In response to new Russian laws, missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints serving there may no longer teach the gospel to investigators in their homes, or in the homes of members of Church. Elders and Sisters can’t go door to door, or talk to people in parks, or hand out copies of “The Book of Mormon” on the bus. ALL proselytizing is restricted to inside the Church building. Deseret News reported that the Church is no longer sending ‘missionaries’ to Russia. We are, however, sending ‘volunteers’.
This isn’t the first time that the Church has asked elders and sisters to serve as volunteers instead of doing traditional missionary work. The Ensign shared this touching story in 1988 of a sister who ‘volunteered’ at a Vietnamese refugee camp on Palawan:
This is an excerpt from We Couldn’t Preach, but We Could Love
The plane glided above the peaceful green islands below. I looked out of the window in awe. Surely we were headed for paradise! One month earlier, my mission president had informed me that I would be sent to serve in a Vietnamese refugee camp on Palawan, an island between Vietnam and the Philippines. My companion had come from one of the refugee camps in Thailand, where she had been serving with twelve other [Latter-day Saint] lady missionaries. She was strong, reliable, and full of charity. I remembered my introduction to her at the airport. I had heard that lady missionaries sent to the refugee camps ran the risk of losing their missionary discipline, and I was almost certain that she had. I feared that my new assignment would cause me to lose mine.
“Sister …” I had started nervously.
“Please call me Ruth,” she politely replied.
I winced.
“What’s your name?” she asked, smiling.
“Annette.” The word—my own name—sounded strange to my lips.
“Annette, I’m sure we’ll work just fine together.”
“Um, excuse me, but shouldn’t we call each other ‘Sister’? After all, we’re still missionaries.”
“Yes, we are, but you will soon realize we’ll have a greater advantage among the refugees and other volunteers in the camp if we go by nonreligious titles.”
“But what about the gospel. … Surely we can talk about the gospel?”
“No, Annette, I’m afraid we cannot say anything about the Church—except its name.”
“But … but … how will we convert people?” I was really flustered now.
“You will be surprised what a great reaction these people will have to our example. They notice immediately that we’re different from the other volunteers in the camp. Our standards and our values are obvious, and that’s what will help us most.”
I had still been flustered. Why weren’t we allowed to preach in the refugee camp?
Read the rest of this story in the March 1988 Ensign
A questionably phrased comment here earlier wondered about Book of Mormon archaeology. This legitimate interest in how much evidence can be digged up for the Book becomes an unfortunate distraction when it prevents better questions like, “Is the Book true?”. Asking it to teach you math, or chemistry, or other physical sciences, is to misuse it and miss its point. Archaeology is fun, and is a pathway to certain types of truth that can advance human understanding, but one can confidently assume that the field has never healed a broken human life, far less saved their soul; that is not its role. Yet a single Book of Mormon chapter like, say, Alma 29, or 2 Nephi 2, can teach a person what years and decades of life experience may fail to. The Book is true, in a personal and life-changing way that is, in fact, demonstrable on that personal scale. Read the Book, and demonstrate it to yourself again and again. Its meaning comes abundantly, both as a whole and in pieces. It is rightly classed (and naturally prioritized by LDS) among all valuable and sacred writings that have taught humanity what humanity is, or shown us our soul.
Í still remember gratefully the Christian Brother (named Ian) and Father who helped me to write Declaration of Statutory about my father’s military background and helped sending my letter to my Mum in 11/1983. Thanks God there are people like you!