The Faces Behind the Knock: A Saturday With Two Young Missionaries in Alpharetta

If you spend enough time around Alpharetta, you may have seen them. Two young men in ties and dark jackets walking through a park. Standing near a shopping center. Moving through an apartment complex. Sometimes they knock on your door.

It is easy, from the other side of that door, to see only the interruption. But on Saturday morning at Webb Bridge Park, the interruption had names.

Elder Nelson is 18 and comes from Olympia, Washington. Elder Sackewitz is from Draper, Utah. Sackewitz has been serving in Georgia for nearly four months; Nelson arrived only about a week ago. They had been missionary companions for just over a week when we met. Their missions last two years, with possible transfers to new areas every six weeks.

They were standing under the trees with copies of the Book of Mormon in their hands, smiling at strangers and hoping somebody might stop.

Some do.

Some definitely do not.

“We get some people [who] are willing to stop and listen for a while,” Sackewitz said. “Other people… shoo us off. But it’s okay.”

That may be the most useful thing to understand about the young missionaries people occasionally encounter around North Atlanta. Rejection is not an unexpected part of their day. It is built into the day.

A surprisingly ordinary morning

Their schedule starts at 6:30 a.m. There is exercise first. Nelson likes running. Then breakfast, which turns out to be considerably less mysterious than one might imagine: eggs and bacon for Nelson, perhaps a bagel, bacon or a protein shake for Sackewitz.

Then comes an hour of personal religious study, usually including the Bible, the Book of Mormon and teachings from church leaders. After that, they go looking for people.

The missionaries call it “finding.” Webb Bridge Park is one possibility because people are walking through it. But they also visit shopping centers, parking lots, apartment complexes and other busy places. And yes, they knock on doors.

“Knocking doors is a big part of it,” Sackewitz said.

The two compared their approach to a fisherman putting several lines in the water. A park conversation might lead somewhere. So might a knock on a door. So might meeting somebody at a shopping center.

Nelson said parks can sometimes be easier because people are already outside and moving. Rather than stopping someone for a formal conversation, the missionaries may simply walk alongside them for a while.

It is a strikingly analog kind of work. Walk. Notice somebody. Say hello. Talk. Listen. Try again.

What counts as a good day?

I asked Sackewitz what would make him return home at night and consider the day successful. It was not a certain number of books distributed or invitations accepted.

He said he feels most successful when he can lie down at night knowing, “I did the very best that I could today.”

Nelson put the limitation another way. They cannot make anyone believe something or force someone to make a decision.

“We can’t really make people do things,” he said. Their job, as he sees it, is to present what they believe and allow the other person to decide.

Two years of strangers

The pair currently serves in what they call the Webb Bridge area. Around them are other missionary companionships assigned to different parts of Alpharetta and the larger Georgia Atlanta North Mission.

Sackewitz estimated there are roughly 200 missionaries across the mission’s broader territory north of Atlanta. Missionaries can remain in an area after a six-week transfer cycle or be reassigned elsewhere.

Their days can stretch well beyond the morning.

They may teach longer lessons to people who have expressed interest. Sometimes those meetings happen in a home, sometimes at a church building and sometimes back in a park. Local church members also invite the missionaries for dinner, giving the young visitors relationships with people who actually live in the community they are temporarily serving. Later, they may head back into public spaces or walk along local trails.

And then the next morning they begin again.

The young men inside the jackets

Nelson graduated from high school this year and plans to attend Brigham Young University–Idaho. Five years from now, he imagines himself working toward a career and beginning to figure out the shape of his adult life.

Sackewitz plans to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, while continuing in the faith that brought him to Georgia.

For now, though, their world is North Georgia. It is Webb Bridge Park on a Saturday morning. It is a stranger walking a dog. Someone willing to talk for 10 minutes.

Their religious message is central to why they are here, and they make no secret of it. Near the end of our conversation, Sackewitz spoke openly about his belief in Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A person can accept that message, reject it or simply say no thanks. But the next time two young missionaries appear at the door, there is another way to see the moment too.

There are two young people standing on the other side of it, far from home, learning a new community one conversation at a time.