Mormons Movin’ On Up . . . (And This Isn’t Even A Mitt Romney Update, Although He Is Mentioned In The Article)

Mormons on the Upper East Side — no kidding:

In suburban communities, missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints go door-to-door in pairs, preaching their gospel to prospective converts. While doormen on the Upper East Side make it more difficult to save souls, the organization informally known as the Mormon church is making inroads in the neighborhood — recently opening a five-story, 39,000-square-foot building on East 87th Street.

The multimillion-dollar, Gothic-style structure, which opened to worshippers in October, houses two wards, or congregations: One is composed largely of young families, and the other is made up of singles ages 18 to 30. The brick church was built with ambitious expansion plans in mind — it could easily accommodate at least two more wards, each made up of 300 or more people.

The Upper East Side family ward, which serves residents living between 50th and 110th streets, met across town until last fall. Since moving into the new building, attendance at the group’s Sunday service has grown by about 25%, to about 150 people, its spiritual leader, Bishop Joseph Jensen, said. The bishop said the Upper East Side is home to a growing number of young Mormon families. He attributed the growth to good schools and some reasonably priced housing stock — relative to other Manhattan neighborhoods. He predicted that at least one other ward would open at the East 87th Street church within five years.

Church doctrine emphasizes proselytizing, and neighborhood missionaries hoping to convert new members have their work cut out for them. “This area is tough, because missionaries just can’t get access to so many buildings,” Bishop Jensen said.

. . .

The two missionaries assigned to the Upper East Side, Trey Reed, 19, and Gabriel Ferreira, 21, rely heavily on old-fashioned pavement-pounding. Each week, the cleancut, suit-clad Messrs. Reed and Ferreira approach about 200 people on the streets and on the subway.

While most of those people reject their efforts out-of-hand, Mr. Ferreira, who grew up in Brazil and Orem, Utah, said some New Yorkers can be surprisingly open-minded. “Sometimes I find someone and think, ‘He would never talk to me,’ and then he’ll sit down and listen and talk,” he said, noting that in the past month he and Mr. Reed have convinced one person to convert.