This study is a review of proselyting techniques in the full-time missionary program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1830 to 1974. Official handbooks as well as Mormon mission publications were the major sources. The writer's experience as a full-time missionary gave additional perspective.Missionary techniques involved personal contacting on the streets and door to door. Group contacting came through public meetings and the mass media. Church members played a vital role in contacting and fellowshipping nonmembers. Early proselyting lesson plans written in outline form emphasized logic and reason. Later ones were in dialogue form and memorized by missionaries. This study found that with improved techniques, convert baptisms increased. Also re-emphasis in recent years on using the Book of Mormon and bearing testimony plus the urgency of baptizing converts paralleled proselyting techniques of the first decades of missionary work.

In recent years the Brigham Young University Motion Picture Studio has been producing films with the specific purpose of appealing to the non-member or non-LDS (an abbreviation for Latter-Day Saint or Mormon) person. As a part of the Church's missionary program, these films are designed to persuade, convince and bring about conversion to the teachings of the Mormon Church. Consequently, in many phases of film production there is a bias factor. Members of the Church (employees of the Brigham Young University Motion Picture Studio) are endeavoring to determine the most effective themes and techniques to utilize in communicating to a non-LDS audience. The member, with his set attitudes and opinions, is attempting to understand and persuade the non-member. Because of this bias or slant, the following questions can be raised for examination: 1. Does an LDS produced non-member or missionary oriented film effectively communicate to the non-LDS person? 2. Do LDS produced films, designed as a missionary tool, cause a shift of attitudes within the non-member? 3. How do non-LDS people respond to the technical aspects (acting, visual effects) of an LDS produced film?

Two control groups and two experimental groups of missionaries and teachers participated in a study comparing a grammar-based method of teaching to a context-based method. The study lasted for two weeks during June 1997. Each classroom was recorded using a timing-based observation system that captured 13 missionary and teacher language behaviors. The behaviors were recorded in real time and later evaluated to determine in which classroom setting the most real communication occurred. A second purpose was to determine the effectiveness of teacher training with respect to teachers in the experimental group. Findings revealed that missionaries in the context-based classroom received and participated in a significantly greater amount of meaningful language interactions, while missionaries in the control groups spend a significantly greater amount of time participating in rote-type language interactions. Furthermore, data suggests that by training the experimental teachers, their confidence and teaching ability improved. Data also suggested a relation between teacher language behaviors and missionary behaviors. Suggestions are made regarding further application of the context-based curriculum and teacher training and observation mechanisms as to what developers will need to include in a broader implementation of this study.

The history of Mormon Exhibits in world expositions is an important chapter in the over-all accounting of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints total missionary program. In seeking more proficient means for accomplishing this task, involvement in world expositions offered a fresh opportunity to which the Church quickly responded. Finances, inexperience, non-acceptance by the world religious community and struggle for security appeared to be significant obstacles to extensive activity in early world's fairs. Eventually as the Church strengthened, it became less the national spectacle and significantly was given its first real world's fair opportunity in an exhibit sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute at the 1909 exposition. The first totally religious Mormon exhibit was at Chicago in 1933 and the first Mormon pavilion was built for the 1935 San Diego Exposition. The Church has since sponsored five pavilions and has noted that from the standpoint of number of people influenced, compared to missionary man-hours expended, there has been no greater success experienced by the Church than in recent world fair involvements.