After undergoing their own training sessions, Walker's charges also teach two-day career workshops that detail resume writing, interviewing and networking techniques, though many of the volunteers have come from a variety of backgrounds including homemakers, farmers and business people. "We stress the fact that they don't have to have particular skills to do this —just a willingness to help people and desire to learn."

Ditto for welfare services missionaries, many of whom work with "the poorest of the poor," according to Mel Gardner, who oversees missionaries at the Bishop's Storehouse on Welfare Square. He never has enough people to help dozens of transients who come into the office daily. The work is much like what inner-city missionaries do, he said, except these clients "don't have homes."

Hundreds of other part-time missionaries volunteer as ushers and tour guides at the Tabernacle and Conference Center and hosts at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. While there is currently a waiting list for those positions, there is a continuing need for volunteers in welfare services, family history, volunteer computer programming and repair specialists, data entry clerks, library reference workers and family history guides.

Watching the willingness of those who serve is a "constant renewal of your hope in mankind and the goodness of people's hearts," said Paul Nauta, spokesman for the church's Family History Division.

"And they do it all on their own dime."

More information on part-time missionary openings is available at the LDS Church's Web site, www.lds.org, under the tab, "other resources."

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E-mail: carrie@desnews.com