The Key to Mormons’ Global Goals

It wasn’t so long ago that Edmundo Alarcon, a 19-year-old from the San Gabriel Valley, was break-dancing with his buddies, coaching soccer, romancing his sweetheart and caring for his car--a sweet little Nissan Sentra--like so many California kids.

Now he is a dark-suited disciple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now, Alarcon spends 11 hours a day, six days a week, studying the formidable Japanese language, gospel teachings and techniques to win converts as he prepares to embark on a mission to the largely Buddhist Asian nation.

He reads no newspapers, watches no TV, makes no calls home. His head is stuffed with information, from why he should never knock on a Japanese door four times--the word for four, shi, also means death--to how to progress from general discussions of God to specific Mormon doctrines. Except for his one day off, Alarcon’s life is tightly controlled, from the 6 a.m. wake-up time to the 10:30 p.m. lights out.

Here at the Mormon Church’s Missionary Training Center, one of the nation’s most demanding religious boot camps is whipping Alarcon and 2,000 others into spiritual shape for what is believed to be the single largest missionary corps in the world.

How the Mormons manage to take young people fighting raging hormones and competing preoccupations with romance, college and career, and redirect their energies into two years of selfless, self-paid spiritual service, is a key to one of the remarkable expansions in modern religious history.

Alarcon and his fellow missionaries represent the global vanguard of a church that in 1996 reached a major milestone: the quintessential American faith, born of pioneers whose westward expansion epitomized the spirit of Manifest Destiny, registered more members outside the U.S. borders than within them. The church’s 10 million members now reside in 192 nations.

The number of members is projected to explode to 267 million by the year 2080 in what University of Washington sociologist Rodney Stark has declared is the rare emergence of a new worldwide religion.

In its aggressive global outreach, the church has doubled its missionary corps to 60,000 and the number of local temples to 112. (Full-time Protestant missionaries number about 45,000, according to Stark.)

The Mormon missionary effort is a “creative program . . . truly exceptional among Christian faiths,” said Jan Shipps, professor emeritus of history and religious studies at Indiana University and Purdue University, Indianapolis.

The church has also expanded its international aid, growing from a $10-million project for Ethiopia and other African states in 1985 to more than 700 projects around the world last year.

But the globalization of the once-insular church is also raising questions. Will the force of diversity reshape its doctrines, leadership and culture?

Church leaders in Japan and elsewhere have called for more autonomy from Salt Lake City, for instance. And former missionaries say that convert retention rates in some countries overseas are low, in part because new members find themselves losing touch with their heritages, friends and even family members as they embrace the intense Mormon culture. (The church declined to provide data on convert retention rates.)

Hideki Mori, who recently started a support group in Japan for ex-Mormons like himself, estimates that fewer than 20% of converts there stay with the church. The low rate, he says, is partly caused by high church demands on time and an overly Americanized atmosphere in which people are expected to shake hands rather than bow, as Japanese traditionally do, and are asked to give up such cherished cultural rituals as the tea ceremony, in keeping with Mormon bans on caffeine.

In addition, Mori says, some members join not because they truly embrace the Mormon doctrines but because they find it hard to say no to the polite and disarming missionaries.

“There needs to be more respect of local cultures, and not seem so much of an American religion,” said Eric Kettunen, a Tennessee engineer who served a mission in Finland in the 1970s, left the church about six years ago and now runs a popular Web site for “recovering Mormons” (www.exmormon.org)

The standardized church culture the missionaries promote is sometimes called “McMormonism,” Shipps said. The program features a guidance manual called the “Uniform System for Teaching the Gospel,” frequent drills on standardized teaching techniques and a prescribed dress code and even packing list. For missionaries like Brian Hand headed to Fiji: one suit. Ten short-sleeved shirts. Six slacks. Six ties. Eight pairs of dark socks. Sandals are allowed.

“It’s effective. It works and it creates a community that has a lot in common,” Shipps said. “But to a dyed-in-the-wool Methodist like myself, it seems to leave out a lot of dimensions of religious experience . . . the freedom to explore what your faith means in all different directions and to openly discuss this.”

Earl C. Tingey, a top church official, said missionaries try to recognize peoples’ local culture, but also need to “bring them into somewhat of a norm”--eschewing native drums, for instance, at a worship service.

Other Mormons such as Keith Atkinson, manager of the church’s public affairs office in Los Angeles, see not conformity in their culture, but a liberating tradition in striving to become of one mind and heart with God--just as Jesus taught, he says, in the New Testament.

Others Adopting Mormon Techniques

It’s lunchtime at the Missionary Training Center, the 19-building campus located next to Brigham Young University. Rows of ravenous students are downing the day’s cafeteria fare of ham sandwiches and chicken burritos. These are the training grounds for the heart of the Mormon global outreach: those ubiquitous, earnest, instantly recognizable teams of mostly young men in white shirts and ties, striding door-to-door with a cheerful smile on their faces and a Book of Mormon in their hands.

So famous--and formidable--have Mormon missionaries become that one evangelical Protestant church used their example to motivate its own youth to volunteer for mission work.

“In 1998, 60,000 youth spent $10,000 each, giving two years of their lives, working 12-hour days, six days a week, and calling home only four times. These were Mormon missionaries. We can do better,” said a recent recruiting ad for the United Pentecostal Church International.

Here at the training center, young Mormons talk about the privilege of serving the poor, of touching something greater than a self-absorbed life.

Nathan Hammond and Samuel Dee Castor, both 19-year-olds from Salt Lake City, can’t wait to hug the orphans. They are bound for Romania, a country they’ve been told is dirt poor, with an abundance of orphans who lie in overburdened institutions, their dirty diapers changed barely once a day.

“We’re going to take care of babies. We’re going to help them use their muscles, help them feel love,” the lanky Hammond says, with an eager grin.

The Missionary Training Center does not magically transform the youth from distracted teenagers to focused, committed servants of Christ.

By the time they’re ready to serve--age 19 for males, 21 for females--many will have spent years in supplementary religious classes and other activities that hammer home Mormon doctrine.

The church prods men to go on missions, stressing it as a religious duty, and about one-quarter rise to the call, officials say. The number of female missionaries was noticeably rising--comprising 19% in 1997--but has fallen since church President Gordon B. Hinckley reiterated that year that women were welcome but not required to undertake missions.

Women such as Wendy Tucker of Burbank extol their missions as transformative events. About 25%, however, become frustrated by overbearing male attitudes toward them, according to missionary supervisors quoted in the 1992 book, “Women and Authority.”

Still, the church has long recognized the value of women missionaries: In 1972, one official noted that women converted twice as many people as their male counterparts. Tingey said women are more mature, disarming and easily accepted into some places, such as homes during the day when the man is at work.

“But we place a high value on families,” he said, so “we suggest to young ladies to get their schooling, a college education, and focus on families and children.”

The decision to serve comes in myriad ways. For Alarcon, it was the memory of two missionary sisters from Samoa assigned to California when he was 14. He still remembers how they walked four miles twice a week to share the gospel, and displayed such devotion that he finally embraced the faith of his parents after years of indifference.

“I thought about those sisters--how they came looking for me to share their message,” Alarcon said. “So I’m looking for somebody, too. I’m looking for somebody like me to help them be the best they can be.”

The training center arms the students with a formidable arsenal of proselytizing tools.

For those sent to non-English speaking countries--about 57%--the program involves a two-month, rigorous regimen of training in any of 45 languages. It is largely taught by returned missionaries studying at BYU who instruct the students to “SYL”--Speak Your Language--in and outside the classroom.

The students learn and practice a uniform system of presenting Mormon teachings. These are mapped out in a handbook that includes six introductory discussions, from the heavenly father’s plan to duties for church members. The handbooks include such specific techniques as “BRT”--Build a Relationship of Trust--before plunging into proselytizing.

BRT is a key concept that most everyone here invariably mentions. Mormons teach their missionaries to first get to know the prospective convert, solicit their views on God and show interest in their needs.

“If someone says, ‘How do you like my flowers?’ you can’t say, ‘Oh, let’s talk about God,’ ” says instructor Kit Baker, who served in Italy in the early 1990s. “People won’t be interested in what you have to offer until they see you’re interested in them.”

For some missionaries-to-be, however, the training center atmosphere of high control--janitors have been known to search students’ trash--and pressure to perform produces guilt and negative self-images, said Maxine Hanks, who taught at the center from 1980 to 1983 and was excommunicated in 1993 after the publication of feminist writings.

In any case, the Mormon missionary program does far more than expand the worldwide church and spread its teachings. (Members believe the ancient Christian church had become distorted and was restored by a living prophet, Joseph Smith, in 1830. The keystone of the faith is the Book of Mormon, a scripture attributed to ancient American prophets recounting a visit by Jesus to the Americas after his resurrection.)

Of equal consequence, experts say, is the transformative impact the program has on the missionaries themselves.

The missions serve as a rite-of-passage from youth to adulthood--the kind of testing and challenge, sociologist Stark says, that most men underwent in the days of the military draft. They also help young men and women solidify their own faith, cement ties to the church and train them for future lay leadership roles.

Atkinson says his mission to Mexico in 1963 turned his life around “180 degrees.” A willful 13-year-old who left home and began experimenting with booze, smokes and girls, Atkinson says, he became a true believer after a regimen of fasting, scriptural study and prayer.

“My life was totally devoid of any spiritual texture,” Atkinson said. “It was self-absorbed. It was materialistic. I was focused on career and attractive ladies.”

Others recall the anguish. Kettunen recounts a litany of miseries during his Finland mission: anti-Americanism, the difficult language, frigid weather, bouts of pneumonia. In two years of endlessly knocking on doors, he won only one convert--and she quit after a few weeks.

“It was devastating for me,” Kettunen said. “I came back feeling like a failure.”

L.A. Is as Challenging as Posts Overseas

Ian Cosman and Juan Gonzalez are sports freaks and “meat-and-potato guys” from small towns in Canada and Texas, respectively. To them, a mission to the diverse stew of Los Angeles is every bit as challenging as a post overseas.

One of nine Southern California missions, the Los Angeles operation features 176 missionaries from 18 countries. The area includes wards, or geographically defined congregations of about 350 members each, particularly designed for Latinos, Samoans, Tongans, Koreans, Chinese, other Asians and the deaf.

During a recent lunch at a Japanese restaurant on the Westside, Cosman looks down at his place setting and gulps. “Chopsticks,” he says, with a brave laugh. The two missionaries gracefully avoid the buffet of raw fish and go for sushi topped with avocado and boiled shrimp.

At a morning meeting with fellow missionaries in Santa Monica, they practice teaching techniques, share testimonies and give progress reports on their potential converts.

“We’ve taught seven total D’s [discussions],” Gonzalez reports to the group. “We’ve got Tanya, who is awesome--she’s getting baptized. Lee, who we met on Sunday, is pretty awesome. He’s pretty excited about everything.”

The two missionaries play word games and sing hymns for residents of a Santa Monica senior center, part of their mandatory four hours of weekly community service.

The pair have been lucky. Their worst experiences have been snarling dogs. But over the years, some missionaries have been beaten, robbed and kidnapped. A few have been killed--in Russia, Peru and Bolivia.

Their most exhilarating experiences, they say, have been seeing people change their lives. Mary was suicidal when Cosman first met her. He and his companion braced her up, listened to her woes, helped her get her car fixed. They introduced her to the gospel and, at church, a new family of Christ.

On this day, they’re hoping to do the same for Zhou Lee. Zhou, an amiable, talkative 27-year-old Shanghai native, arrived in the United States in April and plans to study computer engineering at UCLA. He was brought to church by a friend on Sunday and is so eager to learn about Jesus Christ that he asks for all six discussions in one week.

The missionaries pray with him, share a scripture and let him freely express his view, without argument, that Buddha and Christ are different names for the same mind of God.

This, after all, is BRT--building those relations of trust. The approach seems to work.

“I like Mormons,” Zhou says, affectionately patting Cosman’s shoulder. “And I believe Jesus Christ is the son of God.”