Chapel Hill Mormon community grows larger

For UNC senior Anna McElroy, a knock on the door opened her up to a new way of life.

After initially rebuffing the efforts of two Mormon missionaries she met outside a friend’s apartment door, McElroy had a change of heart after seeing a “South Park” satire of the religion.

She saw another pair of missionaries in the Pit and began talking to them about their faith’s answers to life’s big questions.

“I was trying to be a better person,” she said. “It helped me find answers and made me feel comforted and that I had a purpose.”

Steve Price, a spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said the number of church members in town has grown from about 80 in the 1980s to about 1,200 members currently.

“(The growth) is twofold,” he said. “A portion of it is conversion and another portion is that the education is so good at the University that a larger number of people who are already Mormon are moving to the area.”

At the University, Price said the population has grown from 12 to about 150 students in the same amount of time.

With the help of missionaries Michael Call and Jeremy Merrill, McElroy was baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the weekend of March 25.

Before her baptism, she talked with Call and Merrill for six months to investigate their religion.

“Missionary work is the same message no matter where you are,” Call said.

“Everyone is looking for something in life that is true that they can apply to the gospel.”

Call and Merrill, who said they spend most of their day on the UNC campus, are working to bring even more people to the religion.

The pair said they aim to bring students into the multiple congregations of the town’s two Mormon churches.

“We’re here to help not just the church, but the people,” Call said.

Working to complete their two years of service to the church, Call and Merrill wake up at 6:30 a.m. every day to follow a strict schedule of prayer, reflection and missionary work, never leaving each other’s sight or sound.

Before serving in Chapel Hill, both said they spent time in the eastern part of the state.

Merrill said the transition to Chapel Hill has been refreshing, describing students as significantly more open-minded than others he has worked with.

“It’s much different than selling security systems or pest control,” he said. “Some peoples’ hearts are soft and ready to hear God’s message — others’ are not.”

Call and Merrill said their journey has sometimes been discouraging when those who don’t want to listen focus on the misconceptions that surround their church.

“By the time we talk to people sometimes they say, ‘We don’t want to talk to you Mormons, you’re crazy,’” Merrill said.

But both said they focus on what’s positive about their mission.

“One of my favorite things about the mission is to sit down for a good conversation with someone,” Call said.

Call is leaving Chapel Hill on Tuesday to complete his remaining four months of service elsewhere.

He said he will attend school at Brigham Young University-Idaho and is excited to go back to playing guitar daily.

Merrill, who will remain in the area until the church sends him elsewhere, said he wants to get married and become a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent.

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