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| Young Mormon Missionaries at Rutledge Hamburgers |
On a drizzly day in downtown Brownsville, four young women caught my attention at the traffic light. Three were blonde and caucasian, but all four wore ankle-length dresses and no makeup.
"Are you Amish?" I yelled out stupidly before seeing their black name tags, the kind used by their religion.
"Oh, you're Mormons?" I said, doubling down on my insult.(The group prefers the long name 'Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' and I knew that.)
Before I could find a parking place they'd disappeared, but I later found them at Rutledge Hamburgers along with four young men from the church.
"I hope I didn't insult you all, mistaking you for Amish, but I was in Iowa last year and ran into some Amish women at the Iowa Home Show and you ladies reminded me of them."
The friendly young people were mostly from Utah and surrounding states, although one young man is from the Dominican Republic.
"Does he help you with your Spanish?" I asked.
The kids are in Brownsville on two year missions, after which they will go back to their hometowns to live out their adult lives.
The church was founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith who received golden plates from the angel Moroni and translated them into the Book of Mormon. Smith hid the plates in a secret place and they've not been recovered.
The church bases its teachings primarily on the Book of Mormon and another book, the Pearl of Great Price, but, also trusts the Bible "as far as it's been translated correctly."
The church's headquarters are in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Good Kids, I gave a couple of nice young "Mormon" men a glass of ice water when they parked next to my house. I mentioned I was catholic but had read the book of Mormon years ago. When asked what I thought, my answer was it was.....interesting.
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