College Student’s Website Features LDS Missionaries

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A college student in Utah has created a website cataloging thousands of videos about the food, history and traditions of many of the countries where Mormon missionaries serve.

The 23-year-old Alex Balinski has been spending at least six hours a day indexing existing YouTube videos and shooting new interviews with returned missionaries. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has its own website for missionaries. The church also has special training centers where missionaries learn languages and prepare spiritually.

Balinski believes his website preparetoserve.com can supplement all that by educating future missionaries about how best to interact in the cultures where they'll be proselytizing. He served a mission in Argentina. There are a record number of missionaries now due to a lowering of the minimum age for missionaries in October.