Thursday, June 2, 2011
It's Mishie Time!
It's summer, that magical time of year filled with cookouts and pool parties and sugared up kids driving their parents insane- and Mormon Missionaries* (hereinafter "mishies").
Look, I know mishie visits can be a bit obnoxious. Here you are, innocently enjoying your day, debating whether or not you can put off mowing the lawn another day (in my case, no), and two earnest young men in distinctive clothing** ring your doorbell, eager to tell you why you're going to Hell.
It's just not a conversation you want to have right now, I get it. What you really want to do is slam the door in their faces or curse at them. Maybe you're more like me and you really want to mess with them, answer the door naked covered in ketchup and invite them to join the ceremony.
Don't do it.
Mishies are just doing what they were raised to do. It is the single most important thing they can do in the Mormon Church, and if they don't do it they will be ostracized by their community, friends and family. Many mishies spend 2 years simultaneously questioning their faith and spreading it.
Mishies are frequently treated poorly by the mission, and here, and here, including not being given enough to eat.
Mishies are treated poorly by the people they attempt to convert, all day, every day for 2 years.
Don't add to the burden. If you came across man lying in the street, visibly having suffered a beating, would you kick him? If not, don't do the same to the mishies. (If so, drown yourself.)
What should you do? If you have the time, and you're not alone in your home, invite them inside to enjoy a nice cold, nonalcoholic, uncaffeinated beverage***. Tell them you were just about to eat lunch/dinner, would they like to join in? Press some leftovers on them. Tell them you would just throw them away, or that your Italian heritage would be forever insulted if they didn't take your food.
If you don't have the time, give them a bottle of water to take with them, maybe some prepackaged snacks (I keep both around in the summer for just this purpose, you can get peanut butter crackers cheap at Walmart), and politely explain that you are busy, but thank you for stopping by.
You don't have to convert to their religion or adopt the mishies, but a kind word and a bottle of water is quick, easy and possibly worth more than you know to a lonely kid facing 2 years of rejection and verbal abuse.
It's summer, be nice to the mishies.
*After many years typing legal documents, I am no longer certain what gets capitalized and what doesn't. As far as I can tell, when typing filings for Court, just go with German capitalization rules: every noun starts with a capital letter.
**You can tell mishies from other proselytizers two ways: 1) mishies are almost always two men, 18 - 20 years old, and 2) they wear black pants, white button down shirts and ties.
***Mormonism's version of kosher forbids both caffeine and alcohol. So Coke or Pepsi would be out, but Sprite's okay.