Eighteen Months: Sister Missionaries in the Latter Days edited by Melissa Baird Carpenter

Eighteen Months: Sister Missionaries in the Latter Days, edited by Melissa Baird Carpenter, is a “collective memoir” of the mission experiences of many sister missionaries, including T& S's own Rosalynde Welch. Most essays succeed marvelously in hitting the sweet spot of spirituality without succumbing to the saccharine; we are introduced to the bulimic companion and the golden investigator and both are made equally real. While not all essays evince the best writing style (and a fair number of typos mar the book as well), the genuineness of the stories overcomes these flaws. From ruminations on how the local transvestite manages to keep his makeup immaculate in the humidity to visiting a new convert in prison, it’s all here and it’s well worth reading.