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The LDS Mission
Something to think hard about before going
RELIGION A FREE SPIRIT? COLLIN'S CALL: Collin Timothy -- snowboarder, boyfriend, model and college student -- weighs whether to join the LDS Church's legions in the missionary field
BY PEGGY FLETCHER STACK SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
August 9, 2000: It is Collin Timothy's 19th birthday, and he is making lists in his head.
It has been a good life within the church's embrace. It would be a chance to give something back to the people and faith that have showered him with love and attention. Thirteen friends from Salt Lake City's Olympus High School Class of 1999 already have left on missions. It would please his mother. His father, who died of cancer in 1994, went to Spain on a mission in the 1970s and it changed his life; ditto for his stepfather, who went to England, and older brother, who went to Brazil. His grandfathers and great-grandfathers all willingly accepted LDS Church service. His stake president believes in him. Everyone expects it.
But there is another list: reasons to stay home.
A gorgeous girlfriend. A new baby sister. A promising career at a Boston-based dotcom and stints as a New York model. A chance to go to an Ivy League college. The siren call of life lived on the edge -- extreme snowboarding, waterskiing, movies, parties.
Because Collin is a street-savvy, thoughtful young man whose mind races beyond his years, he also has philosophical and theological questions about the Mormon church and a mission.
He spent his freshman year at LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University in Provo, where he chafed at what he perceived as the rule-bound sameness of students. Will he be able to live with the restrictive routine and loss of identity of a mission, where his every move will be monitored by others?
In his heart, Collin believes in basic Mormon teachings but wonders if he can "make the sale," persuading good people to leave their church and join his.
After sleepless nights of comparing his two lists, finally, the balance tips in favor of going.
"Yes, I am strongly influenced by my family and friends. The whole [Mormon] culture fosters [going on a mission]. But that's not the reason I'm going," Collin says decisively. "I want to find out for myself about the gospel, and there's no better time to do it."
Collin requests an interview with his LDS bishop, saying he would like to go on a mission.
The Mormon missionary system is, in a word, "audacious," said social historian Harold Bloom in The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation.
"No other American religious movement is so ambitious," Bloom wrote. "The Mormons fully intend to convert the nation and the world; to go from some ten million souls to six billion. This is sublimely insane. . . . Yet the Mormons will not falter; they will take the entire twenty-first century as their span, if need be."
Preaching a version of the Christian gospel to the world's unconverted is not unique to the Mormon church. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ gave his apostles "the Great Commission" to take his message far and wide. Within a few hundred years, Christianity was the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. By the 16th century, Catholic religious orders placed missionaries in far-flung regions, seeking to baptize the "unwashed" indigenous populations of Africa, North and South America and Asia.
In the 19th century, the American missionary movement was led by Protestant volunteers warning that the world's end was near. But by the 20th century, Christian evangelism among mainline Christians had shifted toward humanitarian and social work in urban centers.
Conservative and fundamentalist Christians are the most active evangelists today. With a budget of $257 million, the Southern Baptist Convention supports 4,951 missionaries in 153 countries. Most are "career missionaries," but a relatively new program has allowed nearly 600 college-age students to serve two-year apprentice missions.
By contrast, the vast majority of the LDS Church's 60,784 full-time missionaries are 19-year-old men, who work for two years largely at their own expense. With their help, the church baptizes more than 300,000 new members a year.
But the missionary program does more than increase the church's population. It also is a rite of passage that helps solidify a missionary's commitment to the church and create a future generation of Mormon leaders. Young men are programmed from earliest childhood to go on a mission. With sometimes not-so-gentle social pressure, about one-third of available Mormon males take the plunge.
Before they can go, potential missionaries must allow ecclesiastical leaders to scrutinize every aspect of their physical, emotional, moral and spiritual history.
Late August 2000: Bishop Rex Frazier of the Cottonwood Second Ward in Holladay grills Collin to determine if he is prepared for the rigors of a two-year mission.
Frazier begins with what the church considers the easy questions. Does he believe that Mormon founder Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ in a grove of trees? Does he support current church authorities? Does he pay a full tithe?
From faith, Frazier moves to health. Is Collin physically fit? Any health problems that require medical assistance or medication?
How are his emotions? Does he have mood swings? How does he deal with anger? Does he take any medication for depression?
Then on to the truly tough questions.
Does he smoke? Drink? Have sex with his girlfriend? How about heavy petting? Does he have a problem with masturbation?
Collin passes the inspection, and the paperwork begins.
He must fill out a lengthy application form that includes uestions about his high-school grades in English and language classes, his foreign-language aptitude, medical history, family relationships and faith. He must have a complete physical and dental examination and take care of any problems these exams reveal. Many missionaries have even been instructed to have their wisdom teeth removed, just as a precaution.
On Sept. 2, Collin sends in his completed forms -- "puts in his papers," in Mormon lingo -- along with a photo in missionary attire.
Every week, the missionary department at the LDS Church's headquarters in Salt Lake City receives between 700 and 800 missionary applications. Each one is evaluated by department employees for completeness and accuracy. The church's own physicians comb medical records of prospective missionaries for "red flags," such as obesity, asthma or conditions that require medication.
"I don't think our missionary doctors would tend to override local doctors," said Elder Earl Tingey, an LDS authority who oversees the missionary department, in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune. "If they have a concern, they will call the local doctor -- with the consent of the family -- and talk about it."
In some cases, the church's doctors may recommend a candidate stay home.
"It might be the boy across the street who has grown up in the neighborhood and always wanted to go on a mission," Tingey said. "It is a little harder for a bishop to say no than it is for us."
Looking at the bigger picture, someone with health problems is almost doomed to fail, he said.
"If a person must see a psychiatrist every month to live, we can't deal with that in the mission field," Tingey said. "But if they can take medication and that controls the problem, that shouldn't be a bar to serve."
What often happens, however, is that youthful missionaries, imbued with enthusiasm and faith "think they're invincible and they stop taking their medication," he said.
The screening process is so thorough that few missionaries have to be sent home, Tingey said. And those who do often are later reassigned to posts in the United States.
It is not infallible, though. Occasionally, young men and women in the field have emotional breakdowns, engage in immoral or even illegal behavior and are removed from their missions.
Once an application has been approved, it is forwarded to the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, who meet every Friday to make mission assignments. The apostles are scattered in a room, facing separate computer screens, which display individual applications and photos along with a weekly list of where missionaries are needed. After prayerful consideration, the apostle makes a decision. It is then ratified by the governing First Presidency, which sends out "The Call."
September 2000: Everyone knows what is in the white envelope with the First Presidency's address in the upper left corner that arrives at the Bowens' Salt Lake City home 2 1/2 weeks after Collin filed his mission application. It is Collin's "call," his mission assignment. The family decides to wait until Saturday to open the envelope all together.
Many Mormon families have adopted a call-opening ritual. They gather in a living room or at a meal, in a favorite spot or at a particular time of day.
In a symbolic nod to the life he is about to leave behind, Collin decides to hike up to the top of Brighton Ski Resort.
On Wednesday, when the mountainside was dotted with red and gold leaves, that seemed like a good idea. On Saturday morning, the weather has turned, dumping a ton of white powder on Utah's mountains, and family members are not as enthusiastic as they were.
But Collin is determined. It would mean so much, he pleads.
Like all good moms, Barbara Bowen realizes this is Collin's day and that he needs it to be just right. As a middle child, Collin always has been, well, in the middle. But even more so in recent weeks, as his mission has been sandwiched between his brother Adam's wedding and the birth of his new stepsister, Lily Grace.
So Lily is shipped off to Grandma's while Bowen, her husband, Gordon, Collin's brother Adam and his wife, Eva, and younger brother Eric, all decked in hardy winter wear, begin what should be an easy hike up the mountain. After all, this is the same family that climbed to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro two years earlier. But this time, Bowen is recovering from childbirth and Eva is a frail addition.
They slog through piles of untrodden snow under a foggy, overcast sky, asking constantly, "Are we there yet, Collin? How much farther?"
As invincible and oblivious as any teen-ager, Collin is many paces ahead, beckoning impatiently "just around the corner." They all groan.
Collin is a haunting image of his late father, who loved adventure and speed, observes Bowen. "He is even wearing Steve's yellow and black knit hat."
She feels certain that her first husband "is walking beside us," she says.
Finally, the bone-chilled, weary group reaches a vista where Collin can look across the Brighton bowl to the Heber Valley. He declares, "This is the place."
So the family gathers around a couple of boulders sticking out of the snow, sings a Mormon hymn and makes predictions about where Collin will be sent.
The would-be missionary dreamed he was sent to Mexico,"near a power plant," he says.
Bowen predicts South America, Brazil or Spain. Gordon Bowen adds Russia. Adam Timothy predicts New York City, the South, maybe Georgia, or Oslo, Norway. Eva Timothy says Los Angeles, Milwaukee or Hawaii. Eric just shivers and urges Collin to hurry.
Then Collin, in an exuberant gesture caught on Mom's videotape, rips open the envelope.
"Elder Collin Chipman Timothy. You have been called to the Brazil Rio de Janeiro Mission," it reads. "Report to the missionary training center in S‹o Paulo, Brazil, on January 9."
He is exultant. "Wow," he says. "Wow."
Then it hits him. Jan. 9? That's nearly three months away. He had expected his departure to be more immediate. How will he keep busy?
"I can snowboard until December," he says with bravado. But his face says it all: It's a letdown.
Last August, the LDS Church began sending all missionaries assigned to any of the 26 Brazilian missions directly to S‹ Paulo for language training, bypassing the Provo Missionary Training Center.
The move was prompted by overcrowding in Provo, which reached a peak in June and January three years ago, the two periods that see the greatest influx of missionaries who have timed their service to school schedules.
Overcrowding has not been a problem since training facilities were opened in Brazil, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Spain and England.
The church likes to keep the time between receiving a call and departing for missionary training "as short as we can," usually about one to two months, Tingey said.
But in some cases, a three-month wait is necessary to allow the missionary department to avoid visa problems, he said.
At one time, the system had hundreds of missionaries sitting in Provo, waiting for visas. These "visa waiters," as they were called, often had to be temporarily assigned a stateside mission. Now there are only a handful. So far, the delay has not driven many potential missionaries to change their minds, he said.
Oct. 1, 2000: Collin decides he will bide his time in New York City, where he will work for his former dotcom job and resume modeling for Cosmopolitan, Maxxim and Abercrombie & Fitch. He resolves to study Mormon scriptures every day to ready himself for his two-year mission.
Next Week: The lure of the Big Apple. "The Mormons fully intend to convert the nation and the world; to go from some ten million souls to six billion. This is sublimely insane. . . . Yet the Mormons will not falter; they will take the entire twenty-first century as their span, if need be."
-- Harold Bloom, authorThe decision to pursue a mission leads Collin Timothy on a gradual schedule of preparations. Timothy's girlfriend, Jessica Bagley, is already sensing the pain of separation. Here, Jessica stands by Collin at a sacrament meeting at the Cottonwood Second Ward in Holladay.
Page Modified January 21, 2001