How come you can tell someone is from the church of the LDS from four blocks away?
I mean the doorknocking ones.
[ul]
[li]They all dress alike - if it isn’t big overcoats tidily buttoned up, it’s shirtsleeves and pants with their napsack slung over their backs.[/li][li]They all rove around in pairs[/li][li]They’re all about the same age[/li][li]They all seem like genuinely nice people, to the point of annoyingly sickly sweet.[/li][li]On their off days they ride bicycles[/li][/ul]
The real question is, why do they enforce this artificial normality on their word-spreading youth. Do they think they are making them inconspicuous? What do the kids themselves think of all this, having their lives railroaded into this behaviour?
Anyone know the rules/guidelines of these LDS lives, and whys and wherefores?
Mormon missionaries have a uniform appearance because the Church has a dress code for them, but Mormons don’t all look alike. My friend Brian in high school was a Mormon, for example, and he looked nothing like Marie Osmond.
Anyway, I think the missionaries all look the same age because they have a sort of tour of duty to fulfill as missionaries, and they tend to do it at a certain age. As for traveling in pairs, it’s standard practice for various reasons. And I assume they dress nice and act nice because they’d have a hard time converting people if they wore cutoffs and spat tobacco juice at the people whose doors they knocked on.
Missionary service is not required for anyone, but it is highly encouraged for young men between 19 and 26 and somewhat less encouraged for young women between 21 and 26, as well as for retired couples. There is a strict dress code for missionaries because we are intended to be representatives of the Gospel (I am leaving for a mission to California at the end of August) and for many people we are the first impression people have of the Church.
We also have somewhat less strict standards (but still relatively strict) on behavior and dress and that sort of thing for teenagers; many have absolutely no problem maintaining them and even value them as a way of standing out from the rest of the world.
Unfortunately for those who do not wish to hear what they have to say, it’s also a warning system to run. They’re so consistently recognisable, you can pick one a mile away.
I believe there’s some rule against proselytizing in the nude.
WAG here–Going in pairs has two benefits: 1) safety, and 2) one can keep the other in line.
Honestly, though, I think it’s because one of them is the senior and thus is training the other one. There’s an interesting movie called God’s Army. Well, it’s not great, per se, but it’s interesting in that it shows what the life of a missionary’s like.
Correct. It’s one of those things that’s considered a rite of passage for many LDS. Since a missionary must be an Elder (that’s the office he holds in the priesthood, not an indication of being some old dude), he’s not eligible until 18 at least.
So being nice is a negative trait now?
They don’t actually have off days during their missionary stint. Anyway, in this Stake, the missionaries get to drive an actual automobile.
It’s not artificial. It’s just unusual to the gentile (as the term’s used by LDS) communities.
Nope. The idea is to stand out and stand up for something good.
Different inculturation from yours does not equal railroaded. Well, maybe it does but it’s just a different railroading than the one you got.
Yep. I’m LDS so I’m a bit familiar with that, although I converted as an adult and consequently haven’t had occasion to be a missionary.
You could always check http://www.lds.org for some of the “whys and wherefores.”
BTW, a note on terminology: “Stake” above isn’t a misspelling of “State.” A Stake in the LDS church is akin to a diocese in the Roman Catholic or Episcopal churches. “Gentile” is any non-LDS.
Thanks for the info. I know I was being a bit off-the-cuff with some of my statements, but I hope you didn’t think I dislike the LDS church. I actually do like the ones I’ve met, but it just seems like the lifestyle is very… unique amongst religions, in a way that fascinates me.
Some traditions of various christian groups repulse me, some interest me. In this case it’s the latter, but only in a casual “I wonder why” thing. It’s almost laughable, but perhaps only to me. And I mean ‘almost’ in the sense that I don’t actually laugh, except internally when I again instantly recognise their distinctive way.
That’s cool, GuanoLad. The idea is to be different, but in a good way. If you get an opportunity, listen to Michael Allred’s tape, You Know You’re a Mormon if…. He introduces his talk with some jokes along the lines of Foxworthy’s famous jokes.
One question on the missionaries: are there any rules (or just guidelines) on who to proselytize to? I ask because of an incident that occured with one of my students a few years ago.
She (a 40-ish schoolteacher) saw the usual pair of missionaries in front of the train station handing out pamphlets, so she decided to go up and find out more about them. When she tried to talk with them, however, they (according to her) ignored her and just talked with the young men who passed by. The next day in class, she asked me, in all sincerity, if the Mormons were a homosexual recruitment group. I had some evil thoughts there for a few minutes, but eventually set her straight.
Anyway, if what she said happened actually did, were the pair following some rule in their training, or were they just the occasional clueless and rude types one finds in every group?
If you’re talking about mormon missionaries, it’s because they are required to wear a shirt and tie at all times - and a jacket when it’s not summer.
Funny you should ask, though. My wife is a former Mormon, and one day I told her I can always spot a mormon - and not just the missionaries, either. She was dubious - until I started to actually prove my point.
I swear, you can almost always spot a mormon. They’d probably be happy to hear that, actually…
-Kris
PS coincidentally, the conversation occured right around the the time the Elizabeth Smart case became news. As soon as I saw them on TV, I called out “mormons.” I haven’t had this confirmed or denied, but interestingly I did notice a few seconds after I called it that they are in fact in Salt Lake City, so I was at least that close, if not on the dot.
You think Mormon missionaries stand out in the US? You should see the same uniform in Russia. Neckties alone are very strange, and that doesn’t even start on issues of posture and carriage. I think New Guineans in penis gourds would be no more conspicuous.
I’ve also found that all Mormons tend to look very much alike. It’s the bit about two eyes, one on each side of the nose, mouth underneath the nose… if they’d only have a different arrangement, it’d be easier to tell them apart.
Was this in America? I know that in at least one district in Sao Paulo, Brazil, missionaries are discouraged from teaching/converting single people or individuals, and instead encouraged to teach entire families. I wouldn’t think this would be the case in the U.S., so maybe your student just happened to encounter a clueless pair of missionaries.
Also, I second the point made earlier by Monty: the missionary image is designed to stand out and attract attention. My friend who served in Brazil said that while many people made fun of him, quite a few people were impressed that the missionaries were so formally-dressed considering 1) the heat and 2) local dress standards. Guess it works in some cases.
Actually, the “uniform” of the Jehova’s Witnesses that canvas my neighborhood is very similar, and they also manifest as pairs of clean-cut, deferentially polite young people. I would suggest that if you took away the copies of The Watchtower from one group, and the LDS tracts from the the other, it would be hard to tell them apart.
Practically speaking, this sort of presentation is probably going to be evolved by most proselytizing religous groups.
I’d tend to put your friend’s story in the category of story. The missionaries would more than likely have handed her some pamphlets and arranged for another meeting to carry out the lessons.
Now, if she approached them with the Usual Slate of Anti-LDS Questions Designed To Baffle the Missionaries and Show Them to be Fools, that’s another story.
So, is there even a slight possibility that (a) she’d already made up her mind to not like the LDS, or (b) that she left out something in her story?
Monty: i have a question.
Why do Mormons call nonLDS “gentiles”?
Is it because they think they are Israeli?
Gentiles really mean non Jewish folk.
I don’t believe for a minute that Mormons are the “lost tribes”.
;j
LDS call non-LDS gentiles because they believe the LDS to be the New Israel. So, for the LDS gentile really means anyone who’s not LDS. As I said, it’s a matter of terminology. Kind of like saints means any member of the LDS church and not just someone who was “sainted” in the Catholic or Orthodox sense. There’s an old joke about Utah: “Utah, where the Irish are Republican and the Jews are Gentiles.” I don’t get the part about Republican, though.
Whether you or I believe for a minute, a second, or even an instant that the LDS are or aren’t the Lost Tribes has no bearing on us using the terminology we use.
Just remember another example you might get a kick out of: Winter Mormon. That’s even applied to folks who aren’t LDS.
Back in the gold rush days, if a poor prospector made it into Salt Lake City too late in the year, he’d be stuck there because the mountain passes were snowed in. Since there was no government welfare going on, a prospector could join the church and then show up for priesthood sessions. He’d request the brethren to help him out and the Bishop would see that he got a place to stay and something to eat from the Bishop’s Storehouse. Of course, he’d have to do some work if he was able. Once the snows melted, the prospector would be gone! You’d only see him in church during the winter, thus Winter Mormon.
The term’s been extended to apply to anyone whom you only see when they need something from you. What do other churches call that kind of person? (I know that “once a year” and “twice a year” Christians are those who only show upon on Christmad and/or Easter; I’m talking about the people who only show up when they need something.)
