WILTON — Robert Lively is quick to say he is not a Mormon and has never been a missionary.  

But he finds the personal stories and the missionary process of the young elders and sisters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints intriguing.

After conducting nearly 300 worldwide interviews over 21 years, Lively’s book, “The Mormon Missionary — Who IS That Knocking at My Door?” was released in December. 

While teaching religion classes at the University of Maine at Farmington, Lively, dean emeritus, invited a variety of speakers from different faiths, Adventists to Zen Buddhists, to his classes.  

His students tended to confuse the Mormon missionaries with Jehovah Witnesses. He asked them how many pretended not to be home or whether anyone ever invited them in, he said.

Elders, male missionaries, go on two-year mission trips, usually at age 18; sisters go at age 19, so the speakers were about the same age as his students. They loved them and were fascinated with their lifestyle. 

Two elders live in Wilton and two sisters in Farmington.

Lively centered his research on the individuals, what they experience, and what they and the church gain from it, he said.  

“Do you know any other faiths that would put their religion into the hands of an 18-year-old?” he asked. 

But young men grow up with the expectation of going on mission trips.

“It’s a rite of passage,” he said. “They come back a different person, more mature.”

For the most part, young women are expected to marry and start families, but the trend is changing. Women used to go out at age 21 if they had not married, he said. It was lowered to 19 and the number of sisters jumped, he said. The number of couples over age 40 taking senior missionary trips is also increasing.

Their missions take them all over the world and they learn foreign languages. The religion is big, especially in Latin America and the Philippines, Lively said. It has more followers outside than inside the United States.

As Lively interviewed missionaries over the years, he asked them to talk about themselves, their families, hobbies and plans. While some think of them as robots, they are real human beings, he said.

“I accost missionaries before they accost me,” he said of unplanned interactions in Germany and Russia.

He told them he wanted to share their stories. They were intrigued but wary, he said. As a faith group, they have suffered more persecution than any other group. Most of the book is in their own words, he said.

The lifestyle of the missionary can be difficult to understand. 

The young people have no say over where they spend their mission time or who is assigned as their companion. Except for bathroom breaks, the two elders or two sisters are together all the time.

The companionship can be a blessing. Two heads are better than one, good for protection and to protect you from yourself, Lively said. It might be easy for some to shirk a duty expected of them without their companion there to keep them straight.

There is no dating, no television, no computer. Their focus is on the mission, he said. Days are spent knocking on doors to share their faith and doing something helpful in the community including volunteering at the hospital, a soup kitchen, mowing a lawn or shoveling snow.

They are not allowed to go home, even for a family death, and their family is not allowed to visit.

They also pay for their mission experience. In the past, they would pay all of their expenses, but the cost difference between being sent to Tokyo and Farmington, Maine, for example, was unfair. So now, each missionary pays $400 a month. That amounts to $9,600 for two years for men and $7,200 for 18 months for women.

Lively was invited to Provo, Utah, for readings from his book. “It was well-received and reviews say they appreciate that I’m fair,” he said. They were also intrigued by how they are perceived by outsiders.

He has done readings at the Farmington and Wilton libraries and will do one at the Portland library.

He holds a master’s degree from Yale University Divinity School and will give a talk there in the fall.

The book is available at Devaney, Doak and Garrett Booksellers in Farmington and the UMF Bookstore or online at Amazon.

abryant@sunmediagroup.net

“The Mormon Missionary — Who IS That Knocking at My Door?” by University of Maine at Farmington Dean Emeritus Robert Lively is available at Devaney, Doak & Garrett Booksellers in Farmington and at the UMF Bookstore, or online at Amazon.