A page inside the Book of Mormon. Photo: Flickr
A soft snow flurry blankets the Upper West Side one recent winter morning as students from Columbia University race up and down Broadway, battling through the frigid temperature to get inside.
On the corner of 117th, though, two young girls are embracing the cold weather. All bundled up, they are approaching strangers with small handouts bearing an image of Jesus with some information on the Church of Latter-day Saints.
“Hi there! Can I give you this card?” Sister Dakota Terry, a 20-year-old Mormon from Southern Utah with big brown eyes and a kind smile continually asks strangers whizzing by.
“Are you interested in learning about love and religion?” echoes Sister Anna Heeder, another 20-year-old Mormon who is a tall, blond, Idaho native with a soft voice.
Terry and Heeder have been living in New York City for a little less than a year. The two are working for 18 months as missionaries for the LDS Church, also known as the Mormons. This is their first time away from their families and while the Big Apple can seem like a frightening place, they are brimming with excitement: This is an honor for them.
“I see [missionary work] as something that is simultaneously building yourself up to become a stronger person while strengthening those around you,” Heeder says.
The Mormon Church is one of the most active religious organizations to participate in evangelist work; there are some 74,000 missionaries worldwide, according to the LDS website. In addition to following teachings from the New Testament that command Christians to teach “all nations” about Jesus (Matthew 28:19), Mormons also commit to the teachings of Church founder Joseph Smith, who was a firm believer in outreach. Most Mormon missionaries are in their late teens and early twenties, and observing Terry and Heeder’s unwavering earnestness towards their work, it’s easy to see why.
Manhattan seems like a particularly difficult place to do missionary work —nobody talks to strangers, let alone people with religious agendas. Most passerby barely give the girls time of day, and the ones that do often ask if the girls have seen the Broadway play “Book of Mormon” — an offensive joke the girls brush off graciously.
Terry and Heeder say they don’t mind the cold shoulders or mean comments they often get.
“The harder it is, the stronger you are able to become!” quips Terry.
“Honestly, it can be the pits because you just want to give them happiness!” laughs Heeder. “It’s like, you bake a pan of brownies and then you want to share the brownies. But for some reason, they don’t want the brownies?”
The girls continue to pursue the crowds of students for nearly 25 minutes before someone, it appears, might be interested in a brownie. Andrea, an English student from Sacramento stops to tell the girls about her summers working for a Catholic camp. The play California geography before Andrea agrees to take a card and agrees to check out the LDS website.
“As a Catholic, Mormons totally confuse me so I guess I should learn a little bit more about you guys!” she says.
After the encounter with Andrea, the minutes stretch on as Terry and Heeder continue to walk up and down Broadway. They hand out plenty of cards, but Heeder says the ideal is to engage with someone: At the end of the day, the girls will fill out a detailed progress report for their supervisors. They are discussing if they should head up to Harlem when a man named Clark stops in front of them.
“Are you religious, Clark?” she asks.
“I am not,” he says.
“Have you ever been curious about religion, or God?” she pushes.
“To be quite honest, I am,” he admits.
“Well, I am here to answer any of your questions,” she responds softly, adding that she is a missionary for the Mormon Church.
“I guess I want to know how you guys see Jesus differently,” he says.
“Well, Jesus is our one savior, but it’s true that we all see him differently,” Heeder says slowly, choosing every word carefully. “I would say that we see Jesus with infinite love. Other churches have the cross, but we don’t like to focus on the crucifixion. We focus on his resurrection.”
Clark agrees to check out the website, and perhaps attend services on Sunday. He walks away smiling, but Heeder’s grin is even bigger. Technically, she was the one educating Clark, but in a way, she’s the true recipient of this teaching moment. Next year, Heeder and Terry might attend college, but soon after, they will likely get married and start a family that follows the ways of the LDS Church. These crucial moments on the streets of Manhattan —teaching strangers about the Mormon Church, knowing that they fulfilled the will of God — will carry their faith for years to come.