Way Below the Angels
The Pretty Clearly Troubled But Not Even Close to Tragic Confessions of a Real Live Mormon Missionary
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- $40.99
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- $40.99
Publisher Description
When Craig Harline set off on his two-year Mormon mission to Belgium in the 1970s, he had big dreams of doing miracles, converting the masses, and coming home a hero. What he found instead was a lot of rain and cold, one-sentence conversations with irritated people, and silly squabbles with fellow missionaries.
From being kicked -- literally -- out of someone's home to getting into arguments about what God really wanted from Donny Osmond, Harline faced a range of experiences that nothing, including his own missionary training, had prepared him for. He also found a wealth of friendships with fellow Mormons as well as unconverted locals and, along the way, gained insights that would shape the rest of his life.
Part religious history, part coming-of-age story, part witty spiritual memoir, this book takes readers beyond the stereotypical white shirts and name tags to reveal just how unpredictable, funny, and poignant the missionary life can be.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
You see them on bikes and on foot, their white shirts, badges, and backpacks identifying them as Mormon missionaries. A young man's mission can be a time of discovery and faith-building or a jarring, frightening experience. But no missionary returns home unchanged. Harline (Conversions), professor of European history at Brigham Young University, recounts his experience as a young missionary in Belgium in this delightful memoir. After intensive training at the Mormons' Missionary Training Center, he and thousands of his fellows are cast out into the world with minimal language skills and, he notes, little in the way of training for what the real world holds in store. As he dodges Belgians and fellow missionaries, weather and traffic, readers will laugh out loud at Harline's misadventures. But this tale is, at heart, a reflection, 40 years later, on how life doesn't always follow the rules set out by statisticians and spiritual advisers, and how growing up away from home can be profoundly unsettling. A thoughtful, wonderful read.
