By Teke Wiggin
Contributing Writer
Almost every day, Jared Turley and Spencer Gunnel wake up at 6:30 a.m. to face a 15-hour workday dedicated to spreading the message of the book of Mormon in Korea. And almost every day that means a lot of teaching English.
They are Mormon missionaries, followers of the Church of Latter Day Saints.
The religious institution is known for giving free English lessons in countries all over the world.
But here in Korea, they have a captive audience: a local population with an incessant desire to learn English and hourly bills of as much as $65 per hour.
Turley and Gunnel are harnessing this opportunity to convert locals grappling with huge private tutoring bills into believers.
The pair, known as "Elders," admitted that about 80 percent of Koreans who call the mission to set up appointments are only interested in the English element of the lessons.
Their motivation is to help those interested in the church progress towards baptism, devoting the first half of classes to English tutoring.
Turley said that although some attendees, called "investigators" by the missionaries, develop a genuine interest in church teachings, a vast majority end up canceling their meetings in a month.
Brian Booth, a missionary who operates in the San Bon area, also has experience of the practice. "They tell me Okay, I'm getting really tired of this gospel 30 minutes," he said. "Most people probably drop out because they were in it for the English."
According to church records, 80,000 Mormons and 500 missionaries live in Korea.
In total, Turley and Gunnel estimate they spend 10 hours a week teaching English, estimated to be worth approximately $2200 a month - close to what a full-time academy teacher makes here.
They offer one-on-one, family and once-a-week public classes. For the last half-an-hour, missionaries teach the book of Mormon.
Normally missionaries advertise their English lessons twice a week by "boarding," where they stand on street corners with promotional boards, handing out flyers.
One board suggests that Koreans can "learn to speak like a native speaker" by enrolling. Fliers are also hung up on city blocks with pictures of smiling, handsome and mostly Caucasian missionaries.
The private tutoring and family programs listed on the board and flyers do not stipulate the mandatory gospel-dedicated second-half of the lesson. "You can't just put everything on a billboard," Craig Burton, president of Korea Seoul West Mission, said.
Weekly public classes last one and a half hours, the last 30 minutes devoted to teaching gospel. They are advertised on their web site as "without pressure because there is no religious character to the class."
Students learn from one of three English instruction books written by the church. Burton said the advanced level book is "just a Sunday school lesson manual in English."
Unlike the privately scheduled classes, all public class attendees can choose to skip out on the gospel section but, speaking of his own classes, Turley said only 10 percent choose to do so.
They use the example of Seong-gyun, a 13 year old nicknamed "superstar" because he is the only LDS member in his family, as someone who always attends his classes and brings friends, potential " investigators, " to his meetings. The "superstar" said his mom was happy about his membership because he learned English.
Baptism for "investigators" under 18 requires a consent form signed by parents.
Turley and Gunnel are confident Seong's faith is genuine. But that's not always the case.
They admit they must confront those who may be faking faith to get free classes.
One mother who had her child meet with missionaries three times a week canceled and rescheduled her son's baptism date four times in order to continue free English study. The high school student received free English tutoring worth close to $1,500 for five months before missionaries put a halt to the meetings.
Turley and Gunnel say they won't entertain freeloaders if they can spot them.
"If they're not showing any interest probably by the sixth week ― it's probably about that time ― you ask them about it." Depending on the answer, lessons stop or continue, the pair said.
Mormon missionaries are now so strongly associated with English education in the eyes of many Koreans that the church has begun to take measures to reduce its use as a means of proselytizing.
"A lot of people think we're English teachers," said Gunnel.
Before missionaries used English as a "fall-back" if the gospel-oriented introduction failed to spark interest in a pedestrian, said Booth.
Things have changed.
Turley said that a year ago the church instructed its missionaries not to bring up English as a subject when they knock on doors or wander the streets.
"I didn't know that they were using English as an initial approach, and I was concerned that in that respect it could be perceived as deceptive," Burton said.
Nonetheless, Booth said most people contacted on the street usually still bring up English themselves.
Another dupe, he said, involves certain students frequenting classes in different areas on alternating days of the week to milk the LDS English service.
In order to cut down on this practice, church management set a limit of just one weekly Saturday English class for every area, Booth added.
But Burton gave a different reason.
"(Two classes a week was) just not a good utilization of our time."
Today, missionaries are only allowed to advertise the English program when they're "boarding" and handing out flyers.
"We shouldn't be proselytizing English," said Turley.