This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

More than 30 years after an LDS mission to South America, my memories of that time are mostly of doors: dogs and doors, rain and doors, unanswered doors, sun-blistered doors, slammed doors.

It was called "tracting." Time not spent sleeping and eating - or woefully coping with what shouldn't have been eaten - was supposed to be spent knocking on doors.

My companions and I would alternate doors. Sometimes we were invited inside, but mostly it was knock, talk and walk. Crushing boredom was punctuated at odd moments by the astonishingly bizarre.

Yeah, I know, spreading the gospel isn't supposed to be boring, but there's something really wrong with you if, by the 50,000th time you've done anything, it hasn't become at least a bit tedious.

As for the bizarre, I was bitten, assaulted and flashed. In his haste to be rid of us, one angry man slammed the door on the head of his pet chicken. A drunk woman shut my necktie in another door. My companion had to cut it off so we could leave.

Were we successful? I don't know. In two years, it worked about 20 times. Because it was South America, most of our converts were disenchanted Catholics.

Here's the thing: I don't remember winning any of them over by telling them that they were blind or stupid or that the pope was evil. Not only was this a good way to get your head pounded flat, it didn't work.

I know it didn't because I tracted with Elder Barkus for 19 days. Few things are worse than doing something you don't particularly like with someone you really don't like.

Barkus was big on conversion through insult. If someone told us she was Catholic, he'd say something like, "You know the pope is the devil [murderer, liar, etc.], don't you?"

Treating their venerated leader like this made most people mad and scared the rest. It also bugged me, and I wasn't even Catholic.

I asked Barkus if being told Joseph Smith or Jesus Christ was a charlatan would change his mind about them, or would it simply make him mad?

Barkus didn't care. He said we were called to preach the gospel with forcefulness even if it hurt people's feelings and got on their nerves. I should try it.

I did. Between doors, I began describing to Barkus each of the Seven Dwarves naked. It got on his nerves. He complained to the mission president. I got chewed out and he got transferred.

Regardless of which one you're on, the road to spiritual fulfillment is a deeply personal one. Finding God occurs in the human heart, and the doors to that don't swing open in a battle of wits.

rkirby@ sltrib.com