Questions to Ask Mormon Missionaries
Questions for a conversation with Latter-day Saint missionaries, whether they knocked on your door or you invited them in. The set covers the daily schedule and the rules they live by, companions and homesickness, what has changed in their own thinking, and the parts of their history they find hardest.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How long have you been out, and how long do you have left?
Why ask it
The most useful opener, because everything else depends on it. Six weeks in and eighteen months in produce entirely different answers about rules, language, and doubt.
Where are you from, and how different is it from here?
Why ask it
Most missionaries are young and a long way from home, and this treats them as people before treating them as representatives. It also tells you whether the local culture is foreign to them too.
Whose idea was the mission: yours, your family's, or somewhere in between?
Why ask it
Family expectation is a real factor and many will say so if the question carries no judgment. Watch for the difference between a decision someone describes making and one they describe accepting.
Did you have to learn a language for this, and how did that go?
Why ask it
Language assignments are made for them rather than chosen, and the training period is short. Answers usually include a specific early mistake, which is where the conversation stops being formal.
What does your day look like, start to finish?
Why ask it
The schedule is tightly structured, with set times for study, planning, and being out. Hearing it laid out makes plain how little of the day belongs to them, which reframes everything else they say.
What are the rules you live by out here, and which one is hardest?
Why ask it
Rules touch music, reading, family contact, and never being alone, and missionaries differ in which one chafes. This is a question about candor rather than doctrine.
How were you paired with your companion, and what's it like being with one person all day?
Why ask it
Companions are assigned and reassigned by the mission, which means months with almost no solitude. The answer tells you more about their actual week than any question about belief.
How often can you contact your family, and what's that like?
Why ask it
Contact rules have changed over the years and are a live topic among missionaries. Asked kindly, this often produces the most human moment in the conversation.
What do you do when someone is rude to you?
Why ask it
They meet hostility routinely and the first answer is usually more practiced than felt. Get past the rehearsed part and you learn what actually lands.
What's the strangest conversation you've had at a door?
Why ask it
This invites a story rather than a message, and nearly everyone has one ready. It also levels the exchange, which is what makes the harder questions possible later.
What did you believe before your mission that you see differently now?
Why ask it
Months of repetition and rejection change people, including what they think. Answers tend to concern grace, judging others, or how little of the training survived contact with real doorsteps.
How do you handle a question you can't answer?
Why ask it
Missionaries are trained young and without much formal theology, so admitting a gap takes some nerve. Whether they promise to find out, redirect to feeling, or simply say they do not know is the informative part.
Which part of your scripture do you actually return to for yourself?
Why ask it
This gets past assigned material to private reading. A specific passage with a personal reason attached is a real answer; a general endorsement of the whole book is a rehearsed one.
What's the difference between what you were taught to say and how you'd put it yourself?
Why ask it
There is a taught presentation and there is what a person thinks, and most missionaries can feel the seam. Inviting the second version without mocking the first is the most respectful move available here.
How do you know when to stop talking to someone?
Why ask it
There is real pressure toward results in this work, and this question touches it without accusation. Listen for whether they describe accepting a no, and how quickly.
What do you think people get wrong about your church?
Why ask it
You will hear a familiar set of corrections, which is useful in itself. It also shows what they get asked most, which says something about the neighborhood you both live in.
What part of your church's history do you find hardest?
Why ask it
Difficult history is discussed openly in church publications and awkwardly on doorsteps. Ask once, take whatever comes, and do not press for a concession: this is where a good conversation most often turns into an argument.
What do you think you'll do differently when you go home?
Why ask it
Return is a real cliff: study, work, dating, and the sudden absence of structure. Many have thought about it far more than they have said aloud.
What would you want me to understand, even if I never join?
Why ask it
This makes clear you are not a prospect, which takes pressure off both sides. What someone says once conversion is off the table is usually the most sincere thing they will offer.
Is there anything you'd like to ask me?
Why ask it
They almost always want to and are usually waiting to be invited. Ending here keeps the exchange mutual instead of leaving them interviewed.
Talking with missionaries at the door
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting it up honestly
Decide what you want before you open the door
A short friendly exchange, a long conversation, or a polite no are all reasonable, and all three go better for having been chosen. Missionaries would far rather hear a clear no than an ambiguous maybe.
Offer a chair if you want the real conversation
Ten minutes on a doorstep produces the presentation. A seat, a glass of water, and no obvious time limit produce a person.
Say where you stand
Telling them plainly that you are curious rather than considering joining changes what they are trying to do. Without it, every question you ask is heard as interest and a return visit gets scheduled.
Use their names
They are introduced by title and surname and spend most of the day being addressed that way or not at all. Asking for a first name, and using it, changes the register of the conversation immediately.
What goes wrong
Trying to win
They are young, working from training, and far from home. Beating them in an argument settles nothing and ends the part of the conversation that was worth having.
Leading with polygamy
It is the most predictable question they get and the answer is ready before you finish asking. Raise it later, if at all, once there is something real underneath the conversation.
Agreeing to a return visit you do not want
Saying yes to be pleasant costs them a wasted appointment and costs you an awkward second conversation. A direct no is kinder and they are entirely used to it.
Treating the visit as fieldwork
Observing people as specimens is easy to detect and closes them down. Ask questions you would be willing to answer about your own life.
Small things that change the conversation
- Offer water, especially if they have been walking in heat
- Ask where they are from before asking what they believe
- Let them ask you something in return
- Say once that you disagree, then move on rather than circling
- Ask what they have eaten today if the conversation stalls
- If you want them to stop calling, say so plainly rather than avoiding the door