We were shucking sweet corn when two young men dressed in white shirts, ties, and dark pants came up to us on the patio. They were quite willing to help us shuck corn. As we talked, Elder Ryan Rogers and Elder Brian Andersen agreed to let us interview them about their missionary life for the Morman Church and its beliefs and practices.
We learned that almost all young men in the Church of Latter-day Saints, also called the Mormon Church, spend two years as missionaries in our country or in foreign lands. Young women may also choose to spend one and a half years as missionaries. The young men must be nineteen years old and the women twenty-one. During their missionary years, they must support themselves, having an apartment and preparing their own meals. They may not marry nor have jobs until they have completed their missions.
Elder Ryan Rogers’ home is in Mesa, Arizona. He is nineteen, the third son in his family to go on a mission. His two older brothers and his sister were missionaries in South America. He has completed one year of college at Brigham Young University and hopes to study accounting when his mission is complete. He trained for three weeks to prepare for his missionary work. His brothers and sister attended an intensive language school for three months before setting out for South America. Ryan is an Eagle Scout.
His father was a pilot in the no-fly zone in the Gulf War. He is still in the Air National Guard and is a pilot for America West Airlines and his mother is a secretary in a doctor’s office. Elder Brian Andersen is 21 and is nearing the end of his mission. He has been sent by the Ohio Cleveland Mission President to spend several months in Solon, Ohio near Cleveland, Warren, Hiram, and has been in Tiffin for seven months. He worked in a table manufacturing company to earn money to go on a mission. His home is in American Fork, a town of 50,000 south of Salt Lake City. His dad served in Viet Nam. He is currently studying dental hygiene and his mother is a registered nurse.
Brian plans to become a doctor. The missions of his older brothers were in Micronesia in the South Pacific and in Spokane, Washington. One of his older sisters was a missionary in England. The Church of Latter-day Saints had its beginning in the spiritual quest of Joseph Smith when he was fourteen years old.
He was unable to decide which of the many contesting versions of Christianity was the right one. He studied the Bible and prayed. Then he had a vision in which two Personages told him that all the churches of his day, 1820, were in error, and he should not join any of them. He was persecuted when he told of his vision. In a series of subsequent visions over several years time, Joseph Smith was directed to the west side of a hill near Manchester, New York. There under a large stone he found gold plates in a stone box. Joseph Smith, with Oliver Cowdery, a schoolteacher, as scribe translated the gold plates which became the Book of Morman. Afterwards others were privileged to see the gold plates. Then the messenger called for the plates and they were delivered into his charge.
Later, a messenger from heaven who said he was John the Baptist laid hands on both Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and said, ‘’Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of the Messiah, I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.’’
Joseph Smith was commanded to baptize Oliver Cowdery and then he in turn baptized Joseph Smith. The messenger said that Joseph Smith would be called the first Elder of the new church and Oliver Cowdery the second.
The Book of Mormons covers the time between 600 BC to 421 AD. It discloses that Jesus also appeared to Indians in North and South America. The Book is an added witness to the divinity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. The Book of Mormons is used as a further revelation in companionship to the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Persecution drove Joseph Smith and his followers out of New York State and they settled in Kirkland, Ohio for a time.
During the time of persecution, Joseph Smith was martyred and Oliver Cowdery settled in Tiffin in the 1830’s. While he was here he started the fire department and practiced law. Later he crossed the plains with Brigham Young, the new Prophet and lived in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Church of Latter-day Saints church building has been in Tiffin about ten years. None of the churches have professional clergy. The bishops and Sunday School teachers all have regular jobs. Services last for three hours starting at nine o’clock on Sunday.
In the first hour called Sacrament Service, different members, including young men and women, give talks. The second hour everyone goes to his or her appropriate age group for Sunday School. During the third hour the men go to Priesthood meeting and the women go for fellowship in the Relief Society meeting. The children have their own meeting. Elder Anderson and Elder Rogers can be reached at 419 448-4393.
The members of the Church of Latter-day Saints neither smoke nor drink alcohol and are moderate in their habits. They believe in ‘’being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous and doing good to all men.’’ They claim the privilege ‘’of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of (their) own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, when and what they may.’’
The Church of Latter-day Saints is the fifth largest church in the United States and the fasting growing religion in the world according to Elders Andersen and Rogers.
– Percy and Mary