Educational Media Reviews Online

Get the Fire! Young Mormon Missionaries Abroad follows three nineteen year old men from Utah on a two year mission to Germany. Their first stop, as is the case with 60,000 young men and women Mormons each year, is at a missionary training center. It is at the training center that they come to always address each other by their formal titles, are encouraged to study the Missionary Handbook, give frequent testimony of their faith, and begin the practice of being in the company of other missionaries of the same sex around the clock. One former missionary claims this experience is akin to being in a “Marine boot camp moved to the Celestial Kingdom.” This training serves the young men well as they undertake their missionary duties in Germany. With only a developing facility with the German language they knock on doors and preach from street corners. For nearly two years they keep to a strict schedule of study and preaching. We see them confronted with frequent rejection and with occasional welcome. We see them secure in their convictions and in moments of doubt. At the end of their mission they return to Utah older, more experienced, and with a stronger understanding of their faith than when they had left home.

Nancy du Plessis does an excellent job of taking the viewer along with these men on their mission. Through tapes of their activities and interviews with the men she explores the powerful effects that indoctrination, time away from friends and family, exposure to a foreign culture, and an extended period of living in a heightened religious environment has on them. While following this group, du Plessis also presents the opinions of some men who had been through the Mormon missionary experience. The interplay of the opinions of this group with the experiences of the three young missionaries lends a sense of evenhandedness to the film.

This film will be of value to viewers with an interest in Mormon society. It will also serve those who are curious about missionary work and modern expressions of religion. It is recommended to viewers from high school to adult and to the libraries that serve them.