Who's a missionary?

I first became aware of Mormon missionaries during my year studying abroad in Spain. I would visit really small towns up and down Spain and would run into Mormon boys in their crisp white shirts in the unlikeliest places. I remember speaking to one who was nearing the end of his two-year mission; he was bummed that he hadn't convinced a single Spaniard to leave the Catholic Church. The Spaniards made fun of the Mormons, who were usually spotted around my little town of Alcala de Henares on bicycles. They had an acronym for them: OVNIS, Spanish for Unidentified Flying Objects.

I haven't seen many OVNIS in San Jose, but at the Taiwan Airport, I was surrounded: 40 of them were on my flight to Manila. Turns out they had just finished their training in Utah and would be scattered all over the Philippines for the next two years. I started talking to them and hence, the foto.

Young, idealistic and clean-cut, they were between 19 and 22. Most had deferred college to go on their missions. Elder Mikel Nelson, who was turning 20 a few days after his arrival in the Philippines, said he had come to "share his happiness" with Filipinos. His bags contained mostly white shirts. And that suit they're wearing? They always have to wear suits when they are travelling. Once they get to Manila, it goes straight into a clothes bag, which gets put in a closet at the main processing center and it stays there until the day they leave the Philippines in 2007.

I do have to give it up to the guys: when was the last time you saw 19- and 2o-year olds who were passionate about anything but the material world.