From 'American Idol' to Mormon Missionary

Deseret News associate editor Allison Pond recently wrote an opinion piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal about Mormon missionaries, and specifically about "American Idol" pop star David Archuleta's recent call to serve an LDS mission.

In the article, Pond writes of the challenges missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints face, calling the the Mormon mission experience "a radical anomaly."

"Missionaries serve on their own dime, swearing off dating, entertainment and even most Internet activity. There is relatively little direct supervision; they have at once rigid structure and significant autonomy," she wrote. "They work in pairs, reporting weekly in writing to a mission president, an older man called to serve a three-year stint."

Because of Archuleta's celebrity, Pond writes he may already be more grown up than the average 21-year-old, "but a mission will challenge even him.

"It will put him in the company of hundreds of thousands who, by the end of their missions, have firsthand experience with the biblical injunction to lose their lives and thereby find them," she wrote.

Read the full report here.