Dressed in crisp white shirts and neckties with backpacks strapped to their backs, the two young men had long ago abandoned their bikes at the entrance to the Bartlett subdivision, choosing instead to walk door to door. At the next house, the response is even more blunt. Ludwig and his companion, Elder Nathan Bleak, appear unfazed and move on to the next house.
People can be pretty strong in their faiths.
That's no small feat in a city where the entire local Mormon community would barely fill half the sanctuary at Bellevue Baptist Church. But the presence of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormon Church, is growing in Memphis and around the South. Church membership in Tennessee has nearly doubled since 1980, from 15,800 to about 31,000 today. To meet the growth, the church has been on a building boom in recent years. Since October 1999, the church has built seven temples in seven Southern cities, most recently in Birmingham, Ala., in September.