For 2 1/2 years, Romney would wear the dark suits and white shirts of an LDS missionary. He would be allowed to call home only on Christmas and Mother's Day. There would be no drinking, no smoking, no sex and no dating. He would be alone only in the bathroom — Mormon missionaries are paired always with a companion to reduce the opportunity for mischief. All of his time, all of his energy, would be devoted to trying to persuade the people of France to join the LDS Church.

France was, of course, glamorous and beautiful, and the missionaries had half a day off each week for "diversions," which often meant a chance to visit a chateau. But France was also one of the most inhospitable countries to Mormonism.

The first Mormon missionary had arrived in 1849, but the missionaries had been evicted during the reign of Napoleon III and fled again during World War II. By the time Romney arrived, there were just 6,500 LDS Church members in the entire country.

"Being in a foreign place in a foreign language with a foreign faith, you really do a lot of soul-searching about what you believe and what you're going to do with the rest of your life," Romney would recall decades later.

Romney said he found inspiration in the story of a Utah chemist, Henry Eyring, who, hobbled by cancer, nonetheless struggled to help his church weed an onion patch, only to learn that the row he had worked on didn't need weeding. Eyring, as Romney tells the story, responded, "Well, that's OK, I didn't come here for the onions."

"He came to respond to the call of service," Romney said, "and I think that's what happens to young men or young women who go on a mission."

LDS roots

Romney's family history is intertwined with that of the LDS Church. The Romneys came from the English village of Dalton-in-Furness, about 280 miles northwest of London, and immigrated to America in response to the same kind of missionary work that Mitt would perform.

Mormonism was in its infancy in 1837 when the Romney family, headed by a carpenter named Miles Archibald Romney, heard a missionary speak near their home about the story of the religion's founder and prophet, Joseph Smith.

Born in the little village of Sharon, Vt., Smith was praying in the woods of western New York when, according to his account, he saw "a pillar of light exactly over my head." Two personages, God and Jesus, appeared before him, telling him that other churches "were all wrong." Several years later, in the same woods, the angel Moroni appeared to him, directing him to a set of golden plates on which was recorded the history of an Israelite tribe that migrated to America and became the ancestors of the Native Americans.