Bad Mormon: Mitt Romney's Anti-Immigrant Stance Doesn't Jibe with LDS Teachings

Sitting in the living room of a modest apartment in a working-class section of North Phoenix, Adolfo recounts in rough English his most moving experience as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Dave Phillips

Stephen Lemons

A frieze on the LDS temple in Mesa, showing Mexican saints in sombreros as they join other nationalities in the "gathering of Israel."

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For two years, the now-21-year-old pounded pavement in Las Vegas and other parts of Nevada, as well as in nearby areas of Arizona, bringing the Christianity taught by LDS founder Joseph Smith to anyone who would listen.

Such stints are standard for young Mormon men, whom Americans are used to seeing traveling in twos, dressed in white shirts, black ties, and usually on bicycles or on foot — the Book of Mormon at the ready.

See photos from Mitt Romney's recent political rally in Mesa.

One day, Adolfo, then 19, comforted a family whose baby recently had died.

"I had the opportunity to read the Book of Mormon and pray with them," he recalls, a white statue of Jesus Christ peeking over his shoulder from a mantelpiece behind him.

"They read the Book of Mormon, and they felt good. Because they know the family is not just for this life, it's after this life, too."

Adolfo's visit moved the family to become baptized in the LDS faith, a bright spot in a mission generally filled with rejection. His account is not dissimilar to most of the more than 52,000 Mormon missionaries proselytizing in about 120 countries on any given year, save in one significant way.

Adolfo is undocumented, having walked across the Sonoran Desert when he was 16 years old to come to Phoenix and work as a landscaper so he could send money home to an ailing mother in Mexico.

Though raised Roman Catholic, he was baptized Mormon and attends one of the 50 Spanish-speaking congregations, called wards or branches, that exist in Arizona.

Spanish-speaking missionaries here in Phoenix converted him, giving him a Spanish translation of the LDS holy book to read.

"I read the Book of Mormon and prayed, and I knew the Book of Mormon was true," he states.

So much so that he wanted to serve the Lord on a mission. But to attempt to cross a border legally or even to go through security at an airport would mark him for possible apprehension by federal authorities.

Young men are assigned their areas of missionary work by church headquarters in Salt Lake City. They cannot choose where they will be sent.

So Adolfo spoke with his stake president, who presides over several wards in a given geographic area, about his predicament. The church, as it often does in the case of undocumented missionaries, sent him to a place he could reach via car or bus.

The church neither discriminates against the undocumented nor denies them access to a Mormon temple or to any of the ordinances prescribed for adherents of the LDS faith.

People here illegally can be baptized and, if men, can hold the office of the priesthood, which is open to all Mormon males. Illegal immigrants swell the ranks of Mormon wards on Sundays. They are "sealed" as man and wife in LDS temples, are active in their congregations, and sometimes serve as bishops, who in Mormon parlance, act as lay pastors.

This attitude of openness dovetails with the Mormon church's statements on immigration, which argue against restrictive state enforcement measures, such as Arizona's Senate Bill 1070, and against the separation of families.

The church also supports the Utah Compact, a set of guiding principles advocating a humane solution to the immigration problem. In 2011, it supported the passage of a package of laws in Utah that included a state guest-worker program.

Yet in spite of the church's admonition to the faithful to love each other as children of God, no matter what an individual's immigration status, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has copped a hard-line stance on immigration — reviling a pathway to legalization for undocumented individuals as "amnesty" and proposing a plan to make life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they will "self-deport."

In doing so, he's allied himself with nativist politicians, alienating many Latinos. Though the LDS church will not comment on Romney's harsh immigration rhetoric, his immigration stance makes him a wayward saint, a bad Mormon, just as the church continues explosive growth in Latin America and among Spanish-speakers in general.

Which perhaps makes the story of how Adolfo paid for his mission even more extraordinary. Young Mormon men start saving to fund their missions when they are boys. But Adolfo did not have enough to cover the entire tab.

"For part of my mission, the members of my ward, they paid for me," he says. "They help me all the time. Basically, they help me every day."

Adolfo would like to remain in Arizona, obtain legal status, and study to be a paramedic. He does not want to "self-deport," as fellow Mormon Mitt Romney wants him to do.

His girlfriend Charlotte, a 23-year-old Anglo, wants him to stay, as well. She's studying to be a high school Spanish teacher at Arizona State University. A Mormon convert at age 18, she's an ordinance worker at the Mesa temple. There she met a Hispanic family that introduced her to Adolfo.