Mormon missionaries spread Gospel

Dusk brushes over the town. Cicadas drone. The two missionaries see her approaching on the Third Street sidewalk. She stands straighter in her sleeveless, thigh-length black dress and looks ahead, careful not to make eye contact. But it’s too late.

“Hi, how are you doing today?” Sister Jacqueline Clark says.

Clark smiles, stopping the stranger in her tracks. Only about one in four people stop to talk to the missionaries.

Clark’s straight, red hair brushes the top of her black plastic nametag that reads “Sister Clark, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints” boldly in white lettering.

She wraps one hand around the cloth strap of her black bag. It is full of business cards and pamphlets she uses to help people understand her Mormon beliefs.

“Good,” the stranger responds blankly, nervously rubbing the hem of her dress between her fingers.

“My name is Sister Clark. What’s your name?” She extends her hand to introduce herself. The stranger stares at it for a moment, hesitating.

“Gabby,” she says, shaking Clark’s hand.

Clark was relieved by Gabby’s good will. Sometimes people meet the missionaries with malevolence.   

* * *

Clark always wanted to become a missionary.

Eight months ago, she dropped her name to become Sister Clark. For 18 months her personal identity doesn’t matter. All that matters is helping people meet Jesus Christ.

There are more than 80,000 Mormon missionaries serving at once around the world. There are 16 missionaries in Bloomington.

In October 2012, the church lowered the age from 21 to 19 for females to become missionaries, which increased the missionary population by about 46 percent, according to the church’s official website.

With the new rules, Clark was able to join the mission at age 20.

Ever since she was a child, she watched her three older brothers serve two-year missions in the United Kingdom, Guatemala and Los Angeles. She was jealous of the boys. She wanted the experience of sharing her beliefs and finding people receptive to accepting greater truth.

While on the mission, Clark has a schedule set by the missionary handbook. She pulls a pocket-sized, mostly white, yellow-edged book out of her bag, which was created by the church. Inside is detailed information about her duties.

It tells her she has to be up by 6:30 a.m. to pray and exercise.

From 10 a.m. until 9 p.m., she proselytizes with a one hour break for lunch and another hour for dinner.

She is to be in bed by 10:30 p.m.

She isn’t allowed to watch television or listen to music. She cannot access the Internet, either, except on Mondays to email home. The church provided her with an LG Sprint phone only to contact people for lessons.

She also cannot date or flirt while she is on her mission. She does talk to God about her love life, though.

She asks him to help her understand her feelings and to take them away so she can stay focused on her mission.

Clark never has to work alone. She and her companion, Sister Rebecca Allen, are together everywhere except in the bathroom.

In the Bible, Jesus’ 12 disciples traveled two by two to spread the word of their savior. The missionaries practice the same tradition. 

Even in her sleep, she is a missionary teaching lessons.

“Why does God give us the Ten Commandments?” Clark audibly asked in her sleep one night. “That’s right. He gives us the Commandments because he loves us.”

Clark is a student at Brigham Young University in Utah, working toward a degree in international relations and women’s studies. She took time to be a missionary, but will return to complete her degree. She wants to be a lawyer for the United Nations.

She now has a longing to find her eternal partner and have a family, too. Clark believes when she dies, she will go to heaven, where she will be reunited with her family.

However, if she does not find an eternal companion, she will be alone in the afterlife.

“Though I want to do international law and be a lawyer, I know deep down that my first responsibility is to be a mother,” Clark says. “That’s what’s going to matter when I stand before God. It will be like ‘Hey, did you teach your children the Gospel?’ and ‘Yeah I did, and I tried to do the best I could.’ It won’t be like ‘Hey, did you represent the U.S. at the UN in that conference?’ ‘Yes, I did great, and we wrote a great position
paper.’”

* * *

“We all make mistakes in our life, and sometimes we feel feelings of guilt and shame,” Clark says to Gabby. “Through repentance and forgiveness of Jesus Christ we can overcome those feelings in our life.”

She pauses, staring at Gabby, who is avoiding her gaze.

Clark didn’t have a plan for what she’d say to Gabby before she started speaking. She prayed that morning the Holy Ghost would guide her.

“I’m actually atheist, so...” Gabby trails off, her voice shaking with nervous laughter.

Gabby shifts her weight from one foot to the other, carefully positioning her feet in her wedges like a runner on a starting block.
 
Cars zip past on the street.

Gabby has always been an atheist. Her father is Catholic, and Gabby says her mother is “spiritual,” but since Gabby never felt her parents cared, she raised herself as an atheist.

* * *

Clark thinks it is normal to have times of doubt, but says “doubt is just a lack of
information.”

When Clark was 11-years-old, her father, Paul, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

She was angry with God and didn’t understand why he did that to her family.
But at age 15 she “got tired of hitting a wall.” She went to a summer camp at BYU.

As she sat in the middle of a large lecture hall, a man sang, “Let him heal your heart.”
Tears streamed down her face as she listened, but no one around her seemed to notice.

“I felt alone for so long, and in that moment, I knew that even if my father couldn’t be there, I still had my Heavenly Father,” she says.

Clark’s mother, Jane, says God told her to go to law school. Her husband had lost his job as a physician, so Jane’s job could provide for the family.

Clark says it was encouraging to see her mom go back to school. But Clark still wants a husband who will motivate her to pray and read scripture.

“She has always done what God wants her to do,” Jane says. “She’ll pray and do what he wants even if she wants to do something else.”

Doing what God asks is easy while she is on the mission. She says she is addicted to the Holy Ghost.

It tells her exactly what she needs to do through a thought or feeling.

However, she is afraid she won’t pray anymore once she returns home.

“Peter denied God three times,” Clark says. “I don’t want that. This Sister Clark is different, and I don’t want to go down the same path and fail.”

Clark says she didn’t know the church was true until about six months into her mission. She was reading from the Book of Mormon, a record of prophets in the ancient Americas, and everything clicked.

Her plan is to continue on her “path inspired by God.” She says she thinks she can be both an international lawyer for the UN and a mom.

But she doesn’t know if she wants to.

“Women especially want to do it all,” Jane says. “Whatever she and God wants, she can do it.”

* * *

“Even though we can’t see God, he is still listening and wants to hear from you,” Clark says to Gabby on Third Street. “Will you say a prayer tonight and just ask God if he’s there?”

“Sure.” Gabby shrugs unconvincingly. “I doubt he will answer, but sure.”

“I promise you, as you keep your eyes and heart open, God will come to you,” Clark says, cut off by a passing bus screeching its brakes. 

“I believe that you believe that he’s there,” Gabby shoots back, finally making eye contact with Clark. “Even if God could come down in front of me and prove he is real, I still would not worship him,” Gabby says, raising her eyebrows. “I have some issues with the decisions he makes, if he’s making them.”

She is no longer timid, but stands with her shoulders back, staring at Clark.

“Well good luck with your prayer tonight. I know he will be happy to hear from you.”

Clark sighs, looking at Gabby one more time before turning toward Allen to continue up Third Street.

That night, Clark and Allen pray before going to bed. They kneel on the floor and cross their arms. They think about all the people they met.

There wasn’t anything they were too concerned about with Gabby, and they know God will continue to work with her. Neither Clark nor Allen prays for her.