In Romanian, the word for non members who visit the church is “simpatisant” or “sympathizer.” I guess that’s a better word than non-member or stranger.

In Spanish, there’s a term for those who are newly arrived — allegados. You’d refer to new members who have moved in as “recien allegados”, the newly baptized as “recien bautizados”, and the visitors as “visitantes”. We tried hard not to use “investigadores” (investigators). And “friends” seemed a bit reductive (and it would have come off wrong in Chile).

I noticed that when our son attended a Christian nursery school for 6 months, they referred to us as “visitors”. Then again, the threshold for membership in our Church and their church was a bit different. But maybe we should adopt language similar to other churches, as long as the meaning is the same.

Hey queno.

They let you into a christian pre-school? Let me know where. Lots of our fellow ward members have been asked to sign a statement of belief, refused, and been told no dice around here.

“Visitors” seems fine.

“friend of the missionaries” sounds either a little patronizing to me or perhaps too reminiscent of “friends of Dorothy.” “Sympathizers” in a Romanian context sounds conspiratorial, given the political history.

As to the need to know someone’s status before submitting their name for a calling, that information is available through the membership clerk and the church’s system of record. I’ve always just checked the records.

In Denmark we always used the word, “Guest.” It sounds welcoming to me.

M. Russell Ballard gave a pretty good talk about this. The Doctrine of Inclusion I think it’s called. Anyway, he suggests ‘neighbor’ if a label is necessary.

I do prefer “visitors”, but it’s hard getting people to adopt it, but it seems less threatening than the alternative.

I know I’ve visited wards when I’ve been traveling on business over a weekend (in my business, Sunday work is commonplace), and sometimes, it’s kind of a beating when I want to just slip in the back and take the sacrament. Invariably, I get asked for name/rank/serial number (or, name/ward/TR status) by an eager bishop thinking I’m moving in. So I’ll just offer a “I’m visiting” and leave it at that.

I’m with anne: I just say, “Hi! Did you guys move in or are you visiting?” And then we talk about where they’re from or who I am, etc.

I’m going to have to remember that one, Bookslinger!

All–it is interesting to hear the customs of other cultures and languages. I suppose if more of us were converts and had been on the receiving end of “non-member” we might be better about remembering not to use it.

I like how a former bishop used to handle this in the opening exercises of priesthood meeting. After all the formal businees was conducted and it was time to introduce the visitors, he would say:

“I see plenty of strange faces, but they are here every week, and I see some nice-looking ones that are here for the first time. Would you nice-looking people please stand and introduce yourselves.”

ESO, as a convert, I didn’t and don’t think “non-member” is exclusionary. Non-member visitors, friends and investigators know they aren’t members.

In my opinion, the more confusing word is “investigator.”

It’s not intuitively obvious to the person who is investigating to use the word “investigate” or “investigator”. It’s not intuitive to the new person, whether they are investigating or not, what sense of the word is being used, unless the missionaries have explained the usage of the term.

Does it mean like a private eye or police detective? ie, “Are you an investigator?” could come across as: “Are you one of those people snooping around to see if we Mormons have done something wrong?”

Is it captialized, and does it take on a special meaning in the church? As in, has it been twisted from common usage, as in calling 16 and 17 year olds “Priests” and 19 to 22 year old kids wearing suits “Elders” ?

Once an investigator has a testimony, and has come to a conclusion to join the church, but must wait for the rest of the lessons, and the minimum time period, are they still “investigating”? In my reasoning, if you’ve come to a conclusion and made a decision, you’re no longer investigating the possibility of joining the church (ie, it’s now a _plan_ not a possibility), in the dictionary sense of the word, even if you’re still awaiting baptism.

“Prospective elder” also threw me for a loop. “No, I’m not some kind of elder (an elder who’s looking or prospecting for something), I’m a priest” I said to someone after I received the Aaronic priesthood as a 24 year old, and who asked if I was a “_prospective_ elder” ?

Yeah, the missionaries told me about being an “elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood” after a year, but they never told me about anything called a “perspective elder”.

Then there’s the “How can I be a teacher in someone’s home, if I haven’t learned anything yet? I just joined!”

Then in late 83, my escorts left me alone in the men’s locker room at the Atlanta temple, while they went to talk to someone, and an elderly over-eager semi-blind temple worker saw me sitting around, and didn’t realize I was there for my own endowments (he couldn’t/didn’t read the tag I was wearing), saw me dressed for initiatory work, and thought I was goofing off. So he physically grabbed me, and strongly _ordered_ me into the washing and anointing line before my escorts could get back and explain what was going to happen. Now remember this was 1983, before the changes in the intiatory.

It’s not just visitors/investigators with whom we have to be careful about word choice and word definition, it’s recent converts too.

I think President Hinckley’s injunction for every new convert to have a friend is to help with the vocabulary, and all the new definitions of words, and the myriad procedures, from home/visiting teaching to the temple, that are taken for granted and often not explained to newcomers.

The missionaries think the ward mission leader and home teachers are going to do the new-member discussions, and my observation is that those new-member discussions don’t get done more than 1/2 the time. Back in my day, there were no planned out “new member discussions” or orientation. You were just thrown into the pool and expected to swim. I was fortunate that I did have a friend who took me under her wing, but the bubbas who accompanied me to the temple were not as careful to watch over me.

Just to re-emphasize, some necessary details (that the 1st time temple-goer ought to know ahead of time) of the initiatory and endowment aren’t (and weren’t) explained in the “Temple Prep Class.” At least they weren’t in mine. There are some things you don’t want to explain until you’re in the temple, but still you want to explain them ahead of the actual ceremonies.

If I hadn’t had a really strong “burned in” type of testimony of the gospel and the church, I probably would have walked out of the temple that day, or gone inactive immediately thereafter. It was a big snafu on the part of my escorts and that temple worker. But the church is still true, regardless of the short-comings of the members.

annegb–I agree that it is a nice touch to talk with new people beforehand to get a feel for how they might fair with a self-introduction. When I conduct RS, I always try, but must admit I have sometimes failed and ended up calling on someone cold.

Another thing we who have been in the church a while take for granted is our relative ease at speaking in front of groups–it can be very daunting.