Back when I had access to the conversion reports, the Utah missions were generally some of the most productive missions (at least in the US). By far the most productive way of finding converts are by working with “member referrals.” In those, rather than just going door-to-door, you are talking to people who told their LDS friends they would like to talk to the missionaries (or at least allowed their LDS friends to badger them into it). And these referrals come in almost direct proportion to the number of active church members in an area. The Utah missionaries tend to get a lot of member referrals. So the 500 odd missionaries in Utah are among the most productive per person in the US.
Unfortunately there aren’t nearly enough referrals to fill the 63 hour work week the missionaries are supposed to work. So there is a lot of door-to-door work to fill in the mostly open hours in the schedule.
Thanks to all who replied to my questions. Looks like I’ll have to renew my “no thank you” occasionally. But as I said, the missionaries are polite and will leave me alone once I say that I’m not interested, so if I only have to say “no thanks” once a year (or so), it’s a very minor inconvenience.
When I was a missionary 1997-1999, each mission president got to decide how strictly to interpret the rules. Video games and movies were out of the question. All books were forbidden except a list of about 5 books published by the LDS church. All music was forbidden, although i think most presidents (not mine) allowed “inspirational” music. Swimming was taboo, but we got away with a few hikes that involved wading through shallow water. At the time, soccer and ultimate frisbee were considered too dangerous but half-court basketball was pretty much mandatory. Seriously, the zone leaders and the assistants to the president extended a sacred “calling” to me to play basketball on many occasions. I hate playing basketball, and I’m no longer a Mormon. Huh, maybe that’s where I went wrong.
In 1998-ish, there was a new rule published in the Church News stating that missionaries are not permitted to email and should limit faxes to emergency use only. Then a few years later, my brothers went on missions and were encouraged to use their @lds.net email addresses at the public libraries.
I’m going to guess that video games still are not really allowed, but it’s up to the mission president and the individual missionary to decide whether to give a shit.
