Coping with Threats to Self as a Mormon Missionary Many Latter-day Saint Missionaries speak of their proselytizing mission as a time of testing. Most return home strengthened in their beliefs and identity as Latter-day Saints. But some do not. This time of testing therefore involves real threats to identity that are linked to separation from home, encounters with alien cultures and alternative faiths, and challenges to personal and interpersonal beliefs about oneself. In order to cope with these threats, the Church, mission authorities, and the missionaries themselves construct strategies against the threats they perceive as a means of coping with them. These threats and coping strategies will be examined using interviews personal journals and institutional records, including the film ‘God’s Army.”

Melvyn Hammarberg