ANCHORAGE (AP) — Elder Douglas Bennion, a 20-year-old LDS missionary with a buttery complexion and gelled hair, rides in an immaculate silver Mercury Sable through the Rangeview Mobile Home Park in Muldoon to where the bumpy street narrows and the park takes on the feel of somewhere else.

It's just after dinnertime. Fish sauce and the starchy aroma of bubbling rice sweeten the air. As Bennion's car pulls to a stop, children drop their ball in the street.

"Wassup, Elder Bennion?" one calls as he gets out of the car.

Standing on the soft mud in his suit and tie, Bennion slaps high-fives all around.

In Anchorage's fast-growing Hmong community, Hmong speakers such as Bennion, a Utah-reared young man, play a central role in helping immigrants to learn about American culture.

Though there are efforts by other groups, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sponsors the largest outreach into one of the city's most needy and isolated immigrant groups.

The Hmong community has at least quadrupled since detailed census information came out in 2000, from about 300 to approximately 1,200. Community leaders' estimates are closer to 2,000.

LDS Church leaders say roughly 300 Hmong people are involved in some way with their church.

In 2000, almost every Hmong person in Anchorage was living below the poverty level, according to census estimates. An average of seven people lived in each home, nearly all of them rental units. The median household income was $25,500 — $30,000 below the city median.

Members of the LDS Church support hundreds of these families with donated clothes, furniture, food, employment assistance, spiritual guidance and friendship. Missionaries are candid that their goal is to convert the Hmong, though they say they visit and provide assistance to many who may not convert.

Hmong with LDS ties practice an array of spiritual traditions. Most households are split, with younger people choosing to convert while older relatives remain loyal to the old ways. Many blend the old with the new, attending church events while calling in a shaman to tend the sick and tacking metallic "spirit paper" on the walls to ward off evil spirits.

For the young and converted, taking on LDS beliefs is often bound up with a desire to fit into American society and to succeed.

"In America, there is no way we can survive with the old culture; our culture has run to the end," said Tom Lee, who converted in April. "A lot of people think converting to Christianity is the way you become a new people."