While missionary service has been a trademark of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since its 19th-century beginnings, it is relatively new to the Beehive State. In 1975, the Utah Salt Lake City Mission was created from parts of the Idaho, Colorado and Arizona missions and became the 132nd mission of the church.

The Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission was organized in 1995, and is one of five missions in the state, along with the Utah Ogden, Utah Provo, Utah Salt Lake City and Utah Salt Lake City South missions.

"This [Temple Square] mission is [representative] of a worldwide church - both as to guests and missionaries," says President Milo LeBaron, who with his wife, Donna, presides over the mission.

But demographics and dynamics are only part of what makes the mission so different from all the others.

"The uniqueness of the mission is the sisters," President LeBaron says.

Other church missions are largely composed of unmarried young men and women. The Temple Square Mission has 200 single women and about 20 senior-married couples. And because of the mission's dearth of young men, or elders as they are called, the leadership roles normally given to males are filled by the sisters. That is unlike any other mission in the church.

The current assistants to the mission president, for instance, are Sister Kara Logie of Connecticut and Sister Irina Weidmann, a third-generation member from Switzerland. District and zone leaders in the mission also are leadership positions assigned to the sisters.

The LeBarons, who previously presided over a more-traditional mission in California, say the young sister missionaries add a special element to the missionary work.

"They are [college] graduates, lawyers, doctors," LeBaron says. "They all come in with the same idea - to serve their Heavenly Father. We function with sisters, and they're lovely and wonderful. They have all the wonderful opportunities of the mission, and the growing experiences of leadership."

Adds Sister LeBaron: "Sometimes they just stop by and say, 'I need a hug.' You know what love does for them Ð they just need to be built up and know that they are loved here. It is easy for us to relate to them."

When the LeBarons received their call to the Temple Square Mission, Sister LeBaron recalls, church leaders "asked us, 'Can you love them?' I said, 'I can love them.'"

Another distinguishing aspect of the mission is the work the the sisters and couples perform. In most missions, the missionaries teach lessons and get to see whether or not their message is accepted and leads to baptism.

Temple Square, though, is the state's top-tourist destination and attracts more than 5 million visitors each year. So missionaries there rarely learn what happens when the legions of guests return home after their brief visit.

We see "a lot of beginning stories here," Sister Weidmann says. Our objectives "are to give a good impression [of the Church], to help guests to understand more, to strengthen members and to help them do missionary work."

For Sister Logie, not being able to spend more time teaching and talking with the people she meets during her missionary labors is a challenge.

"We have an immediate love for these people - and then watch them walk out the gates," she says.

Most of the mission's sisters serve on Temple Square, but others are engaged in the work at other locations in The Salt Lake City area. And each young sister missionary spends 12- to 18 weeks serving in another part of the United States. This gives them the full proselytizing experience before returning to Salt Lake City to finish out their missions.

The LeBarons, who will conclude their mission Sunday and return home to Mesa, Ariz., say many of the sister missionaries were disowned by their families when they decided to serve a mission for the church and face an uncertain spiritual-support network when they go home.

"They really do feel like this is family. They really feel a love and a unity" here, Sister LeBaron says. "It is so hard to not see these sisters again. A lot [of them], we'll never see again."

The mission

by the numbers * The mission comprises 36 senior missionaries as well as 200 unmarried sister missionaries, of which 159 are now serving at Temple Square. The rest are visiting other missions in the United States for 12 to 18 weeks to get the full proselyting experience.

* Missionaries hail from 42 countries and speak a combined 33 languages.

* The mission includes Temple Square, the Beehive House, the FamilySearch Center and Legacy Theater in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, the Family Tree Visitors' Center in Park City, Welfare Square and the Humanitarian Center.

* For more information about the Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission, call 801-240-2011.