Casey told us about an interesting article that was published in a local paper. Please follow the link to
ON A MISSION Or just read below:
They've put off college and typical young-adult antics to spend two years without TV , movies, laptops, texting or dating. They've moved hundreds of miles from home to work in a city they've never lived in before, speaking a language they've just learned.
That's life for missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Elder Aaron Porter, 21, instinctively answers the phone in Spanish, setting up appointments for Bible studies and lessons in doctrine. A clean-cut blond guy sporting the missionary uniform — shirt, tie and backpack — he's one of 150 Spanish-speaking Mormon missionaries in Houston.
They meet people in flea markets and front yards, handing out copies of El Libro de Mormon, sharing their message and trying to avoid the occasional heckler.
“There's people that don't like us. We get doors slammed in our faces, and people try to bug us, but it doesn't even matter,” Porter said. “The people who have a sincere interest in learning make up for it … . I'm happy, looking back, because we have brought them such a wonderful message.”
Locally, the church has 32 Spanish-speaking congregations, and a third of area missionaries speak Spanish, mirroring Houston's Hispanic makeup. The number of Spanish-speaking LDS congregations nationwide has grown by 90 percent in the past decade, up to more than 700.
The church's focus on Hispanics dates to its founding in 1830, explained Jorge Iber in his book Hispanics in the Mormon Zion, when Latter-day Saints were charged with proselytizing to Latinos and other descendants of Native Americans.
The church's sizable missionary program, now up to 52,000 people serving worldwide, is in part responsible for its growth and diversification.
In Houston, Porter begins each day like every other missionary in the world and all those who came before him. They review their missionary handbooks, study for a couple of hours and then head out to meet with interested neighbors until 9 or 10 p.m.
“They get up every day, and they serve,” said the mission's president, Todd Hansen, beaming like a proud father. “I tell people if they could work with these young people, we could restore the faith in the vitality of the future of this country.”
While on mission, they focus on the church and have time for little else. Cell phones are for missionary business only — they can call home twice a year and send e-mail to their parents just once a week.
“At the beginning of my mission I was pretty homesick, but then I lost myself in my work,” said Porter, who will finish his mission service here next month. “It's fun to get to go and play basketball on the weekend, and it's fun to date, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
Most missionaries have families who understand the gig. Maybe they've had older siblings serve, or they've heard stories about their dads' missions decades ago. Porter dreamed of serving since he was a kid and saved three-quarters of the cost of his mission living expenses, nearly $10,000.
Things were a little more difficult for Sister Madison Taets, 21 and a convert to the church . Her Catholic family was initially “really unsupportive” of her mission call, she said.
Since then, her parents have begun to grow more open to her faith and have even started reading the Book of Mormon.
“Both have sent me letters that they were proud of me,” Taets said. “It just shows you that what we do doesn't just bless the families here. It blesses our families back home, too.”
The missionaries tell people that the gospel of Jesus Christ can bring blessings to their lives, offering hope to struggling first-generation families.
“Latinos, in my view, have found a wonderful home in the LDS Church. The Mormons value God, country and family, just as most Latinos do,” said Iber, adding that they also can gain business and social connections through church.
Juan Porcayo, a new convert to the church, sat next to his wife and rocked his newborn son in a baby carrier during an introductory Sunday school class at a Spanish-speaking congregation in Northwest Houston.
The 25-year-old described himself as a sometimes-drunk deadbeat dad, but after joining the church, that's no longer the case.
“I want to be strong for my family, my kids, my wife,” said Porcayo, who quit smoking and drinking to comply with LDS standards. He's also stopped staying out late, he said, and grown to be more patient and more responsible.
After months without work, Porcayo cites his baptism as leading him to a string of job offers for his construction company.
Coming from a Catholic background, like most Hispanic converts, Porcayo asked missionaries about Mormon doctrine and religious figures familiar to him, such as Jesus and the Virgin of Guadalupe.
“There is a very strong Catholic tradition among the Latino population; and that is very, very much of an impediment to leaving the church,” said Iber, an associate academic dean at Texas Tech University and a Latino history scholar. “I am certain that there are many individuals in the Latino community (and not just in the Catholic Church) who oppose evangelization … . Still, I think that this hard attitude is not as prevalent as it was say, in the late '80s or '90s.”
The missionaries studied the Bible with Porcayo, then introduced him to the Book of Mormon.
“You have to pray. You have to ask God. Is he going to tell me, ‘Juan, this is true'?” Porcayo said. The answer, for him, was yes.
The missionaries must explain concepts such as the afterlife and salvation in Spanish, a language they could barely speak before going through classes at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah.
“You try to approach everybody differently and teach personally to them,” said Elder Tod Workman, another Spanish-speaking missionary. “They're open to listening when they hear something they might not know about.”
