Missionary Work in Afghanistan

My niece Emily, who is one of the nicest and most interesting young people I know, asked me a question about missionary work in the church here. I wrote her a reply, then decided to post it here for your benefit. Please ask any curiosity you've got about this place or this experience and I'll keep it in mind as I ponder things to post here.

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The branch here has not got any missionaries in it, for we are not allowed by law to proselyte Christianity. This is a Muslim nation. That means that the national religion is Islam. There is no national religion in the US nor most Democratic nations like ours. Other religions are permitted to practice here, but they do not receive the benefits that Islam does. For example, 5 times a day there is a "call to prayer" broadcast throughout the city from large speakers on poles, not unlike the tornado sirens you have near your neighborhood. Each call is sung by a real singer somewhere and I'm not sure what he's saying, except it means that devout Muslims everywhere get away from their job for 10 minutes, wash their hands & feet, go to the bathroom (#1 & #2) if possible and kneel on prayer rugs to pray. If they cannot kneel, they stand and pray. It is unusual to consider praying publicly this way, isn't it?

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If you are a Muslim turned Christian, you have opened yourself to one more reason to be killed, by the way. There is an Iranian woman in the branch who joined while at BYU years ago and she has had death threats and even had an assassin sent to kill her, while she was at BYU! He didn't make it out of the airport though. Good thing, huh. She has since then translated much of the Book of Mormon into Farsi. She is the only Iranian convert that we know of.

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It is possible that we could have conversions occur among the Westerners here, so in that regard, we are able to enlarge the member pool here through discreet missionary work. There are about 450 LDS in Afghanistan. Probably 60% are soldiers. The others are just here to help, like me.

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I want you to know that my Muslim friends here (probably 30 of them) are kind, gracious and peaceful people. They are the sort of people you'd want as neighbors and friends. I love them all.