In high school I was into forensics.

Not the �CSI� kind — the public speaking kind.

I was a member of the debate team, but to tell the truth I wasn�t smart enough to actually be a debater. Debaters have a firm grasp of the facts, they have to be able to make their case dynamically and they need to be able to think on their feet. I tended to have only a vague familiarity with the facts, I was better at telling stories than thinking on my feet and I could never come up with the right thing to say until 30 minutes after the debate was over.

So Mr. B, our debate coach, made me an orator. I wasn�t much with facts and quick thinking, but give me a memorized speech and a captive audience and I was good to go.

All of which is probably why the first few weeks of my mission were frustrating for me — well, that and a cute high school junior named Becky, who I had left behind. I was called to serve in Southern California and my first area was Costa Mesa — at the time a hot bed of anti-Mormon propaganda. It seemed that every other block featured at least one home that was fully stocked with the latest in anti-Mormon literature, published right there in Costa Mesa. And the people who possessed this propaganda were usually ready and anxious to wage theological warfare:

� �Are you aware that in your Journal of Discourses Brigham Young says that Adam and Eve were actually talking toads?�

� �This couple from Utah — and they should know because once they actually inhaled air on the same block as a Mormon meetinghouse — they said that you pray to a chipmunk and dance the Hokey-Pokey in your temples.�

� �Your Book of Mormon says that Alma drove a Corvette. How is that possible since there is no scientific evidence of Corvettes in America until several centuries later?�

Every time we bumped into one of these folks my blood would boil. I knew there were answers to these questions — I just didn�t know what the answers were. Nine years of Primary, 15 years of Sunday School, three years of Seminary (including one during which I actually paid attention . . . sort of) and six days in the Mission Home in Salt Lake City had given me a lot of information but few answers. The debater in me — limited though he may have been — yearned to do some research and to arm myself with facts and figures. But mission rules required that I focus all of my study time on memorizing the discussions and the accompanying scriptures.