After my reply I've followed this thread just out of curiosity. My little 'disclaimer ' here is that my actions don't reflect the truly lovely and wonderful people in my church who have led clean enough lives to be truly shocked by things I roll my eyes at and who are too kind in their hearts to mouth off at people who desperately deserve it.
Having said that, I was very amused at people who thought coming to the door naked was something novel in this thread. If I had a dollar for everyone who did that during my time as a missionary, I wouldn't have been so desperate to find a job when I got home. It got to the point where, when it happened, I would look the 'nudist' up and down and spout off with the Italian version of "I've seen better. You should see your neighbor three doors down." Once when a man made a point of locking his apartment bldg. gate in front of us, I said "Don't worry if we were here to rob you, we wouldn't be at the front door." (one of my first full sentences in Italian-I was so proud! BUT that definitely wasn't appropriate behavior for a representative of my church. I'm still working on that whole 'appropriate behavior' thing 10 years later, come to think of it...)
Since I majored in Latin, studied ancient Greek and am passionate about Classical and Biblical archeology, I could have fairly enlightenening conversations with the "intellectuals" we encountered (again, nothing new here, people) there are lots of biblical scholars within our church too. Having sidelined my Master's and PhD plans to raise four children, I'm not as well-versed as others who haven't, but fresh out of college and on a mission-I could hold my own. I was told this by one or two of the 'experts' I encountered at the door, who also told me they enjoyed our visit-even if they had no interest in the church.
Now I did encounter a few of the described "pushy" people, and they scared me. One little old lady we met in town invited us to her house the following day-saying she was interested in our church. When we arrived the door slammed behind us and three others were behind the door. We were literally trapped there for three hours while they screamed at us and berated us-it was horrible. It's also a common experience among LDS missionaries and happened again to me one other time before I returned home.
I think my most amusing door experience was when a man of about 60 let us right in and said, "My mother died a few months ago and I was just praying for a wife to come in and take care of me like she did. Now which one of you do I choose?" Unfortunately, it was me!
I would have thought he was joking, but Italians don't often do sarcasm the way American's do, AND he spent the next half hour taking me on a tour of his apartment and showing me pictures of his mother.
Oh, and we travel in twos for our own protection, as demonstrated, not to be intimidating. When there are three, it's usually because someone is sick or has gone home leaving an odd number behind. The mission leaders are aware that it's not an ideal situation.
Bear in mind, as I mentioned in an earlier post, going door-to-door is not the favorite activity of any missionary, but a last resort when there isn't any other teaching work to do. I limited my door to door activity to rainy or cold days since I preferred letting people approach us on the street at display boards in town because THEY were interested. Like most of us, I have a "don't call me, I'll call you" approach to learning more-but at the same time feel I did "do some good" every day I was in Italy and I make no apologies.
By the way, no one ever did answer the door covered in chicken blood, but I'm sure I would have had a good comeback for that too.
