Pop: An Un-faith-promoting story
By Wm Morris | 8.02.04
Off-hand Mormon missionary references seem to be popping up in a lot of books these days. Or at least that’s what my Google news alerts seem to suggest.
My favorite so far occurs in a recent round-up review of travel books that ran in the New Zealand Herald. The following anecdote is included in the review for a book by Graeme Lay titled The Miss Tutti Frutti Contest: Travel Tales of the South Pacific:
“Escaping from the Miss Ha’apai beauty contest in Tonga – which is rather less exciting than the Miss Tutti Frutti — Lay finds himself confronted in the darkness by two ‘very large young men” demanding in menacing tones, ‘Where you goin’?
Thinking quickly Lay replies, ‘In what I hope passes for a Utah accent: ‘I’m on my way to church. The night service. I’m a Mormon missionary.’
A pause, then: ‘Yeah? Where’s your bro? Youse always goes in twos.’
‘He’s … ah … meeting the bishop.’
‘The bishop?’
‘Yes.’
There is silence for a few seconds. Then the two figures move aside, melting into the blackness of the night.”
I’ll admit to a moment of discomfort at this cynical misuse of the missionary mantle [Woah! Where'd that come from? Must be my recent readings of so many Elder Maxwell talks]. But that was quickly supplanted by a feeling of pride and moderate amusement. The encounter, after all, seems like the type of faith-promoting story a member of the Church would share. The missionaries are confronted by local toughs. They think about claiming to not be who they are, but instead boldly state that they are Mormon missionaries. The local toughs back down.
Of course, Lay gets the details wrong — night service? But even though this is an Un-faith-promoting story [it's not an 'anti-' or 'contra-' faith-promoting story -- it's Un, like 7-up is the Uncola], it’s kind of cool that missionaries get respect from large, menacing young Tongans — granted this is Tonga we’re talking about. But still.
My only question — how come the local toughs have a New Jersey mob accent?