Book Review

Wayward Saints: The Godbeites and Brigham Young. By Ronald W. Walker. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. xxiv, 399 pp. Cloth, $49.95, isbn 0-252-02378-1. Paper, $25.00, isbn 0-252-06705-3.)

Gary Shepherd and Gordon Shepherd, twin brothers and authors of this work on Mormon missions, have based their work on an "edited integration of our journals and correspondence as youthful missionaries in Mexico during the mid-1960s." They sought to create a "documentary case description" of Mormon missionary life, supplementing the snippets of diaries and letters with an informative, annotated, analytical commentary covering the legendary Mormon missionary enterprise of the last half century. Emphasizing the period since World War II, the factual commentaries constitute the best description in print of the Mormon missionary system. The organized zeal of thousands of young missionaries propelled church membership from 979,454 souls in 1945 to over 10 million by 1998, more than half of whom now live outside the United States. If the Shepherds' commentary has any thesis, it is that the missionary endeavor has had a dual purpose since 1945: winning converts and, often overlooked, solidifying the faith of every young Mormon who "goes on a mission." Another conscious purpose is to provide leadership training for future church positions. Thus the title, Mormon Passage, accurately reflects the main theme of the work.

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The 300-odd pages of case study material, the cleverly edited diaries and letters, provide a vivid picture of the trials of everyday life, from bouts of diarrhea to the "Catholic abominations" of Guadalupe Day. The latter is a bit of Mormon anti-Catholicism from 1964, left untouched by the Shepherds as a gauge of their objectivity as more tolerant Saints in 1998. But the youthful enthusiasms, prejudices, and trials of Mormon missionaries can get to be wearisome after the first 100 pages, even to an outsider as empathetic as this reviewer.

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