The first thing a new missionary does is attend the Missionary Training Center for a few weeks. Depending on where a missionary is going, and whether they're learning a foreign language, the number of weeks varies; but most of the native English speakers (who have been assigned to speak English) attend for three weeks. Such was the case with me. Considering what a missionary should actually accomplish on a mission, three weeks really is not (at least by the world's standards), anywhere near an adequate amount of time to prepare; and I don't think any missionary has actually been adequately prepared by the time they went out into the real world. I would even venture to say that an entire lifetime would not be enough to prepare.

One frequently-noted phenomenon in the MTC, that I myself also observed in abundance, is the fact that those learning foreign languages do so in an amazingly short period of time. Although they may not become fluent, they are able to communicate much more quickly than people have been able to in any other program; and consequently, government officials visit and sit in from time to time to try to figure out how the heck we do it. They still haven't been able to. The fact of the matter is simply that God is helping, through the Holy Ghost. This is what we refer to as "the gift of tongues," as opposed to the popular (but quite unscriptural) understanding of the Born-again "Pentecostal experience" in which hordes of people jump up on their seats, foaming at the mouth, and shouting strange words that nobody even claims to understand (although this account in the Bible makes it extremely clear that promoting understanding among those who speak other languages is exactly the purpose of this spiritual gift, that it should be done in an orderly fashion, and that only one should speak at a time, with someone else to interpret).

However accelerated our learning may be in the MTC, most of what a missionary ends up learning is by actual experience in the field; through a combination of trial-and-error and Divine assistance.

MTC-ing was a very good, eye-opening, and entertaining experience. There is almost something surreal about it, since we all had heroic dreams that were not proportional to our actual abilities and willpower, and since none of us had ever actually experienced real missionary work. During the course of the MTC, a lot of missionaries weed themselves out by determining that this whole mission thing is too tough and that they want to go back to their mommies and video game consoles. Sometimes circumstances arise that they can't help, and they must return home. A ridiculous amount of people get injured doing stupid things, and I got accustomed to seeing people with casts and crutches hobbling by. Satan very obviously places a large amount of effort into disrupting the MTC experience.

There is a lot of growth and excitement, and, as must be expected with a large group that consists mostly of inexperienced, excited 19-year-old young men, a lot of stupidity and immaturity. This is something that can be really annoying, if you let it get to you (and it seemed to really bother a lot of the sister missionaries, who are generally a couple years older), but which must be forgiven and overlooked with a tolerant smile. Instances of such behaviors include when the British elder in my room threw Elder Puncher's pillow out the window (we were on the third floor), and various flippant hyper behaviors that most likely resulted from all the candy and cookies that people's mothers kept sending (one traditional ceremony that happens before a group of missionaries leaves the MTC is trying to pawn off massive amounts of sweets on younger missionaries). Many of these kids have never been away from home before (especially the Utahans), and they just can't contain their idealistic energy.

Many have not quite grasped all the necessary social skills to be an effective missionary (and, given my shy nature, this was probably also the case with myself). During my youth, I have always been someone who kept strict control of my behavior; afraid to show strong emotion to others. I also tend to be very calm and quiet. But the excitement even got to me. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was really engaging in something truly meaningful and I was zealous in diligently studying and completely determined to be strictly obedient (which was in very large contrast to my previously undisciplined manner in regard to study and effective use of time during my first year of college). Because of my new hardcore perfectionist commitment, I believe I went a little overboard and injured my relationships with some of the other missionaries I was associated with.

At the time, I recognized that I could have an influence over the behavior of others, and I wanted to influence the missionaries who weren't taking things as seriously and were not trying to be obedient (in order to help them, and to make studying easier for myself). Unfortunately, I wasn't very practiced in leadership and didn't have a full understanding of some of the most important of leadership principles, primarily using a humble, loving attitude. I kind of had a vague grasp on the general idea, and I was trying to use humor and irony to make my points; but I believe I was too negative and that they felt I was trying to make fun of and belittle them. At first, they praised me for my ability to use humor (which I felt bad about, since I could tell I was being too negative), but later it resulted in reactionary blatant disobedience on their part.

Over time, a more distinct separation began to occur between those missionaries who had a desire to be obedient and those who didn't. The district I was in, interestingly enough, was split for the most part by what room we were in. With a couple of exceptions, our room wanted to be obedient (though we certainly weren't perfect at it), and the other room didn't. I believe that those missionaries had good hearts and wanted to do good things. I also believe they understood the principle of obedience and how it's not the actual rules that are important but just the fact that we're willing that determines how much God helps us. However, at the time, their desire to have fun outweighed their desire to submit to God's will. This escalated to the point that our teacher severely rebuked us for wasting time one Preparation Day.

This characteristic, unfortunately, is something that is more commonly observed in the real mission field. The two words, in missionary lingo, which are generally associated with this are "apostate" (meaning being disobedient to certain rules to justify the practice of pleasure-seeking) and "trunky" (meaning an eagerness to finish the mission and ship off homeward, due to a loss of enthusiasm and energy that may or may not have been related to previous hard work).

Even as this division was occurring, though, one unifying factor still existed among us: my companion's snoring. We all felt a certain comradeship at having the common experience of trying to sleep through it. Although the walls were stone and at least a foot thick, Elder Leopard's nocturnal breathing was enough to keep even the other room wide awake. Somehow I was the only one with good enough sense to buy earplugs, which helped a bit, but it was still a challenge. He felt very badly about it, and would try to sleep on his stomach and use adhesive nose-strips, but he would invariably end up rubbing them off and rolling over unconsciously after a few hours.

Despite the snoring, I liked Elder Leopard for two reasons: because he was the best companion I had had at that point on my mission (yes — he WAS the only one, too...), and because when he was filled with the Holy Ghost, he was an amazing person to be with. I noticed that there was almost a distinctly bipolar difference that developed between his spiritual self and his normal self by the time we left the MTC.

When I first met him, he was obsessed with maintaining a self-image of brute toughness, which was kind of humorous since he was short and chubby and looked kind of like a chipmunk. His life ambition, at the time, was to become a professional wrestler so he could "make little kids happy." This was despite his very high blood pressure which would undoubtedly disqualify him from anything remotely in that line of work. I remember spending my first few hours trying to pretend to be interested in his stories of all the fights he'd almost been in and the bad things he'd almost done. I wasn't quite sure how to respond to them; I felt that showing some sort of disapproval was probably called for, but I also wanted to get on his good side so that we could work together fairly decently.

Eventually he ran out of stories and tried to impress us with all the large knives he'd brought (which was definitely against the rules, and which I'm sure would have caused trouble at the airport if we hadn't persuaded him to get rid of them). Something else that was kind of awkward was that there was a sister missionary that seemed to have kind of a thing for me, and since I was always with him, he thought that she liked him. He insisted that he'd had a spiritual impression that he was going to marry her, contrary to his normal creepy preference for much younger girls. Incidentally, later on his mission he ended up going home early due to another awkward situation involving a younger girl.

I think I wore him down with my persistent push to study. One day he flat-out refused to participate. So I would study while he stared miserably off into space (or at passing sister missionaries) for hours. I guess things got pretty boring for him because one day when we were returning to class, he decided to bang really hard on the door to "scare the teacher." This he succeeded at (good for him?); but to his utter surprise, it hurt. In fact, he thought he had broken something in his hand.

So we got to head on down across the street to the BYU medical center. I resented this, as it interfered with study time, but I got some good puzzle-solving in while I was waiting for him to get X-rayed. I was very surprised at the number of astounding injuries that seem to have taken place there. There were several gory photographs of appendages that had been ripped open during frivolous soccer playing or digits that had been split in bizarre use of the large rubber exercise bands we had been given. Apparently the nurses there took some pride in the extremely odd types of injuries they dealt with. As it turned out, though, Elder Leopard's hand was just fine, although it was slightly swollen. He didn't seem to regret anything too much, since he had cleverly managed to waste a considerable amount of study time.

But like I said, there was a very profound difference between his troubled natural and spiritual selves. When he was filled with the Spirit, he was a very perceptive, understanding, humble, focused and loving person. There was a light in his eyes and a power in his voice. I only hope he will be able to someday stamp out that carnal being with the more godly one that exists in him, both for his own sake and for the benefit of those around him. I know it's possible.

Because of my aforementioned zeal and the nature and attitudes of the missionaries around me, there was a certain amount of tension that resulted from my intent effort to study. I studied like a maniac and constantly felt inadequate in my knowledge of the scriptures and understanding of gospel principles. I hadn't even begun with the principles of success. I believe this initial enthusiasm lasted long enough that it helped me form and maintain much better study habits, which has helped me improve quite a lot in school.

Several traditions and unique bits of Mormon culture occur or exist in the MTC. Among these are the Photo In Front of the Map, where a missionary points to his assigned mission (and in which I failed to participate; I tried to partially make up for it later on my mission by taking a few similar photos in front of area maps), the Tree of Life (which refers to the shower system, which had been modified shortly before I got there so that there were privacy walls), and the cafeteria food and legendary BYU Creamery icecream. There seems to be some sort of superstition about MTC macaroni and cheese and its effects on the gastric system, so I never had any. While I was in the cafeteria one day, though, I ran into an old friend that I had known when I lived in Utah. He was going to a Spanish-speaking mission, so he had been there before I was and had to stay longer than me.

A couple of other unique things about the MTC were the Referral Center (RC) and the Teaching Evaluation Center (TEC). I have an odd phobia with using the telephone (apparently hereditary), which I think is because I can't see the person who I'm talking to. So I didn't enjoy the RC much. This is one of the places that receives phone orders for people who had seen ads on television for free Books of Mormon, Bibles, or videos produced by the church.

They also did outbound calls to follow up and see if people had actually received the product they ordered, and if they were interested in learning more. Incoming calls were generally much more pleasant than outgoing, so I did very few outgoing calls. The few that I did resulted in uncomfortable conversations with people who had suddenly turned anti-Mormon and wanted to contend over various doctrinal points, hadn't received their product yet and were very impatient, or with people who had no idea who we were and wanted to be "taken off the list," even though they definitely had the name, address, and telephone number we were given. My guess is that some well-meaning friend who was a member of the church had referred them unsuspectingly to us without mentioning anything about it to them. A bit awkward, that.

Elder Puncher didn't mind so much, though. Whether the person was friendly or not, and whether they wanted a product or flatly refused, he marked them all down to send Books of Mormon to (which bugged the heck out of me). I can't really blame him for the rude awakening he got to how missionaries are supposed to be, based on the stories he told of how the missionaries behaved that he had associated with before his mission. It doesn't sound like they quite had the program down. Tradeoffs for him meant going with them to a Baptist church while it was in session, ringing the bell, and running. He also told of how once he had greeted the missionaries from a passing car and one of them flipped him the birdie. Apparently, missionaries have it pretty tough in Missouri; people there don't much like us (largely due to the numerous polygamist break-off groups that reside there and call themselves Mormons). This I can relate to a bit, having served in the middle of the Bible Belt, but I don't think it was quite so extreme. And I think I was pretty respectful toward my various redneck persecutors.

The other place I mentioned was the Teaching Evaluation Center. Here we got to practice teaching different lessons on volunteers (some of whom were actual investigators, while others were obvious members who acted totally wrong and asked deep doctrinal questions to try to trip us up). They would record us from cameras that were in the corners of the rooms, and we would review the videos with our teachers. I found this a much more enjoyable experience (though the videos were very low-quality since they were on VHS tapes that had been recorded over hundreds of times).

One thing that is a really big deal to missionaries, even in the MTC, is getting letters from home. In the MTC, the district leader was in charge of checking the mail for us each day. This was a much-anticipated event. I remember one time Elder Dolphin got a bunch of letters from himself, since he had mixed up the to and from addresses on his envelopes. Apparently he hadn't had much prior experience with snail-mail. It was during one such occasion that I received news of my pet dog's death. Despite all anyone could do to console me, I was in a perfectly good mood about it. The poor guy had arthritis and was old and tired and achy. I was certain he was cheerfully running around in heaven, barking at every new person that showed up. Yes, I'm sure he's much happier now.

Although I learned a lot and grew very quickly as a result of my studies, I think one of the most important things that I learned in the MTC was to be careful what you pray for. One of my teachers had suggested to us that we take some time to consider what qualities we would like our trainers to have, then to pray for one that had them. Because of my previous undisciplined nature, I was worried that I wouldn't have enough motivation (which turned out to definitely not be the case) to handle missionary work. So I prayed for a companion that would make me work hard. I'm pretty sure those were exactly the words I used, and that's exactly what I got. I think I should have also asked that he be a hard worker himself, and be a relatively kind and understanding person — but I got what I asked for, and I appreciate it now.

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The first member of the church that I met in the mission field was good ol' Brother Dan. He was short, which was fortunate, since he was approximately as wide as he was tall. He had a wheezy, nasally voice and an upturned nose. I also noticed that, in the absence of a neck, he was unable to button up the top button on his shirt; and that his tie, rather than being inside his collar, was squashed underneath it, having been flattened by his face. His short, dark hair, which came up to a point in the front, accentuated his beady black eyes. This man pretty much ran the Ward — not because he was supposed to, nor because other people didn't or couldn't; but because he had taken the task upon himself. The first thing I remember him saying was "I'm the fourth member of the bishopric." He was the ward secretary but somehow considered himself to be a third councilor.

Anyway, he's the guy that took us shopping when we first got there. Then he hung out in our apartment forever and talked to us (mostly about his mission, which sounded like he spent the entire time in the office and never actually experienced active proselyting, or even bike-riding, and also about his favorite movie, "Tales of a Mad Black Woman," how President Hinckley had said that anybody that watched "The Matrix" should be excommunicated, which he didn't, and how a "different spirit" that's not as good comes after you get off your mission, which is doctrinally unsound). We smiled and nodded, and tried to be generally polite and pleasant. Then he took us to his place to eat pizza (LOTS of it, with LOTS of root beer), and he decided that we either didn't like him or pizza since we couldn't get through as much of it as he could. If I recall correctly, he easily consumed two of the several he bought. I'm very impressed with all of the past missionaries if they had been able to eat enough pizza to satisfy him.

After that we were supposed to go on a tradeoff and visit less-active members with him. So we were pretty happy about that. Members that were willing to do stuff and actually help with the work and all. You know, pretty happy. But, as it turned out, he only wanted to try a couple of places where people weren't home before giving up.

This, apparently, was supposed to be the routine every week. He told us specifically that that's what he's always done, and that since he was in our half of the ward, we were his elders (and not the others). That changed pretty quickly. No sooner had we gone on two unsuccessful tradeoffs with him than he just didn't show up the next week. This concerned us somewhat, so we gave him a call to see if he forgot.

"So, Brother Dan, are you still able to come over tonight?"

(suppressed laughter) "No."

(awkward silence)

"Oh. . . Is there any particular reason why not?"

"No. I jest don't feel like it. Goobye!" (click)

It was quite a stimulating conversation. Perhaps Brother Dan wasn't filled with quite as much concern for the welfare of the souls of his fellow men as we had initially supposed. Since we didn't have anybody to take us to the people we had set appointments with, we called the other elders in desperation, wondering if we could use their car. They said they had a tradeoff that night, so it would be fine. So we got our visits done, returned the car, and came back to our apartment.

I flipped the switch, and nothing happened. I flipped another switch, and nothing happened. We tried all the switches and nothing happened. Brother Dan had taken the other elders on a "tradeoff" to break into our apartment and unscrew all the light bulbs. Quite a productive use of time. Elder Lemonhead wasn't too happy about that, understandably, for several reasons and on several levels; and the other elders weren't too happy that we had gone so far and used up so many miles with their car (which they were probably only going to use to waste time driving around outside their area and going to the video rental place anyway). So we had general satisfaction all around.

It was difficult for me to understand why exactly it was that Brother Dan had taken a sudden liking to the other elders and a sudden disliking to us. He wouldn't blame Nun and Wimper for anything since Nun was about ready to go home. Apparently the reason he didn't like Lemonhead was because he "hadn't gotten the Bishop excited" about missionary work. Then he turned on me. Since Lemonhead was incompetent, it was my responsibility. That got me pretty angry, since (1) the Bishop lived way outside of our area, and was quite close to the other elders, (2) the other elders had a car and we didn't, (3) getting the Bishop excited about missionary work really isn't part of our job in the first place, (4), if he considered himself to be the third councilor, that should be his job, (5), the Bishop seemed to be much more excited about the work than Brother Dan did, (6), we had already been trying to work with the Bishop and he was really busy, and (7), I was new and inexperienced and didn't really think I was capable of making him any more excited than he already was.

When I pointed out the first couple of points, Brother Dan said, "ya know whatcha jest did, Elder James? Ya threw the monkey on somebody else's back."

At this point, my face got red hot, which is a pretty rare occurrence. "And just what," I inquired, "was the monkey doing there in the first place? And who threw it on my back??" I decided not to say anything about his comparing the Bishop to a monkey (there is a certain resemblance). From that point on, I don't think he liked me much either.

But even though he didn't like us, he still couldn't get around the way the church referral system worked, so when his wife referred one of his neighbors, the information came to us. At first we thought this would be a good thing that could help us repair our relationship with him. Unfortunately, such was not the case. Although we eventually got him to go on another couple of tradeoffs with us, he utterly refused to take us to see their neighbor. That, in his mind, was our job — to do alone.

To have him take us would have been ideal. It is common knowledge among missionaries that every investigator needs, more than anything else, the fellowship of somebody they know. This is statistically the largest factor in determining how many people actually progress to baptism and join the church, as well as whether they remain active or not.

To fully express the frustration I experienced as a result of this, I also need to explain the geographical layout of our area. We lived on the far edge of our area, near the center of the ward. Brother Dan, and his neighbor, lived on the very outskirts of the ward, on the opposite side of Fort Rucker from us, in Daleville.

Since Fort Rucker was a military base, we couldn't just ride our bikes through it, and had to go some twenty or more miles around it, and most of the way there consisted of three gigantic hills. As a result, any time we went to Daleville, it was an all-day venture, and we visited everybody we could that lived out there. We would return to our apartment and collapse in pure exhaustion at the end of the day, and somehow there would invariably be a rain-and-lightning storm every time we went. So we would also be soaked.

Every time we went, then, we would stop at the referral's home. They were never there. After a good four or five attempts, one day we finally contacted a cousin of hers (after I got a flat tire) that was staying for the weekend, who told us in no uncertain terms, as he drank tomato soup from a can, that she wasn't interested and that we ought not return. So we walked from there to Brother Dan's home in the pouring rain, as a big black dog followed us and got into a fight with another dog. Brother Dan, seeing us out so far in such a tired and damp condition, took temporary pity on us and gave us and our bikes a ride home. After that, however, he didn't like us anymore since we hadn't ever contacted his wife's referral.

The other time we went on a tradeoff with him he took us to see his "old friend," Miss Charlotte. To our horror, he completely took over the discussion and recited his memorized first lesson from back in his missionary days, and even though she clearly wasn't ready or interested, tried to commit her to baptism. Later he explained, when he saw our expressions, that he wasn't bothering her with how straightforward he was being, since they were old friends and always talked to each other like that. She never wanted to meet with us again.

I'm glad that I had the chance to know Brother Dan, since I learned a lot of important things by working with (or around) him. One thing I learned was the importance of making sure the members know you're working. They have to consistently see you, with their own eyes, putting effort into the work to trust you. Another thing I learned was that members also (almost paradoxically) want to have fun with the missionaries. They expect the full-time missionaries to work like crazy, to be fun and entertaining, and want to do a minimum amount of work themselves. But they also feel guilty if they do nothing (which is why missionaries are usually very well fed, but don't have many people to teach).

Although all of this sounds very negative, and is a bit over-generalized, it definitely has relevance no matter how good the members are where a missionary serves. Most of the time I was in that area, we had nobody to teach, so we had nothing better to do than to walk up and down Rucker Boulevard day after day. Most of the members (meaning the ones that didn't live in Daleville) would therefore see us walking or riding our bikes each day and often commented on how we were the hardest-working missionaries they'd seen in a long time, even though we weren't really accomplishing much. So pretty much the whole ward loved us other than Brother Dan.

This knowledge also makes me a bit sad, since it allowed me to see how easily people can get the wrong impression and form bad judgments. They can be very easily led. Perhaps that's one reason why Christ referred to his followers as sheep. The local members are so absolutely vital to the success of missionary work (in fact, far more vital than the full-time missionaries are), that I became determined to make a good impression.

This is one reason why I have developed an obsession with positively influencing and persuading people. If bad missionaries can so easily make a good impression on members, and good missionaries can so easily make a bad impression on them, there must be some easy-to-influence variables that, if consciously controlled, would have an enormous impact on the success of the work in a given area. What any of these variables were, I did not at the time know; but I was becoming aware of their existence.

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The first few things I distinctly remember about entering the mission field were the excessive amounts of time we spent cleaning up the dump we were in, riding around on bikes in the blazing hot sun (from which I got pretty bad blisters on my hands) on very busy narrow streets without bike lanes or sidewalks, how depressed and lazy the other missionaries nearby were, and several of the members in the ward we were in.

The first people I met were the other two elders in our ward, Elders Nun and Wimper. Elder Nun was a big funny fella, and was nearing the end of his mission, but was really depressed and didn't want to do much. I didn't understand why at the time. Wimper, on the other hand, was really bouncy and goofy (almost to an irritating extent), but also was extraordinarily lazy. I mean, he had to have been putting a considerable amount of effort and manic energy into being as lazy as he was in order to accomplish his amazing nothingness.

Elder Lemonhead and I were trying to clean, when we needed to go buy some cleaning supplies. While we were gone, they drove over in their car and broke into our apartment (which was pretty easy to do, since the whole doorway was about ready to fall out). We returned to find them pathetically collapsed on the floor. My personal opinion is that they had no right to look as dead as they did, considering they never did any work and had a car, and we did way too much work, out in the sun, on bikes.

They proceeded to complain and talk about how bad an area we were in and brought over a pamphlet entitled "The Visitors," by Chick Publications. This was a little anti-Mormon tract in comic strip format, portraying two idiot missionaries doing and saying all the worst things they possibly could, and concluded with the woman saying a prayer and rejecting Mormonism and being "saved." Although this blatant propaganda was inherently amusing, it really didn't invite the Holy Ghost, and I'm pretty sure contributed to the driving away of the Spirit. Needless to say, my first impression of the missionaries I had been placed among wasn't very positive. Elder Lemonhead, although he was better able to sympathize with them (having had more experience in the mission field), was very concerned about them as their leader. And thus began my journey in Missionary Land.

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Today was my first day in the mission field. But I'm getting ahead of myself! I should start where I left off. The day that we prepared to leave the MTC, we did pretty much nothing but talk to our teacher about the mission field and pack.

The day we left, we got up at 3:00 AM to get all ready for the shuttle to take us to the airport. However, somehow the travel leader, Elder Dolphin, and the other five elders in that room, all managed to sleep through two alarm clocks and didn't get ready until 4:30 AM. But we made it to the airport on time. We spent the majority of the day on the airplane.

On our second flight, Elder Dolphin got to sit next to a woman who wasn't a member and got her to commit to meet with the missionaries in her area. She read all of the Joseph Smith History from my scriptures, and really liked it. Elder Leopard gave her his extra pocket-sized Book of Mormon. That was a good experience.

When we got there, President and Sister Turtle met us, and they informed me that their daughter had also been attending Southern Virginia University. They carefully prodded and questioned to determine the extent of my acquaintance with her, then proceeded to show me some pictures of her, which I think was unfair considering that I don't have much of an acquaintance with any female in the first place. I think I recognized her, but I don't really know who she is very well.

We spent the night at the mission home and were told who our new companions were. My new companion and trainer is Elder Lemonhead, and my area is the Enterprise East area in Alabama. We got to do a little bit of street-contacting for about an hour once we got into Alabama. There weren't a lot of people around, and all of them were busy. I said hi to two people and bye to one. Then we had to sit around and wait for all of the elders to get moved in and out and around for a long time.

Finally, we got to our apartment, and it was absolutely filthy. Nobody had been here for six weeks, and there were cockroaches everywhere (dead and alive) and dirty dishes in the sink and the walls were dented and grimy and there was trash all around. I think there must have been a pretty good reason why the previous occupants had been removed. So we went to the store to get food and cleaning supplies. We really cleaned up the place, and threw away most of the food in the refrigerator. Now I'm going to bed. Good night!

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