The first contact that many people all over the world have with members of the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (or the first interaction with these folks when they happen to be in their "Mormon mode" of action and concerns) occurs through the door-to-door or "street proselytism" of a pair of L.D.S. Mormon missionaries, usually two attractively earnest young men in their late teens or early twenties on the 18 months or 2 years of mission that they undertake for their religious cult. Few Christians or others have a prior understanding of what their religion teaches and represents for these emissaries of the decidedly non-Christian (indeed, polytheistic) Mormon faith.

Richard T. Martin's "Dynamic Door Approaches" is only one of many books and audiovisual publications geared towards these missionaries' needs for hints, tips, strategies, advice, guidance, and so forth in encountering propective "clients" with whom to share their faith and the religious cult that promotes it, all in seemingly harmless ways that are far from probing what L.D.S. Mormonism teaches in full. Indeed, these young lads (and some lasses) have been prepared, at least usually, for the mission field at the Missionary Training Center, in Provo, Utah, where they study foreign languages which they may need for a "mission field", tactics to use, interpersonal dynamics, and many matters regarding their own indoctrination. Indeed, a book like "Dynamic Door Approaches" is among the kinds of manuals that the aspiring missionaries would be using in their training there. This particular volume gives prompts that help the L.D.S. missionary to make initial contacts with prospects/clients for conversion to their cult. Other manuals available to them help in pursuing subsequent sessions with these clients, on return visits after an initial contact has been made successfully. It helps the Christian who wishes to understand the L.D.S. missionaries and to be prepared for what they may say to read a volume such as this one.

Mormon missionaries (indeed any L.D.S. Mormon who finds himself in situations in his daily life wherein he can find occasions to explain and propagate his beliefs) often use topics of current popular interest to launch into what they claim that their cult has to offer and what it believes, at least on a superficial level. (Almost any L.D.S. missionary would be unlikely to probe too soon, in dealing with clients for conversion, the more bizarre depths of L.D.S. Mormonism's teachings, which can repel a client if he encounter such ideas head-on before the missionaries have readied him, along a gradual process, to consider them sympathetically.) The missionaries also make resort to "polling" on topics to engage a potential client in conversation. (They resort to so many such "polls" that one can only wonder how real much of such polling is, apart from role-playing.)

The reader of Martin's own book and of other similar to it will note also to what a far extent the L.D.S. missionaries play upon feelings and emotions, their own and those of their clients, in conveying their opinions and views. Subjectivity on every level carries much more weight among L.D.S. Mormons than among Christians, whose beliefs, bolstered by the Bible's own historical and other documentary value, have so much objective evidence that justifies and factually authenticates the claims of Christianity. A book which is geared towards L.D.S. Mormons setting out on their missions and which reveals how lush this resort to subjectivity is, when read critically, helps a Christian reader to understand the mentality and ethos that pervade Mormonism from top to bottom; this is Ed J. Pinnegar's "The Ultimate Missionary Companion" (Covenant Communications, 2001), which also, along the way (although not quite the primary concern in this book as it is in Martin's), provides many of those tips to L.D.S. proselytism for Mormon missionaries from which a Christian can benefit in understanding the Mormon missionaries, their mindset, piety, motivations, and tactics.

This emphasis on Mormonism's subjectivist leanings and agenda is not to deny that attempts to ground L.D.S. Mormonism in fact (archaeological, historical, etc.) exist. They do, and the literature of L.D.S. apologetics, exegesis, and presentation of whatever "intellectual and philosophical ramparts" that supposedly inhere in Mormonism, has become ever more increasingly sophisticated in recent decades. If a Christian who finds himself to be, for a Mormon missionary, a "client" for conversion to the L.D.S. faith, deals with a L.D.S. Mormon who is well steeped in L.D.S. apologetics on such a sophisticated level, he would find a good guide to such L.D.S. intellectualism in a collection of essays titled "The New Mormon Challenge: Responding to the Latest Defenses of a Fast-Growing Movement", edited by Francis J. Beckwith, Carl Mosser, and Paul Owen (Zondervan, 2002).

An older book from a L.D.S. point of view conveying more of what Christians might encounter in engaging in debate with L.D.S. Mormons on matters of doctrine, exegesis, and various controversies, simulates Christians confronting an unusually well-informed and quick-thinking pair of Mormons on their joint mission. This is A. Melvin McDonald's 1963 classic, "The Day of Defense" (Rev. Ed., Sounds of Zion, 1994). Reading this classic of L.D.S. Mormon apologetics, the Christian would have a clear idea of just how formidable the task of confronting Mormon claims can be; indeed, it only a Christian who is exceptionally well grounded in his own faith and is very knowledgeable, with a keenly analytical mind, who should choose to read a book like this one and then to undertake debates on such a level as that which this book depicts, Mormons and Christians making stout arguments respectively in favour of and against Mormonism as they hotly and keenly contest one another. (Of course, McDonald presents Mormons, in the persons of two missionaries defending themselves against an array mostly of Christian clergymen of varying denominational allegiances, as the victors.)

One should go to the wealth of printed and electronic resources, Mormon and counter-Mormon alike, that exist so abundantly to detail and to defend L.D.S. Mormon beliefs and claims, on the one hand, and to refute them, on the other. The classic resources to counter Mormonism are the various publications and WWW sites of Sandra Tanner and of Bill McKeever. The Amazon user can find much of their best work in searching Amazon's American, Canadian, and British WWW sites under the names of these experts and in undertaking Google or Yahoo type searches, again by their names, of the Internet. However, the point here has been to lead the Christian who is an Amazon user to the L.D.S. Mormons' own resources, particularly those geared to missionaries' work.

There are many other books by L.D.S. authors geared to Mormon apologetics and to missionaries' endeavours which one could suggest. On the WWW site of the major L.D.S. Mormon distributor, Desert Book, one can find several more such books and publications in other media. There even are books published as "trade paperbacks" by secular publishers that present L.D.S. Mormonism from Mormons' own vantage point, something that is becoming increasingly common as Mormons steadily gain more favourable social standing and acceptance in society at large. An example of such a "trade paperback" is W.F. Walker Johanson's "What is Mormonism All About?: Answers to 150 Most Commonly Asked Questions About the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (St. Martin's Press, 2002, in its "Griffin" line of paperbacks). A seasoned Christian will know how misleading and incomplete such books as this one are, but, it must be emphasised, Christians should read some of these books to be prepared for how the L.D.S. Mormons portray themselves.

So, Christian Amazon user and customer, obtain R.T. Martin's "Dynamic Door Approaches" and various books like it and other publications which convey the L.D.S. Mormons' views, values, and proselytising strategies in their own words. Even if the royalties from such purchases go to those are among the ranks of one of Christianity's adversaries, i.e. the L.D.S. Mormon cult, the gain in a Christian believer's preparedness to meet the challenges that Mormons pose makes the acquisition of at least a few such books well worth the business that you accord Amazon and other suppliers to have them!

The novel, written skillfully as worded for junior readers (at what probably is literate junior high school level of reading proficiency), retells the adventures of Chloë, Papi (both chihuahuas), Delgado (German shepherd) and other critters of canine and other species, based on the film of the same title. As for Chloë, the erstwhile pampered female embodiment of "chihuahua chic", she comes across more sympathetically in this novelette than in the motion picture about her adventures. The book is helpful, for those for whom it matters, in clarifying the narrative of the motion picture; especially in the action-packed conclusion of the film (but sometimes elsewhere, too), the tale whisks by so quickly that a viewer can be a bit perplexed about what exactly is happening and why. The novelette also fills in some motivation, background, and other such matters which add to one's enjoyment of the cute (for some viewers, cloying so) film. The colour photos of still images from the film are well chosen and reproduced at good quality, the paperback front cover presenting, as the image chosen, one of the visually striking posters which had served to publicise the movie. The rest of this Amazon user's review adapts comments about the film to the context of the novel.

Many cinephiles have loathed the film, "Beverly Hills Chihuahua", so probably they will react similarly to the published form of this chihauhua saga, but, dudes, loosen up! Sure, the story is more than a little "sappy", but take some time out to be "sappy and happy" viewing the movie or reading this novelette adaptation! Don't heckle these hounds! The adventures of these chihuahuas, other dogs, and of assorted animals is a delight, especially for those who have a "tender spot" for "man's best friend"!

This tale never was meant to appeal to the viewer's sophistication. On the other hand, it is not any sort of "chihuahua exploitation fiction (or film)", either. The touches of New Age mysticism, fortunately lightly and quirkily applied, may bother some Christian Fundamentalists readers without any sense of humour, but one can appreciate those elements of the film, and even more so of the novel retelling of it, as being as much gentle satire as anything else.

My favourite hounds in this California-Mexico romp are Papí, Chloë's ardent male canine admirer and one very determinedly valiant chihuahua, and Delgado, the down-on-his-luck, butch German shepherd hound who comes to the rescue of, and does various acts of kindness for, Chloë, even when he misinterprets the reasons for Chloë's second disappearance. Then, too, who cannot but love the thronging hoarde of chihauhuas among the ruins of an ancient indigenous Aztec human-canine culture? Seeing or reading about Chloë trying to find the mighty voice of her "inner chihuahua" (as opposed to pampered pet yips and whimpering) with the aid of the leader, Monte, and female chihuahua spirit guide, Margarita, of this pack of chihuahuas is very amusing; I wish that this bit of animal humour had been as further extended in the movie as it is in the novel!

May a Spanish-language edition appear on the market, the more welcome that it would be for such exaltation of Latino and amerindian heritage! This novel, recounting the story in English, like the English-language film on which it is based, is a pack of fun, and not just for children, the English style not being unduly too basic to impede adult pleasure in this tale of tail-wagging fun and mock heroics!

Great figures of religious history with musical aspects among their more secondarily known accomplishments are fascinating personages. Martin Luther's importance in music of the Reformation which he launched is at least fairly well documented and widely known. Another is Emma Hale Smith, a seminal figure in the so-called "Restoration" so beloved of Campbellites and of the two major brances of Mormonism, i.e. the polytheistically pagan, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (L.D.S.) and the Trinitarian Christian, hence monotheistic, Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints (R.L.D.S., now known as the Community of Christ (as well as various splinter Mormon groups), but Emma Smith's musical contributions seldom have been probed so deeply as they deserve. Right from the outset, Emma Hale Smith set the precedent for Mormonism's uniquely women-dominated ranks of so many of its foremost names in the lore of hymnody. Jack Ergo (of the Community of Christ, one of its most expert and active musical leaders) would be an excellent candidate to write a "musical biography" of this fascinating lady, Emma Hale Smith!

Quite an extraordinary life, indeed, was that of Emma Hale Smith, the first (and only legal) wife of the polygamous Mormon "prophet", Joseph Smith Junior. The best biography of this strong, stalwart, and musical woman (after whom the dear departed mother, née Emma Frances Roach, of the author of this Amazon user's review, was named) is by co-authors Linda King Newall and Valeen Tippetts Avery, "Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith", 2nd (rev.) ed., University of Illinois Press, 1994. Seldom has a biography, after several feebler efforts already had been published by others, opened up so much astonishing new information about a figure. The reader is encouraged, even more than usual in the case of books having undergone revision, to use the 1994 rather than the earlier 1984 edition. The malevolent antics of Mark Hofmann, the infamous L.D.S. Mormon forger, some of whose falsified documents had influenced the writing of the 1984 edition, took a toll on the accuracy of the 1984 edition's accuracy; sorting things out aright after Hofmann's misleading forgeries had been revealed as such, the rewrite of this biography of Emma H. Smith has rectified a number of matters of fact in the 1994 revision; of course, the revision benefits from the more usual advantages of added research during the intervening decade.

For a musician (mostly an hymnist and singer), it simply is amazing how much musical activity Emma H. Smith undertook. One could wish, indeed, that this book would have dealt in further depth on that aspect of Emma Hale Smith's activities and talents. Emma is remembered, aside from putting up with her horny and unprincipled, good-looking, polygamous pseudo-prophet husband's philandering ways (and various other scams), for the very first published Mormon hymnal (words only, intended for use with pre-existant hymn tunes), as its title page acknowledges in the words "A Collection of Sacred Hymns, for the Church of the Latter Day Saints, Selected by Emma Smith" (with aid, unmentioned on that t.p., of William Wines Phelps, another important early figure in Mormon hymnody whose contributions included writing hymns rather than having served mainly as a compiler of hymns, like Emma Smith), but how many know that Emma H. Smith was involved in countless efforts of hymnody, after that first famous Mormon hymnal (dated 1835 on its t.p.) of Emma's, which she produced before the split between the L.D.S. pagan and R.L.D.S. Christian Mormon groups was to occur? She went on to contribute to hymnody in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, for years after the exodus to the Gringo West of the "Utah Mormons" under J. Smith Jr.'s polygamous and polytheistic successor, Brigham Young. Emma's life was hard, tumultuous, and faithful to an heroic degree.

Due largely to Emma's influence, there was a monotheistic and Trinitarian variant of Mormonism (the R.L.D.S. Church or Community of Christ, as already mentioned), plus lots of fine hymns in the hymnody of the L.D.S. and R.L.D.S. groups alike that have come down through the years. Both the L.D.S. heathen Mormon cult and the R.L.D.S. Christian Mormon sect owe a much of their musical clout to Emma H. Smith. Hopefully a book-length study of Emma Smith activities in sacred music someday will appear. For now, at least, the life of this sterling figure of hymnody has been set down in greater depth and at greater length than any book prior (or subsequent) to it ever has done. There was quite some stir when this book appeared, since, from having taken Emma Smith's rather than Joseph Smith Junior's perspective, the image of the latter, the putative founding "prophet" of Mormonism, was tarnished (and justly so in the case of that philandering charlatan!). However, there was no overt attempt in either edition of this book to defame Joe Smith, whose hagiographic image in Mormon literature is belied by the truth of things; telling the facts about "The Prophet", Joseph Smith Junior, as well as about his wife, longsuffering Emma Hale Smith, simply laid the facts into public view in a manner that is (to say the least of it!) less than flattering. For all of that, readers whose interests embrace sacred music and hymnody, Mormonism of all stripes, and women's studies, will enjoy this well written biography of "the Elect Lady" of the Mormon "Restoration".

I can agree with Nicolas Rapier's Amazon.ca user's review to a degree regarding the worth of J.J. Goodrich's quickie bio of Keanu Reeves, "The Keanu Matrix". Yes, the book is superficial and Goodrich handles the assignment less well than the DVD documentary (so enjoyable), "Keanu Reeves: Journey to Success", but this book is, after all, clearly for fans of Keanu Reeves, not for use in university level "film studies" programmes. For those of us who love nearly everything about Keanu Reeves and all of the work that this stunningly (and exotically) handsome celebrity has done for Hollywood and for smaller-scale, independent cinema, too (plus his bass guitar playing in his musical group, Dogstar, his theatre work, etc.), a book like this provides its own fan-oriented pleasures.

When I received my copy, my heart sank as I saw the words on the cover, "From the files of the 'National Enquirer'". When I had ordered it I did not notice, in my Keanu-Reeves-fan-haste to order another book about him, that the "National Enquirer" was mentioned in the Amazon.ca notice! I remember all too well when the "National Enquirer" was truly no more than an utterly disreputable and unscrupulous "scandal sheet". To this day I can recall blazing headlines, in the 1950s and early 1960s, on front pages, like one which burned permanently into my memory, "Dogs Chase, Rape, Woman in Woods" (with a b&w photo of a scantily clad damsel running in terror as a pack of dogs (German shepherds, I seem to recall) pursued her, slavering at the jaws with rapine delight.

Well, "National Enquirer" input or otherwise, Goodrich's entertaining account of Keanu Reeves and of his life on and off screen is far from sinking to that sort of clearly fictitious level! Goodrich certainly does report an astonishing quotient of the loves, foibles, hobbies, and more of Keanu Reeves with relish, but, I would aver, seemingly with some sense of responsibile restraint, to the extent that the author admits that hearsay is only that, not being fully substantiated fact. This kind of flim-flam, to admit the truth, is fun to read! The level of artistic insight into (and analysis of) the work of Reeves and of others involved in his many film, theatre, and musical projects is rudimentary at best, often almost absent. However, the book is a fun read, taken on its own terms and at its unabashedly populist level.

Before obtaining Goodrich's lightweight volume, the buyer should consider acquiring Brian J. Robb's study, "Keanu Reeves: an Excellent Adventure" in either its 1997 or 2003 edition (or both, if you are as keen a collector of all things Keanu as I am!). For what there is of substance in Goodrich's book, there is little that Robb does not include in his much finer and more probing study, which also includes good documentation and excellent photos. (Robb also is more circumspect in accounting for Keanu's love life, seemingly androgynous sexuality or sexual allure, showing welcome restraint in dealing with such matters, and Robb's high intelligence and artistic insight, coloured by what seems possibly to be a gay sensibility, deals with Reeves' art and life with more sensitivity.) I suspect that Goodrich relied more than a little on the first (1997) edition of Robb's book (the revised edition of which appeared in the same year, 2003, as that of Goodrich's bio's publication).

However, for a fan, there is enough that Robb does not recount about Keanu Reeves to make it worth having Goodrich's book about this super-star, too, if you are a loyal fan. As for the b&w photos included (less abundant and less well reproduced in Goodrich's book than in Robb's bio), many which Goodrich chose to number among his book's illustrations differ from what Robb has chosen to include in his own book's editions, a factor that may affect the decisions of some fans in acquiring Goodrich's book. Heck, if you are a true-blue fan, you will want all three volumes (the two editions of Robb's book plus Goodrich's entertaining bio, too). Go for the gusto, Keanu fan, and obtain that DVD documentary and get all of the three books, Goodrich's "The Keanu Matrix" included!

Joseph Smith Junior's "Book of Mormon" (BoM), since the time of its first publication in Palmyra, N.Y., in 1830 (some scholars insist on the real date as 1829), has exerted influence all out of proportion to its intrinsic value. The book is exceedingly dull and insipid to read. It takes a "cheer squad" of Mormons (R.L.D.S. or L.D.S.) to work up any respect for this piece of tiresome fakery and snooze-inducing, sub-sub-standard prose, which Mark Twain so aptly called "chloroform in print".

Doubleday missed an opportunity to make a trade edition available of this kinky, funky religious classic. The text which Doubleday elected to print for fully commercial distribution is the presently accepted one, copyrighted 1981, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (L.D.S.), a text which is encrusted with editorial accretions, emendations, and changes inflicted on the torpid fustian of Joseph Smith's tortured prose, perpetuated by now across years within three consecutive centuries. There have been notable attempts to return to a more authentic text of the BoM, and Doubleday should have insisted on printing a more exact text than what is available free from the L.D.S. Mormon cult in its missionary endeavours.

Atop that, Doubleday's text is visually bland, downright (and needlessly) glumly stolid. Printing the text in double columns is not at all inviting to the reader's eyes. The currently standard edition as published by the L.D.S. cult itself, in various bindings and of varying physical quality, is much more alluring to a reader's vision. It is difficult enough to trudge through Jospeh Smith's tiresome prose, turgid and pseudo-archaic in the worst way, without having to read it in a form so uninviting as on the pages of this edition.

Doubleday also has published Grant Hardy's study edition of the BoM, titled "The Book of Mormon: a Reader's Edition" (ISBN 0-25207341-X) from the then official L.D.S. 1920 text, thankfully, published full page rather than in double columns. Hardy's study helps are welcome and helpful, at least from an indoctrinated L.D.S. point of view. However, the fulsome stodginess of Joseph Smith Junior's own dreadful English remains, along with the 1920 and prior L.D.S. texts' own array of alterations and emendations which had accumulated by 1920 and now by 19821 to remove the text of Smith's words from the readings of the earliest manuscripts and editions.

If the reader really wants, out of a sense of cultural duty or from sheer curiosity, to read the BoM, let him at least acquire the moderately updated rendering done from a better original text, in the "Revised Authorized Version" (or "R.A.V.") of the BoM that is available as published by Herald House, thus from the official publisher of the Community of Christ (a.k.a. Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or "R.L.D.S."). The R.L.D.S. "Authorized Version" (or "A.V.") BoM's text (ISBN 0-83090275-0) as accepted by the Community of Christ is closer to Joseph Smith Junior's original wording, in all of its authentic turgidity, while the R.L.D.S. "Revised Authorized Verson" (the ISBN of an economical edition being 0-83090273-2) of the Community of Christ is a modest update in current modern English of the text, the latter hence being a wee bit less tedious to read than the former.

If the reader simply wants to have an acquaintance with what the BoM is about, without reading its hundreds of pages of torpid prose, he can procure a breezily appealing and very thorough recast of it into the idiomatic modern English as Lynn Matthews Anderson simplifies it (working from the L.D.S. rather than from a R.L.D.S. text), somewhat abridging the bloated and overly-extended accounts of the putative narratives, visions, and discourses that fill the BoM's pages. Anderson's appealing adaptation is titled "Easy-to-Read Book of Mormon" (Estes Book Co., 1995) and is available (from Amazon or elsewhere) in a paperback edition (ISBN 0-96449570-8) as well as in an hardcover edition. For readers who wish to have a L.D.S. edition which modernises the English less drastically than Anderson recasts it, while retaining the text of the BoM more fully, a choice (as a L.D.S. alternative to Herald House R.L.D.S.' R.A.V. of the BoM in modern idiom) is "A Plain English Reference to the Book of Mormon", as Timothy B. Wilson updates Smith's English prose (Bonneville Books, 1998, ISBN 1-55517401-9).

The message for the publisher of this trade edition is this: "Doubleday, guys, when you are ready to reprint the BoM, why not seek out a superior text in more agreeable presentation? Go to it (next time), dudes!"

NOTA BENE: As per s.o.p., a L.D.S. Mormon (B. Robert by name) has objected to the review as it first appeared on Amazon.com, that its text outmodedly reeks merely of anti-Mormon bigotry. Since L.D.S. Mormons are prone to have such knee-jerk reactions to any opinion that varies from their own cultish one, here is added to the text of this review itself part of the reply, adapted, to that reader, as follows:

A secular (trade) publisher is not held to printing the current standard text of the BoM; in fact, he is not bound to print any of these three "standard" sanctioned texts of either of major Mormon groups, the two standard texts of the Community of Chirst (R.L.D.S.) or the copyrighted 1981 standard text of the L.D.S. cult; it remains true that an edition based on a more critical text would have been a better (and far more interesting) choice on the part of Doubleday. The L.D.S. cult itself is preparing critical text and variorum editions of the BoM, for that matter! Why should Doubleday at least not print, for example, a BoM according to the wording of the 1830 (1829) edition, something that would be of interest to many Mormons as well as to others?

Any religious group that passes itself off as Christian but is anti-Trinitarian is a cult (so that's how as this review quite legitimately uses the term), thus the L.D.S. group is a cult, while the Trinitarian R.L.D.S. (Community of Christ) group has been a Christian denomination (or an only mildly devient Chistian sect) right from its inception, albeit one that is becoming increasing "liberal" in its drift (but is not, at least yet, a cult). Trinitarianism (the doctrine of both Christ's simultaneous divinity and humanity, within the Trinity, is among such other crucial doctrines) is not the only possible divide between Church (or denomination, sect) and cult, but it is "The Great Divide" that is what one usually confronts which makes a group cultic in essence. In addition to rejecting Trinitarianism, the L.D.S. cult embraced polytheism, so that it is not even monotheistic (and L.D.S. arguments that its Mormonism now worships only the Father, among the many gods that it teaches to exist, do not clear it of the charge of polytheism). Mormonism om its L.D.S. really has become a different world religion rather than simply an heretical varian of Christianity. That Mormonism could in its early days branch into Christian (R.L.D.S.) and pagan (L.D.S.) forms is one of the most fascinating aspects of the religion that Joseph Smith bequeathed to a suffering, conflict-besotted planet.

No, there is no need to back up to the 1970s to situate this Amazon contributor's reaction. Mainstream, highly doctrinally compromised Protestant denominations may choose, from politeness or from doctrinal indifference, to refer to the L.D.S. cult as a church, but there are plenty of more doctrinally strict Christians who recognise the cult, non-Christian, indeed heathen nature of L.D.S. Mormonism. There is room to disagree about such matters, today as there was yesterday.

Incidentally, personal opinion, as here, can sustain an high regard for the religiously intellectual status of both forms of Mormonism, including regularly reading scholarly L.D.S. Mormon publications, to which this writer subscribes, (e.g., "B.Y.U. Studies", all of the FARMS' serial publications, etc.), with great interest; these periodicals (and many L.D.S. books, too) very often are more rigourously learned and probing than far too many Christian publications, Protestant or Catholic are (though, of course, not thus superior to all such). When one is from an Utah family, it is not surprising that one can find L.D.S. Mormonism so inherently interesting. This contributor has taken care to warn, in several Amazon reviews, that a Christian zealot under-estimates the sophistication of Mormonism to his own peril, especially in apologetic interchanges. It is no compromise of Christian principle to insist on NOT misrepresenting what Mormons believe. The truth about L.D.S. Mormonism is of sufficient concern to a believing Christian that he has no need to distort what Mormonism really does teach and practise. To misrepresent Mormonism is usually either a sign of intellectual dishonesty (and hence, of uncharitable contempt) or of ignorance of Mormonism's own sources and of other more honest Protestant and Catholic evaluations of Mormonism. Neither is it contradictory for a believing Christan to hold a VERY high regard for Mormon accomplishments, artistically, academically, and in other ways. Modern-day L.D.S. Mormonism indeed, fuguratively speaking, has made a silk purse out of the sow's ear of the religion that Joseph Smith Junior founded, as he, Brigham Young, and other L.D.S. Mormon founders formulated it.

There is an abundant literature in the specialised Mormon book trade about missions. Some of it is directly relevant to the needs of the missionaries themselves for formation and for guidance "in the field". Ed J. Pinegar, who has long headed the L.D.S. Mormon cult's Missionary Training Center (in Provo, Utah) alone has produced quite a clutch of works, in print and in other media, to train, advise, and to counsel Mormon missionaries. This very book, "The Ultimate Missionary Companion", also exists in what claims, variously, on different Amazon WWW sites to be in unabridged or in abridged form, as a set of audiocassettes, of the same title (from Covenant Audio). Another such audiocassette resource, among others by this popular figure in L.D.S. missiology, is Pinegar's "Being a Missionary: 10 Different Talks in One Collection" (Covenant Communications 51995, a boxed set of 6 sound cassettes, bearing, as indicated on the plastic box, the ISBN 1-57734-038-8 ); that set of tapes, however, consists of individual discourses about L.D.S. Mormon missionary work and preparation therefore, unlike "The Ultimate Missionary Companion" (whether in audio or book form), which takes a more continuously (albeit somewhat loosely) methodical approach to the subject.

Richard T. Martin's "Dynamic Door Approaches: Fifty Successful Tracting and Telephone Dialogues for Missionaries" Bountiful, Utah: Horizon Publishers, 1998, ISBN 0-8829-0619-4) gives advice to L.D.S. Mormon missionaries on how to make their initial contacts with potential clients in door-to-door, telephone, and street proselytism. (There is an Amazon user's review, by the writer of these words, of Martin's book.) There is, of course, much more written and published by others of Pinegar's and Martin's heathen co-religionists to suit the needs of the L.D.S. cult's extensive and international mission outreach.

The initial contact that many people all over the world have with members of the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (or the first interaction with these folks when they happen to be in their "Mormon mode" of action and concerns) occurs through the door-to-door or "street proselytism" of a pair of such L.D.S. Mormon missionaries, such as those whom Pinegar himself trains; the ones who are likely to be at your door usually are two attractively earnest young men in their late teens or early twenties on periods of eighteen months or two years of mission which they undertake for their religious cult. Few Christians or others have a prior understanding of what the L.D.S. Mormon religion teaches and constitutes in the minds of these emissaries of the decidedly non-Christian (indeed, polytheistic) Mormon faith.

Although this may seem like a peculiar observation, the highly acclaimed and popular film, "Latter Days" and the novel of the same title, which T. Fabris adapted from C. Jay Cox' screenplay for that movie, portray L.D.S. Mormon missionaries and Mormonism itself quite realistically; the tension between the ideals of the young men, causing the need to live up to the L.D.S. cult's shiningly saintly image of itself, and their natural human foibles and ordinary interests and aspirations on a less exalted plain, correspond faithfully to what L.D.S. missionaries experience during their missionary endeavours and in more mundane, "off-duty" aspects of their lives. True to life, too, is the cult's relentlessly unforgiving, rigid refusal to help any young man who falls short in his personal morality to live up to the L.D.S. model of perfection, which is strong on scrupulosity but weak on compassion, that pushes many young L.D.S. members of particularly sensitive disposition to secrecy, despair, and/or revolt. Whether "Latter Days" is primarily a "gay film" or, rather, a motion picture treatment of L.D.S. Mormonism, is a matter that one could argue as much one way as the other.

Something that soon impresses itself on a reader of books such those by Pinegar and Martin, or by other writers who undertake the spiritual and learning aspects of the training and guidance of L.D.S. missionaries, is to what a far extent the L.D.S. missionaries play upon feelings and emotions, their own and those of their clients, in conveying their Mormon religious opinions and views. Subjectivity on every level carries much more weight among L.D.S. Mormons than among Christians, whose beliefs, by contrast, are bolstered by the Bible's own historical and other documentary value, which has a wealth of objective evidence to justify and factually to authenticate the claims of Christianity. There is little such objective evidence to support L.D.S. Mormonism's claims for its own teachings and to vindicate the supposedly ancient origins of much of the ersatz "scriptures" (in the "Book of Mormon" and in the "Pearl of Great Price") from which such claims derive, hence the dependence on subjectivity as a means of impressing upon converts to Mormonism a conviction of whatever rightness they come to perceive in the cult's premises. Books like those of Pinegar and Martin, geared towards L.D.S. Mormons setting out on their missions, reveal how lush this resort to subjectivity is. Reading them critically helps a Christian reader to understand the mentality and ethos that pervade Mormonism from top to bottom. Since, along the way (although explicit tactics are not quite the overridingly primary concern in Pinegar's book that they are in Martin's), such books provide many of such missionary trainers' tips to L.D.S. proselytism for Mormon missionaries from which a Christian can benefit to detect, informed in advance, the Mormon missionaries' mindset and pagan piety, as well as their motivations and tactics.

Mormon missionaries (indeed any L.D.S. Mormon who finds himself in situations in his daily life wherein he can find occasions to explain and propagate his beliefs) often use topics of current popular interest to launch into what they claim that their cult has to offer and what it believes, at least on a superficial level. (In dealing with clients for conversion, the L.D.S. missionary is unlikely to probe too soon the more bizarre depths of L.D.S. Mormonism's teachings, which can repel a client if he encounter such ideas head-on before the missionaries have readied him, along a gradual process, to consider them sympathetically, by which time they have desensitised the client to just how blatantly unchristian and unbiblical so much of L.D.S. Mormon teaching really is.) The missionaries also make resort to "polling" on topics to engage a potential client in conversation. (They resort to so many such "polls" that one only can wonder how real much of such polling is, apart from role-playing.) Martin's book is especially explicit in supplying L.D.S. missionaries with "prompts" for topical discussions and "polls".

This emphasis on Mormonism's subjectivist leanings and agenda is not to deny that attempts to ground L.D.S. Mormonism in fact or precedent (archaeological, historical, etc.) exist. They do, and the literature of L.D.S. apologetics, exegesis, and presentation of whatever "intellectual and philosophical ramparts" that supposedly inhere in Mormonism, has become ever more increasingly sophisticated in recent decades. If a Christian who finds himself to be (from the Mormon missionary's standpoint) a "client" for conversion to the L.D.S. faith, has to deal with a L.D.S. Mormon who is well steeped in L.D.S. apologetics on such a sophisticated level, he would find a good guide to such L.D.S. intellectualism in a collection of essays titled "The New Mormon Challenge: Responding to the Latest Defenses of a Fast-Growing Movement", edited by Francis J. Beckwith, Carl Mosser, and Paul Owen (Zondervan, 2002).

An older book from a L.D.S. point of view conveying more of what Christians might encounter in engaging in debate with L.D.S. Mormons on matters of doctrine, exegesis, and various controversies, simulates a clear-cut situation in which several Christians confront an unusually well-informed and quick-thinking pair of Mormons on their joint mission. This is A. Melvin McDonald's 1963 classic, "The Day of Defense" (Rev. Ed., Sounds of Zion, 1994). Reading this classic of L.D.S. Mormon apologetics, the Christian would have a clear idea of just how formidable the task of confronting Mormon claims can be; indeed, it is only a Christian who is exceptionally well grounded in his own faith and is very knowledgeable therein, with a keenly analytical mind, who should choose even to read a book like this one, whether or not he then proceeds to undertake debates on such a level as that which this book depicts, Mormons and Christians making stout arguments respectively in favour of and against Mormonism as they hotly and keenly contest one another. (Of course, McDonald presents Mormons, in the persons of two missionaries defending themselves, as the ultimate victors, against an array mostly of Christian clergymen of varying denominational allegiances.)

As well as preparing oneself, by awareness of L.D.S. Mormon mission tactics and mindset ahead of the arrival of the cult's missionaries, one, of course, should proceed further to avail oneself of the wealth of printed and electronic resources, Mormon and counter-Mormon alike, that exist so abundantly to detail and to defend L.D.S. Mormon beliefs and claims, on the one hand, and to refute them, on the other. The classic resources to repugn Mormonism are the various publications and WWW sites of Sandra Tanner and of Bill McKeever. The Amazon user can find some of their best work in searching Amazon's WWW sites, especially Amazon.com and Amazon.ca, under the names of these experts and in undertaking Google or Yahoo type searches (again by their names) of the Internet. However, the point here has been to lead the Christian who is an Amazon user to the L.D.S. Mormons' own resources, particularly those geared to missionaries' work.

There are many other books by L.D.S. authors geared to Mormon apologetics and to missionaries' endeavours which one could suggest. On the WWW site of the major L.D.S. Mormon distributor, Desert Book, one can find several more such books and publications in other media. There even are books published as mass-marketed paperback books by secular publishers (even quite prestigious firms) which present L.D.S. Mormonism from the Mormons' own vantage point, something that is becoming increasingly common as Mormons steadily gain more favourable social standing and wider acceptance in society at large. An example of such a "trade paperback" is W.F. Walker Johanson's "What is Mormonism All About?: Answers to 150 Most Commonly Asked Questions About the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (St. Martin's Press, 2002, in its "Griffin" line of paperbacks). A seasoned Christian will know how misleading and incomplete such books as this one are, but, it must be emphasised, Christians should read some of these books to be prepared for how the L.D.S. Mormons portray themselves.

It is rather seldom that pamphlets of such short length accomplish so much good in so little space, as Roman Catholic evangelist Jimmy Akin does in the brochure in the series, "CTS Explanations". The author sets out a general description of pagan L.D.S. Mormonism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, taking care briefly to distinguish it from the Christian variant, R.L.D.S. Mormonism (of the Community of Christ, formerly named the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints).

Jimmy Akin (who also is the author of many other pamphlets about Roman Catholic doctrine and practice) writes, in a measured and moderate tone, welcomely lacking in stridency or rant, about what L.D.S. Mormonism believes, in broad but adequately comprehensive terms, and examines the claims of this heathen religion and of its putative scriptures. He resolutely, but gently, refutes the claims and upholds the truth of the Christian faith. His candour is refreshing and he avoids the mistake of taking too obsessively a specifically Romish Catholic stance against the false and eclectic L.D.S. Mormon faith, which, among other heinous defects, rejects Christianity's Trinitarian monotheism. Mormonism is not merely uncatholic, it is blatently unchristian and polytheistic.

To engage in apologetic debate and other endeavours requires more exploration in detail of L.D.S. Mormonism than this pamphlet provides, but Akin's short overview of L.D.S. Mormonism is a very good resource to read and to consult in the initial stages of coping with this bizarre counterfeit of Christianity that so completely twists it into something little recognisable as some kind of "Restored" Christianity, which is what it purports to be. L.D.S. Mormonism is unrecognisable as any identifiably legitimate stream of genuine Christianity!

Few books of similar notoriety are so utterly tedious to read. Joseph Smith Junior's Book of Mormon (BoM), which purports to be scripture and is considered as such by Mormons (L.D.S., Community of Christ, various other factions of Mormonism), makes for singularly tiresome and bland reading matter. Mark Twain, in chapter 16 of his "Roughing It", describes this work as "cloroform in print" and so it is! To quote Mark Twain in the context wherein that memorably apt phrase appears:

"All men have heard of the Mormon 'Bible', but few except the 'elect' have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so slow, so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone, in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason. The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel, half modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern, which was about every sentence or two, he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as 'exceeding sore', 'and it came to pass', etc., and made things satisfactory again. And 'it came to pass' was his pet [phrase, one among such others]. If he had left that out, his 'Bible' would have been only a pamphlet."

Ah, how sweet it is to savour that prestigious and cogent description of the putative Mormon prophet Smith's wearisome and clumsy forgery! Yet, because of the impact that the BoM has had on folk religion, right down to current times, one feels an obligation to read this literary monstrosity in order to understand the phenomenom of Mormonism.

What to do to make the onerous task less disagreeable and quicker? One can read the BoM in translation; there have been several into various languages, of which this commentator has two translations into Spanish, one put out by the L.D.S. Mormons (of the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"), copyrighted 1992, and another distributed by the R.L.D.S. Community of Christ (of the formerly named Reorganized Church of Jesus of Latter Day Saints), 3rd ed., 1979. These Spanish translations, especially the first mentioned, read more fluently, dissolving some of Smith's crudely archaic English, than does the work's English original.

Nonethess, the excessive length at which Smith recounts his tales, and places long-winded speeches and accounts of visions into the mouths of his ancient cast of characters, still tries one's patience sorely. For a book which Joseph Smith supposedly translated from a vanished original (if ever such ancient gold and metal plates existed, which is more than doubtful!) that had abridged, yet under "inspiration", earlier writings by the supposed prophets and others to whom Smith attributed the separately named parts of the BoM, it is astonishing how much dross and excessive length remains in such a putative abridgement! Does one really have to cope with such lengthy and flaccid verbosity just to complete the chore of reading through Smith's fakery?

Well, actually, no! One can read an abridgement of Joseph Smith Junior's tiresome narratives and pseudo-prophetical speeches and get through the unwelcome chore with welcome rapidity! There have been a few such abridgements over the years. Currently available is Lynn Matthews Anderson's simplified version of the BoM. Shortening it and putting Smith's contorted archaism's into modern and highly readable English, the reader can breeze his way through this piece of religious fiction in very short order. The BoM really does not merit any closer attention than what Anerson (who, be it noted, is a "true believer" and a member of the L.D.S. cult) makes of it, anyway, unless one addresses the BoM as a dutiful scholar or has to make use of it in apologetic endeavours, debate, and close analysis.

Stripped of its pretentious aspirations, the BoM's narratives seem more trifling and foolish than inspiring. Anderson's prose is lean and straightforward, stripping the nonessentials of wording and detail away to leave the bare (even bald!) and unadorned accounts as the rather silly and arbitrary tales that they are. The many visions and speeches recounted in the BoM more obviously reveal themselves to the reader as the uncouth (but rudimentarily clever) confections from Biblical models, and gauchely awkward ones at that, which they are.

Anderson makes her abridgement of the BoM from the accepted L.D.S. text of the work. There are many corruptions in the L.D.S. text, especially when compared to the more faithful R.L.D.S. editions of it, or, certainly, to the critical texts of the BoM which have been undertaken. However, such matters are of little import in using and commending a welcome abridgement such as Anderson's is. Get it, read it, and mostly forget about it, having done your reader's duty to history and to this bit of Americana lore!