V V V w -W -V _W -lw -w- -w- TheMic iga aiy - edes.., O0ob..24,2S Wedneday,.c0obe.24,007 -Th Mchgap.il 0 You know those two hyper-clean cut guys on the Diag? They're not on their way to give a presentation at the B-School. They're here to save your soul. mid the Diagbustle on a recent Thursday evening, two men, roughly the same age as everyone else, stood apart from the rest of the crowd. You've probably seen them before. Impeccably groomed, wearing identical white up shirts buttoned to the top and sporting black nametags, their names are Elder Stoker and Elder Macintosh, and they'd like to give you a free copy of the Book of Mormon. Mormon missionaries like Stoker and Macintosh have been a fixture of the Diag for years, and though there are only six of them in Ann Arbor at any given time, they put in enough hours to be a formi- dable presence. That day, they set off on a winding path around the Diag and the surround- ing area, approaching young people who were sitting or walking alone with lines like "Have you heard of the Church of Mormon?" or "Would you like a free book, the Book of Mormon?" In 30 minutes, seven of the 20 people they solicited refused their card. Five addressees paused to hear at least a few moments of the extended pitch and one student independently approached the missionaries with interest in Mormon- ism. The day's street contacting work was relatively successful for Stoker and Macintosh, who are the missionary team currently assigned to the University area by local Mormon ward officials. Every bit of success in promoting the Mormon faith is significant for the pair, who will have spent the near entirety of every day doing nothing else for two years. The life of a Mormon missionary is wildly different from most of the other 20-year-olds living on campus, even the roughly 100 practicing Mormons. Their days are strictly regimented, they enjoy privacy only in the bathroom and they don't have access to the phone or the Internet. Converting other young people with a wholly separate frame of refer- ence seems like an impossible task, but it isn't. Stoker and Macintosh say they've met with considerable success on their Diag rounds. Stoker and Macintosh are one of the three missionary pairs currently assigned to wards in the Ann Arbor territory of the Michigan-Detroit mission, which is one of several thousand mission locations in a highly structured, worldwide mission- ary system in which young Mormons like Stoker and Macintosh shed their first names for the title of "Elder" or "Sister" and take time off from school or work to live the strictly ordered life of a Mormon missionary. For generations, young Mormon men - and less frequently young women - have taken these two-year mission trips as a sort of rite of passage, said Ste- ven Hedquist, stake president of the Ann Arbor area Mormon wards. "Our children grow up anticipating that they'll participate," Hedquist said. "The put college on hold, courtship, romance, girlfriends on hold - mother's good cooking - and go out and proclaim the message of Mormonism." Hedquist said mission trips are land- mark events in a Mormon's youth and have the effect for many, including him- self after his own mission to Bavaria, of changing their life perspective. "We take these young kids in the flow- er of the youth and take them out of the most narcissistic, self-absorbed time of life and plant them somewhere on Earth," Hedquist said. On the missions, they "realize for the first time that there are other people on this planet besides themselves." Mission- aries often fund their trips themselves - a cost of at least $10,000 that covers room and board and about $125 per month for food. Mission trips can land young Mor- mons in one of 176 countries - which country, though, they have little control over. A council of eight men whom the church esteems as living apostles pray about the assignment of each missionary and decide where in the world he or she would best serve. During their two-year assignments, missionaries live in different cities with- in their mission's territory for varying lengths of time, changing partners and locations at the discretion of the local mission president and his wife. Stoker and Macintosh currently work in the Hill Street Ward, a congregation of unmarried Mormons from 18 to 30 years old that has mass in Ypsilanti and holds meetings across from the University's Ross School of Business in the Institute of Religion building on Hill Street. Stoker said wards of youths separate from the main congregation are created so that the family-centric sermons of Mormon mass can be tailored to be relatable to people who haven't yet started a family. The ward's membership draws mostly from the University, about 100 of 135 members are University of Michigan students and nearly all are college students. Mormonism is the fourth largest reli- gion in the United States, despite being the youngest recognized Christian sect, founded in the United States in 1830. Mormons do not believe their religion to be derivative from the Catholic, Ortho- dox or Protestant churches, but instead that an American prophet, Joseph Smith, restored the original ministry of Jesus Christ before the formation of the pre- vailing Christian establishment. The religion's dismissal of 2,000 years of Christian history often provokes an aversion to Mormons among members of other Christian sects. The Mormon claim of a third text in the Christian canon in addition to the two testaments of the Bible, recovered and translated by Smith from hieroglyphics written on gold plates never seen by anyone but him and which he found buried in the New York countryside, doesn't help relations. A past history of polygamy and mis- interpretation of Mormon practices like baptisms for the dead also dog the reli- gion's public image. Many people still associate Mormons with having mul- tiple wives despite the church having forbid the practice in 1890. And before the act was prohibited in 1995, Mor- mons performing baptismal for deceased Holocaust victims offended many, even though the ritual's performers believed the recipients would be able to reject the christening in the afterlife. But on campus, Stoker and Macintosh said they rarely encounter harassment or confrontation by students. When they have it has generally been political chas- tisement from liberals who incorrectly identify them as representatives of the religious right. "They take out their frustration with George Bush on us," Macintosh said. The peaceful relationship between the missionaries and students can be chalked up to the contrast between the Mormon's approach and the melodra- mas of campus's other street preachers, who have elicited outrage and incredu- lous crowds by screeching slurs and even pantomiming hypothetical gynecology Trying to convert people without yelling is unusual on the Diag. appointments in which you find out how that one-night-stand you had in col- lege resulted in a Herpes infection years later. Stoker and Macintosh said the phi- losophy of Mormon mission work isn't to scare or hassle people into joining the flock, it's to make sure the chance to learn their faith is available to all who are interested. That doesn't mean the missionaries won't be persistent in affording you the opportunity to experience the church. Right now, Stoker and Macintosh have a pet project in two Mormon graduate students whom the missionaries were informed have yet to attend church since they started here in the fall. The pair's mother called the ward with concerns about her children's religious activities and gave their residency's address. Stoker said when he and Macintosh stopped by, the graduate students said they've been busy. Presumably, their heavy class load consumedSaturdaynightas well,because they no-showed the single ward's Hal- loween party last Saturday even though Stoker and Macintosh invited them. Even without a mother's worried call, the missionaries would have looked into the situation of the absent graduate stu- dents. When a Mormon moves away, his church sends records about him to offi- cials of the ward he moves into so his membership can be tracked. "They don't know that we already know," Stoker said. Stoker said he and Macintosh prefer to fill the daily nine hours allotted for out- reach work by meeting with people when church members refer them to or check- ing in on the scripture study of investi- gating prospective converts, but that an inability to fill their schedules puts them on the street most of the time. Business School sophomore Kristin Bates said she appreciated the mission- aries' plans to follow up on her when she returned to Ann Arbor after having con- verted at home in Texas during the sum- mer. Bates said she was confused about where to find a Mormon church and how to incorporate her new religion into her life on campus. "I was still struggling with 'So, I told my family, can I tell my peers?' " she said. Bates's introduction to the singles ward by the missionaries eased her tran- sition and led her to add the ward activi- ties organizing committee to her other extracurriculars, Alpha Delta Gamma and Relay for Life. Dressed as Dorothy and smelling of flowery perfume, Bates bustled around the large meeting room of the Institute of Religion on Hill Street, a stately brick building which houses the local Mormon leaders' offices, which she had helped dec- orate black and orange for the singles ward Halloween party last Saturday. Between laughing with friends and posing for pic- tures, she checked on her chili and the caramel apple bar, prepared the night's activities and commented on the costumes of the party's 20 to 30 attendees. See MORMONS, Page 12B PHOTOS BY PETER SCHOTTENFELS/Daily Mormon missionaries walk around campus on the lookout for potential converts. In the photo on the left, Elder Macintosh stands on the left and Elder Stoker on the right.