certain age. I ask how missionaries choose their contacts.

"Most times you pray before you start, and one of the things you ask is that you'll know whom to stop. But when I was feeling lazy I would just talk to old women and men," says Randall. The street display ends when two drunken men start beating each other up in the flower bed behind the choir.

Even if only for the sake of public relations, talking to strangers is considered an integral part of a missionary's work. But getting strangers to respond sometimes requires creative tactics. Randall usually begins with the typical queries: "Have you heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Do you believe in God?"

She quickly discovered that there are easier ways to break the ice in a country known for its ambivalence toward organized religion. So she would ask: "Can you tell me the singular form of 'hranolky' (french fries) in Czech?" Another pair of sisters developed a strategy that allowed them to use the language barrier to their advantage: First, sit down on the train next to a potential contact and begin reading the Book of Mormon. Second, find a word in Czech you don't know. Third, ask the contact for a translation. "Five times out of 10 the missionary would end up giving away her Book of Mormon," Randall says.

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