Missionaries

The creator of a 2008 calendar that featured shirtless Mormon missionaries was excommunicated after a disciplinary meeting with church leaders in Las Vegas. Chad Hardy says he bears no ill will toward the council of elders from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "Men on a Mission," which has sold about 10,000 copies, included pictures of 12 returned missionaries wearing black slacks -- but not their trademark white shirts -- in modest poses. The 2009 calendar, which drew 100 inquiries from interested missionaries, is to be released in September.

A Las Vegas man who devised a calendar that features shirtless Mormon missionaries is facing a disciplinary hearing and possible excommunication because of the project. A lifetime member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Chad Hardy, was summoned by letter to a Sunday meeting with a council of elders to discuss his "conduct unbecoming a member of the church." A copy of the letter from Frank E. Davie, the senior leader over a group of Mormon congregations in the Las Vegas area, was sent early this week, days before the 2009 version of the "Men on a Mission" calendar went to press, Hardy said in a telephone interview.

It's hard not to judge Melanie Abrams' recently published debut novel by its cover. Against a background of sensually rumpled burgundy satin sheets is a head of sensually rumpled blond curls, looking downward, eyes in shadow, betraying no expression. Two pale arms stretch upward, spotlighted so they're nearly white, fists clenched, wrists tied with a dark green sash. To the left, the title swoons in matte gold script: "Playing." Abrams, 35, loves the cover. At her reading at Book Soup earlier this month, she flashed the book suggestively, like a trench-coated peddler of dirty magazines, and it won a titter from the crowd.

An investigation into whether three Mormon missionaries defaced a Catholic shrine on a butte overlooking San Luis has been dropped after Roman Catholic Bishop Arthur Tafoya urged forgiveness. Costilla County sheriff's investigator Cpl. Scott Powell said that the investigation had just gotten underway. Mormon Church officials earlier issued an apology. "I ask that we as Catholics, who believe in the forgiveness of Christ, will ourselves forgive and pray for the young men who showed such a lack of tolerance and understanding," Tafoya said.

Members of the Sangre de Cristo Parish of the Roman Catholic Church in San Luis will pursue criminal charges against three Mormon missionaries who allegedly vandalized a shrine and committed sacrilegious acts in the church in 2006. The incidents came to the attention of the parish when pictures were seen on Photobucket, an image-hosting website. Costilla County Sheriff's Cpl. Scott Powell told the Pueblo Chieftain the unidentified men could face up to six charges, including criminal mischief and conspiracy.

Paul Filidis thought little of Christianity as he backpacked through Afghanistan in the early 1970s, searching for top-grade hashish and Eastern enlightenment. Then his passport was stolen and he took shelter with a group of missionaries who had moved to Kabul to help wanderers on the hippie trail. "They looked just like me," Filidis said. The missionaries took Filidis in and helped him get a new passport.

Three people were killed and at least five others wounded Sunday in two shooting sprees -- one at a missionary school and another at a church -- that authorities said could be connected. The gunman in the second incident was killed by a church security guard, police said. The first shooting occurred about 12:30 a.m., when a man wearing a dark coat and a beanie entered the Youth With a Mission dorm in the Denver suburb of Arvada.

A Philippine court convicted 14 Muslim militants today of abducting a U.S. missionary couple and 18 others in a string of 2001 kidnappings that resulted in the deaths of two Americans and prompted Washington to start training Filipino troops. Most of the top leaders of Abu Sayyaf, which orchestrated the abductions at a resort, have been killed since the trial opened in 2003. Philippine officials have credited the U.S.

An American evangelical missionary working on a U.S. government-backed development project in northern Chad has been kidnapped by rebels, Chadian and U.S. officials said. The kidnapped American is Steve Godbold, said Pastor Ngardei Bako, a leader of Chad's Evangelical Church. He said Godbold had worked in Chad, especially the Tibesti region, for many years. Negotiations were underway with rebels of the Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad to secure the missionary's release.

UCLA quarterback Ben Olson was living on $130 a week, rising at 6:30 a.m. to get ready for work. There was one hour for lunch, then the nose went back to the grindstone until he returned home at 9:30 p.m. This was his life during a two-year Mormon mission that took him from the football field to Sparwood, Canada. The only "sack" he knew during that period was welcomed, the one he fell into after a long day on the job. "It's a very disciplined life," Olson said.