The Folkloric Life Cycle of a Mormon Missionary 

Banner image: A white child in a yellow and white floral dress holding the Spanish version of the Book of Mormon against a background of yellow flowers. Photo by Drew Rae from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-kid-holding-a-mormon-book-12617392

Mormons, or Latter Day Saints (LDS), are a fascinating religious group. They have long pervaded popular culture, from parody musicals to hard-hitting crime documentaries. For many, they are synonymous with their smartly-dressed missionaries, who spend their days 'tracting' (going door to door) and proselytising, accompanied by their leather-bound copies of the Book of Mormon and friendly smiles. 

Less frequently discussed is the folklore which surrounds these missions. In many ways, Mormons form a migratory group, although their migrations are varied and temporary. Inspired by Jesus' command in Matthew 28:9 'Go therefore and make disciples of all nations', Mormons aged between eighteen and nineteen venture out on mission trips to one of the 420 geographic 'missions' around the world. (1) There has been a marked increase in the number of Mormons serving on missions, from 46% of students at the LDS university Brigham Young University to 65% in 2016. (2) 

There has also been an increase in the recording of LDS mission folklore, both with the accessibility of the internet and the efforts of the BYU William A Wilson online archive, which encourages students to submit their own folklore, resulting in a gold mine of primary sources, particularly from 2018-2022. Most of the items are personal accounts, or collected from students' families and friends, and provide a fascinating and extremely useful resource for anyone wishing to study LDS folklore. I highly encourage you to browse through the archive, which is free to access - there are some entertaining reads! 

The Missionary Life Cycle

The mission is often the first time a Mormon leaves their home for a significant period of time, often moving to an entirely different country and culture, thus it is not surprising that it creates its own folklore. Personal mission narratives, or 'mission legends', (3) spread quickly both among fellow missionaries and through emails and phone calls to family and friends back home, and are repeatedly told once the missionary returns home. (4) These stories often follow similar narrative patterns, which I will discuss in more detail in my upcoming blog post, but they also mark key stages in the missionary life cycle. (5)

In general, folklore tends to develop around significant life events, such as births and deaths. For missionaries, arrival in a new country may represent the missionary's birth, their mission companion filling in a parental role, with returning home representing their 'death' as a missionary. This structure is reinforced through the strict rules given to LDS missionaries, as William A Wilson highlights, meaning 'Missionaries in Japan, Finland, Argentina, and Los Angeles will follow essentially the same schedule'. (6)

As a result, it is possible to identify three common stages to a Mormon missionary's migration life cycle which have particularly rich folklore surrounding them: 

1. Initiation

2. Farewell

3. Return Home

Initiation: A Missionary is Born

The 'birth' of a LDS missionary is surrounded by a series of initiations. They are often entering a new country, surrounded by new sights, smells and sounds, removed from their family and support system. Upon their arrival, new missionaries are assigned mission 'parents', more experienced missionaries who, according to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints website 'commit to provide the support needed during the mission'. (7)

Missionaries are also assigned 'mission companions', fellow missionaries of the same sex who live with them in order to keep them accountable, the first of which is a trainer, who helps introduce the missionary into their new life. (8) In many ways, then, the LDS missionary migrant gains a new family upon their arrival, not unlike arriving at college and joining a fraternity or sorority. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that LDS missionaries have developed just as bizarre 'hazing' or initiation rituals for 'greenie' missionaries, along with specialised slang.

Pigs' Heads and Duck Embryos

Food initiations are common. For example, BYU student Noelle Marley records one interviewee recalling 'Elders in his mission ate whole-headed sardines as a first meal to see if they were “tough enough to be in the Philippines.” Passing this initiation, he told, meant claps on the shoulder and congratulations, while failure to accept the traditional snack resulted in insults and boos'. (9) Two other LDS missionaries serving in the Philippines emphasised the 'shock factor' of their food initiations, which included eating a pig's head and a boiled duck embryo. (10)

Gombaloosh!

Other initiation rituals involve pranks. For example, according to Wilson, new missionaries in London were instructed to save their bus ticket stubs in order to receive a rebate, only to later discover their collection was worthless. (11). One particularly bizarre initiation prank, submitted to the William A Wilson Folklore archive by student and LDS missionary Barry Donakey, was shared among missionaries in the Washington Yakima Mission:

the initiated missionaries would put blankets over their head and slowly move towards the uninitiated, all while repeating the

word “Gombaloosh” over and over again. They would pester and mob the uninitiated missionary and would not stop until the

blanket was removed from their head. Once a blanket was removed, the missionary would drop to the floor, motionless, until

every one of them had been de-blanketed. At that point they would explain the rules to the formerly uninitiated missionary

and teach them the code word “Cookie Butter” for future interactions. (12)

Esprit-de-Corps

Anthropologist Van Gennep identified three phrases of initiation rituals, all of which can be seen in the previous examples:

1. The Separation Phase. Here the initiate is separated from his previous social group, in this case through the migration to a new place.

2. The Transition Phase. The initiate has to pass certain challenges, such as eating a strange meal, or removing blankets from people's heads.

3. The Incorporation Phase. Having passed the test, the initiate is now a member of the group, as represented by the transmission of the code word 'cookie butter', preparing the new missionary to conduct an induction ritual of their own. (13)

No matter how bizarre these rituals may seem, they do serve a purpose beyond just weird pranks. Wilson recalls one missionary lamenting 'I was never really a part of the missionaries; now I know that I had no jokes played on me because I was not accepted'. (14) Wilson thus argues that LDS missionaries use folklore 'to create an esprit de corps, a sense of solidarity among themselves'. (15) This works in both directions: the arriving missionary feels they have become part of an in-group, and the experienced missionaries get to reinforce a sense of comradery and group identity by inducting an outsider.

'Bonking on Doors'

Once the new missionaries have passed these initial tests, they face yet another challenge: learning the lingo. In addition to learning the language of their host country, missionaries, or 'greenies', must learn a series of slang used specifically within LDS missionary groups. Here are five of my personal favourites:

1. 'Bonking on doors' or 'self-torture' = tracting, or going door to door.

2. 'Tisms' or 'payday' = baptisms.

3. 'The slave' or 'the boy' = a junior companion.

4. 'Cliff climbers' or 'straight-arrow Sams' = aspiring missionaries.

5. 'The jungle' or 'the war zone' = the tracting area. (16)

Wilson notes that although no single missionary will know all these terms, nearly all will know some or variants. While all Mormons will be aware of certain specialized terms such as 'junior companion' or 'tracting', it is these migrating missionaries specifically who will use this slang, thus placing them into a sub-group within the LDS community. The most common response when Wilson asked missionaries why they used this language was:

it creates a feeling of self-identification with other missionaries. It contributes, in other words, to that sense of community the

initiation pranks help to establish. Once a greenie learns it, he no longer is a greenie, an outsider. He is now a missionary. He

belongs. He speaks the language. (17)

Thus, just as a migrant may integrate into their community by learning their language and the nuances of local folk speech, new LDS missionaries gain a sense of belonging through the adoption of slang. Such rituals help to solidify LDS missionaries as a distinct group with their own identity in the face of an often strange, new culture. Unlike some migrant groups, this isn't necessarily shared with their congregation back home; rather, it is formed in response to living among another culture.

Saying Goodbye: A Missionary Funeral

The 'death' of a missionary is equally surrounded by folklore. The majority of returned missionaries interviewed by Noelle Marley described a 'meal goodbye tour', which took place in their last six weeks before departure. Missionaries revisit members of the local community for a final meal, which Marley describes as 'hotbed of shared stories, swapped recipes, and gifts of material folklore'. (18) These gifts might include traditional art or clothing, or, in Marley's experience, carved chopsticks. Other traditions include cutting off a piece of a departing missionary's tie. (19)

You're Dead to Me!

In other cases, an elaborate mock funeral may be performed. This practice is relatively common among missionaries, and usually involves the missionary lying on a table, pretending to be dead while a photo is taken, followed by a form of eulogy, and the wearing of special clothes. (20) Some missionaries even created orders of service for these 'funerals' (see below).

'Stuff Changes so Quickly'

One participant of this tradition told Elizabeth Richardson that missionary funerals are the 'kind of traditions that tie missionaries together and help them cope with the fact that stuff changes so quickly on a mission', and Richardson reflects that these funerals may be 'a form of stress-relief for the experience of change as well as a parallel to the “life” they experienced as a missionary.' (21) Missions are usually a once-in-a-lifetime experience and thus the rather sudden end to this migration can be challenging to cope with. Thus, traditions such as these seem to provide LDS missionaries with a symbolic transition back to their old life, as I will explore further in my next post.

A Funeral Programme, submitted to the William A Wilson Folklore Archive by Elizabeth Richardson, 2022

https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/folklore/id/1690/rec/4

References

1. Lively, R. L. 'The Mormon Missionary: Who Is That Knocking at My Door?', International Bulletin of Mission Research, 41(3), (2017), p. 255.

2. Ibid. p. 257.

3. Reid, Liberty, 'Missionary Folklore: Legends and Initiations', William A Wilson Folklore Archive, (2020) (https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/folklore/id/888/rec/88), p. 5.

4. Ibid. p. 8.

5. Cf Camp, Claire A., et al. "Missionary perspectives on the effectiveness of current member care practices." Journal of Psychology and Theology, 42:4, (2014), pp. 359-368.

6. Wilson, William A. On Being Human: Folklore of Mormon Missionaries, (University Press of Colorado, 1981), p. 7.

7. Anon, 'Candidates and Parents', The Church of Latter Day Saints, (date unknown), https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/service-missionary/candidate-and-parent?lang=eng

8. Donakey, Barrry, 'Gombaloosh', William A Wilson Folklore Archive, (2021), (https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/folklore/id/1063/rec/43), p. 1

9. Marley, Noelle, 'Edible Tradition: Food, Folklore, and the Latter-day Saint Missionary', William A Wilson Folklore Archive, (2020), (https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/folklore/id/659/rec/1), p. 6.

10. Ibid. p. 7.

11. Wilson, On Being Human, p. 10.

12. Donakey, 'Gombaloosh', p.1. 

13. Mann, Feddes, Doosje & Fischer, 'Withdraw or affiliate? The role of humiliation during initiation rituals', Cognition and Emotion, 30:1, (2016), p. 81.

14. Wilson, On Being Human,  p. 12.

15. Ibid. p. 10.

16. Ibid. p. 13.

17. Ibid. 

18. Marley, 'Edible Tradition', p. 7.

19. Kimball, Diane, 'Tie-Cuttings', William A Wilson Folklore Archive, (2021), (https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/folklore/id/1549/rec/5), p. 2.

20. Richardson, Elizabeth, 'Missionary “Funeral” Folklore', William A Wilson Folklore Archive, (2022), (https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/folklore/id/1690/rec/1), p. 3.

21. Ibid. p. 7-8.

Further Reading

• Sherman, Tamah. "Behaving toward language in the Mormon mission: the Czech case" International Journal of the Sociology of Language, vol. 2015, no. 232, 2015, pp. 33-57.

• Bordelon, Errol Douglas, 'An exploration of the lived experiences of returned Mormon missionaries', LSU Doctoral Dissertations. (2013).

• Mould, Tom and Eric A. Eliason. Latter-day Lore: Mormon Folklore Studies, (University of Utah Press, 2013).

• Fife, A., & Fife, A. Saints of sage and saddle: Folklore among the Mormons, (Indiana Univ. Press, 1956)