Across the street where I live in San Diego, a Church of the Latter-Day Saints stood erect atop a hill, overlooking the surrounding neighborhood. The young men dressed in black suits, cruising by on bicycles were always friendly and polite, yet few open their doors to listen to their mission while even fewer open their hearts to the faith. In the wealthy, established suburbs of southern California, few were willing to change their lifestyles for the elusive promise of salvation. Missionary work is a hard and mostly thankless task; however an essential component known as the companionship ties the individual missionaries together to form stronger bonds between each other and people in the community. The missionary experience is intended to sponsor the personal and spiritual growth of the Mormon youth, while spreading the holy gospels of God.
In “The Mormon Missionary Companionship” by Keith Parry, the junior-senior partnership is explained by the fact that “though novice missionaries will already have undergone a period of intensive instruction at a MTC....novices often draw on the experience of their senior companions, especially in a foreign mission.” (Parry, 184) The companionship is a social mechanism that the Church uses to bond missionary partners and shield them from outside distractions. Two missionaries are paired up to do everything together 24/7. The system concentrates mission work and uses that both partners to keep the other in line. The companionship system is extremely conducive towards the personal growth and social skills of missionaries, as they must learn to compromise and handle disagreements with someone they cannot live without, at least for the duration of the mission. Two people must learn to accommodate another’s wishes in order to have a functional relationship, which helped many on their future marriages. “All the little problems that missionaries have with their companions are the same ones that many people have with their spouses.” (Parry, 198) Learning to live with another person despite their flaws, and to lean on each other for support are extremely important in successful marriages. It can be argued that companionship in missionary work contributes to the low divorce rate in Mormons as they recognize that the solutions to many marital problems is simply communication and compromise. Companionship facilitates the personal growth crucial to successful future interpersonal relationships for Mormon missionaries.
In “Called to Serve” by Jenette Wood Crowley, the missionaries shared their thoughts and experiences converting people at home and abroad. Josh Kirkham, a missionary in Italy, had convinced a Catholic family of the truth of Mormonism but failed to baptize the family. Fearful of being ostracized, the family backed out in the last minute. Kirkham remember being “devastat[ed] because we are taught that if someone knows the truth and they turn it down it’s much worse than them never knowing it.” (Crowley, 19) As a nineteen-year-old with the burden of an entire family’s salvation on his shoulders, Kirkham was extremely affected emotionally by the weight of his missionary burden. Such experiences will certainly cause many missionaries to reconsider their mission and their faith, however the ones who emerge from such painful experiences do so with stronger conversion convictions. Other missionaries reaffirm their faith through the devout converts they encounter. A missionary understood that a man with African lineage “wanted to be baptized because he loved the gospel. In contradiction to the policy, [he] taught him and his wife and his three kids and they were all baptized.” (Crowley, 21) In Brazil, many missionaries encountered converts who were supposedly disfavored by God. Spiritually it is very powerful to see those who believe even though they cannot receive the full benefit of salvation. Through missionary work, many Mormon youths reaffirm their belief through the action of converting and witnessing the faithfulness of others.
The missionary work Mormons perform in their youth profoundly affects the rest of their lives spiritually and socially. The companions and converts they encounter all serve to contribute to the personal growth of the missionaries, however what do you think the primary function of missionary work is? To educate the Mormon youth or to convert the masses?
Another question not completely relevant to my post, why do you think the Mormons of African descent convert to a religion that believes them to be born with sin?
Interest fact: The Curse of Cain Legacy
"Religion: Mormons and the Mark of Cain" in TIME magazine
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,878674,00.html
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In regards to Sally's second question, I believe that the Mormon Church no longer officially considers those individuals of African descent as being born into sin. While this dramatic change in attitude is relatively new, the Latter-day Saints Church has recognized people of African descent as full members of the Mormon Church, meaning they can receive the priesthood, for almost thirty years, ever since the Church President received the Revelation of 1979 (notably nine years before the TIME Magazine article was published). The Apostle McConkie, on behalf of the Mormon Church's President, explained the Revelation of 1979 in an address to the CES Religious Educators Symposium, which we will be reading for next week. McConkie states, “We [the Mormon Church] forget all the statements that limited the gospel to the house of Israel” (McConkie 3).
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I strongly believe that prior to 1979, those individuals of African descent converted to Mormonism because of the message and because of the messengers. The Mormons’ message of salvation offers hope to those people, like the Berliners that Wynn Johnson converted, who live with fear, instability, or poverty (Crowley 24). As for the messengers, the Mormon missionaries’ American, “clean” good looks and their eagerness to share their culture attracts people, including those of African descent, who desire those same appealing characteristics. Ex-missionary Stephanie Kemp asserts in the group interview “a lot of people, many Filipinos would agree to being baptized because we were a novelty, not because they really believed in the Gospel” (Crowley 22).
I think it is difficult to answer the question about the primary purpose of mission work because there seems to exist an external and an internal purpose for mission trips. The glaringly obvious purpose is to spread the word of God and to convert people to Mormonism. This goal is apparent from the practice of tracting and baptism. However Keith Parry asserts that there is another objective to mission work. It involves the relationship between companions. The experience of constantly being attached to someone prepares a missionary for marriage. All in all, Mormon missionary work has two main purposes: the individualistic experience of a companion, and the group goal of preaching Mormonism.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that missionary work serves a dual purpose in the Mormon faith. Not only is it "their responsibility to share it with the people of the world, to provide everyone with a chance to accept the gospel and be saved" (Crowley 2), but the experience gives the missionary an experience that will solidify his or her faith for the rest of their life. Despite all of the trials and tribulations of the missionary experience, the attempt to spread the Mormon faith acts to enrich the missionary's faith as well.
ReplyDeleteThe dynamic between the companions in missionary experiences also serves a purpose. "Companionship is a fundamental and pervasive ingredient of the missionary experienceb - a demanding, mutually administered element" (Parry 83). Working closely with another member of the faith community creates a close bond between the two companions and their communal faith provides common ground on which the two can relate. Missionary work in the Mormon church not only expands the physical boundaries of the Church, but also strengthens the faith of the established Church as well.
Originally, I think that the missions were primarily about converting believers, using only the best Mormons to do so. However, as evidenced by the testimonies in the Crowley reading, converting followers is more difficult than any of the missionaries themselves expected. Missionaries were able to get very few people to convert relative to the amount of time they spent on location. Also, the people selected to go on the missions were not as “religiously centered” as they may have been years ago. Consequently, I believe that the missions evolved into a way for “a missionary to convert himself” (Crowley 29) instead of the missionary focusing on converting as many followers as they could. If looked at from this point of view, I think that missions can be viewed as extremely beneficial when some of the first hand accounts made them out to be a waste of time and resources for both the missionaries and the Mormon church as a whole. I question why there was a mission in Sicily where it seemed virtually impossible to gain any followers because of social pressures and circumstances.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I believe that the missionary work was primarily used as a means of converting the masses. Though it does provide them with more information on their religious faith, it serves more as a way to spread their religious belief and faith amongst society and to other places that lack religious inspiration or hope. There are numerous methods of educating followers of a religion about their faith and the Mormons took many actions assuring that they did this from dedicating lessons in their society and schools to revolve around their religious beliefs to constantly allowing their religious beliefs to influence their lives daily. Missionary serves the purpose of converting other people and spreading the Mormon faith more so than it does as a means of educating Mormon youth.
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