What is a missionary''s life like, trying to proselytize the Russians? What do the
missionaries learn in Russia and bring back home with them? This is a collection of
stories told by LDS Church (Mormon) missionaries to Russia. The stories, most accompanied by photographs and personal descriptions, relate the adventures--harrowing, interesting, humorous, and exciting--of the missionaries in learning the Russian
language and in adapting to the Russian culture. Here are stories of inspiration and tragedy as the missionaries encounter members of the Russian mafia, predatory Gypsy conmen and women, and terminal alcoholics, but also highly cultured intellectuals, artists, and businesspeople...all "investigators" of the
new spirituality and the new life-style advocated by the missionaries. The missionaries endure the ordeal of adaptation to new means of transportation, new expectations in the work world, new and unfamiliar superstitions, suspect medical therapies, and constant interpersonal rejection while they become astonishingly facile in the Russian language during their two-year term "tracting" the Russians'' residences and workplaces seeking converts. This book,
written by a team of seven Arizona State University Russian language students (five of whom are returned-from-Russia Mormon missionaries), together with their Professor Lee B. Croft, presents not only the positive personal
contributions of the missionaries to Post-Soviet Russian society, but also the human contributions the missionaries, enriched by their experience in Russia, bring back to benefit us in America. The foreword is written by Brigham Young University Professor of Russian Emeritus Donald K. Jarvis, a former LDS Mission President in Russia. The book is 216 pp. long with illustrations and photographs. It is published by Capstone Publications, 11622 S. Tusayan Ct, Phoenix, AZ 85044 but is available at www.lulu.com/content/2138213.
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