A Pew interviewer asked two Mormon leaders about members and missionaries involvement in international issues. The conversation is recorded below.

The church has more than 50,000 missionaries. Many of them are presumably knowledgeable about world affairs because of their missionary work. Does the church take positions on international issues, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict?

Nelson: Our first mission is to teach the gospel and to care for our members. We are an international church. We have more members residing outside of the United States than we do within the bounds of this country. Our members come from all sides of all political questions. We don’t wade into the political debate on such controversial issues as Darfur and the Arab-Israeli conflict, but the church has committed to providing relief and development projects for humanitarian purposes in those countries and in other countries all over the world.

For example, the church provides relief to both the Israelis and the Palestinians, and in the year 2006 we responded with significant relief for the people suffering in Sudan.

Wickman: For the very reasons we talked about earlier when you were asking about political involvement, the church really tends not to get involved in political controversy, whether it’s here or abroad. It does teach the principles we’ve talked about. It does have a very significant humanitarian effort. Elder Nelson gave some examples of that.

Another notable example from the recent past would be the tsunami relief that the church provided, across the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to India and beyond, and here in our own country, of course, with Katrina.

But the church is more interested in teaching its principles and lending a hand to people where it can than it is in weighing in on politics, and that’s one of the reasons why you don’t hear us saying much about those events.

One comes away with a sense of the church having this determinedly circumscribed role in public life, that while the church – through its missionaries – actively proselytizes, the church’s official position is, “We’ll let our religious life be our role in public life; we’ll let it speak for itself.”

Nelson: It’s pretty simple. We care, and we would like to do unto others as we would like them to do unto us. We love one another and we show that by helping, by serving. There is a lot of interest in the humanitarian assistance that we give throughout the world, and it’s very, very significant. But even more significant is why we do it. We do it because we care, and how we do it is that we teach our people to go without meals one day a month and contribute the money they would have spent on those meals to a fund that is used for the care of the poor and the needy.

It would be a misperception to view this church as wealthy, well-provisioned, with storehouses that are bulging and so on. Our welfare efforts come from people. There are people who are going without their food and contributing their money, time and talents just for the privilege of helping to serve other people.

That’s the story; not the largesse of our gifts, but the hearts of the people who want to help.

Wickman: Institutionally [the Forum has] described the church’s position about things, but, again, church members individually, acting in their capacity as citizens, are encouraged to get involved and express their views, and obviously there are some in our own country who are doing that every day.

See Mormonism in Modern America, Pew Forum

Tagg, Mitt and Ann’s oldest son, often speaks of the “rule in the family”: His father was consistent in affirming and adhering to his policy that no one would talk back to or otherwise be disrespectful towards Ann, their mother.  Mitt reveres and respects his wife, Ann, and has always thought he was privileged to be at her side.

Ann, strikingly attractive, is as down to earth as her husband.  It was at her prodding, that Mitt reconsidered the opportunity to turnaround the Olympics.  It is her job, as he’s told her on more than one day when she was frazzled after mothering, that he saw as more important than his.

Ann has an extensive background of service, within the walls of her home as she and Mitt raised her five sons, and within the community.  Ann has served in the New England Chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society,  volunteered with a Boston academy focused on helping inner city youth, and helped to develop the “Right to Play–a non-profit organization that uses sports to help disadvantaged children” (1). She is a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

One Boston Herald article records, “Ann Romney is the sun around which the Romney solar system–Mitt and five sons: Tagg, Matt, Josh, Craig and Ben–revolves” (2).

See Mitt Romney: The Man, His Values, and His Vision, Mapletree Publishing Company, Denver Colorodo, 2007, pp 81-82).

Mitt Romney was born March 12, 1947 in Detroit, Michigan and is the son of former Governor of Michigan and Presidential candidate George W. Romney. He and Ann have been married 36 years and have five sons (Tagg, Matt, Josh, Ben and Craig) and nine grandchildren.

Two hearty generations are linked together in Willard Mitt Romney:

Like his son, George Romney was a CEO, governor, and presidential candidate. The physical resemblance is striking: chiseled features, winning smile, and a full head of graying hair. But there are differences at every step along father and son’s journey, beginning with starkly different childhoods.

George Wilcken Romney was born on July 8, 1907, in Colonia Juarez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The Romneys, along with thousands of other Mormons, immigrated to Mexico in the 1880s. . . . the family prospered in Mexico, where George Romney’s father, Gaskell, was a successful building contractor. Then Pancho Villa swept across northern Mexico during the revolution at the start of the twentieth century.

Gaskill Romney and his family fled back to the United States in 1912. He became just another carpenter trying to feed his family. The Romneys spent the next decade on the move, from Texas, to Los Angeles, to Idaho before settling in Salt Lake City in 1921. (Ibid)

George served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in Great Britain, where he managed to address crowds in London at Hyde Park and Tower Hill. Following his mission, he spent some time in Washington, D.C. attending Washington University. After reconnecting with his high-school sweetheart, he married, settled in the area, and served as a lobbyist for Alcoa. He then began his tenure at American Motors, where the Romney talent to turnaround businesses manifested itself and where Mitt Romney, learned from his father, a great lesson: “Nothing is as dangerous as entrenched success.” (3)

See Mitt Romney, The Man, His Values and His Mission, Mapletree Publishing Company, Denver, CO, 2007.