In addition to a tight daily schedule, the missionaries have a lot of restrictions on their behavior. They have to address each other as Elder or Sister, avoiding first names. They must maintain conservative grooming standards: men must wear white shirts and ties, and women must wear modest skirts or dresses. They can call home only on Christmas Day and Mother’s Day. They have a 24-hour companion of the same sex and must stay an arm’s length from the opposite sex. They can’t see movies or watch TV, and can only listen to religious music or read religious books. Essentially, they have just one focus: to spread their faith. According to missionary Jake Erekson, “If you keep telling yourself, ‘Hey, I love contacting, I love knocking on doors,’ you’ll end up liking it.”

Not all missionaries grow to “love knocking on doors.” In the film GET THE FIRE!, former missionary Dmitri Yatsenko looks back on his days as a missionary with shame: “I spent two years knocking on doors trying to convince people that American Indians were really from Israel and that they practiced Christianity before Columbus and wrote in Egyptian. I am embarrassed about that because I had read many books. I was supposed to be an educated, well-informed person. A lot of missionaries have this same feeling.”

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