Brave New World

Given my level of terror, my trainer thought it best to hold off on doing serious missionary work until the following day. That night, we visited the Beever family. Brother Beever was the ward mission leader, a calling meant to provide a liaison between the full-time missionaries and the ward members. He was stalwart and motivated guy whose like I saw only a few other times throughout my mission. As we sat down to plates of barbecue chicken, the family welcomed the new missionary.

The following morning, my first full day as a missionary in the field dawned with sobering starkness. This was real. This new life, both the good parts and the bad, would compose the entirety of my existence for the foreseeable future. I felt much like I might after awakening the morning after a nuclear holocaust to find a brave new world where grotesque radiation-afflicted mutants forage for survival across a blasted landscape. After arising at 6:30 and engaging in a half hour of cursory exercise, Elder Jones and I retreated to our respective bathrooms to shower and freshen up for the day. We hadn’t had the chance to plan the previous day as we were supposed to, so we devoted part of our hour-long companionship study to scheduling our day. Elder Jones would introduce me to a few of the regulars, those people investigating the Church with weekly appointments. Before that, however, we would drive to an area on the outskirts of town where Elder Jones and his last companion had left off tracting.

Tracting implies that we go around handing out tracts, but in missionary culture it had taken on a more specific meaning. For us, it consists almost entirely of going from door to door, trying to get as much of our message in before people’s tolerance for religious weirdos is exhausted and they decide to reacquaint us with their closed door. If we’re lucky, people would let us explain who we were, what we and to share, and how that message could benefit them. If we’re very lucky, they’ll invite us in for more.

The area Elder Jones had chosen was evenly split between manufactured homes and trailer houses. The manufactured homes often boasted flamingos, kokopelli statues (a native American cultural icon), or other lawn ornaments displaying varying degrees of kitsch. The trailer houses were usually adamant keeps in the midst of bulwarks of chain link with prowling dogs offering warning growls through the fence to passersby.

Elder Jones took the first few doors, but didn’t have much success in keeping people’s attention or more than a few seconds. He decided I wasn’t learning much by watching him narrowly avoid getting his nose clipped by slamming doors and told me to take the next door.

“Want to give it a try?” he asked.

“No,” I said with complete honesty, but I was, after all, the junior companion.

My heart was hammering like the drumbeat that precedes the hanging of a pirate as I ascended the steps toward the door.