Two young men approach Elder Jake Kunz as he walks across the crowded Malostranské náměstí.

"Excuse me," says one of the men in English. He points to Kunz's black suit, dark overcoat and large black nametag. "Is this some kind of uniform?"

The man turns to his partner and they exchange brief smiles — it seems as though they're putting Kunz on.

"No," Kunz says. He nods in the direction of Elder Chad Johnson standing beside him. "We're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons? Have you heard of our church?"

"Mormons," the man rolls the word around in his mouth before spitting it out. He nods, "Yes. I just read about it vaguely a couple of years ago."

The man pauses, then asks, "What are you doing here?"

The questioner has a point: Barely 30 percent of Czechs say they believe in God, according to the 2001 census, and that number is dropping. Match that with the country's permissive attitudes toward sex, drugs and alcohol, you have a formidable hurdle for any young man looking to find converts to his faith.

It can make living a righteous life here harder, too.

"People hear that we don't drink beer," says Kunz, a former standout football player and track competitor, who turned 21 March 14, "and they go, 'How can you even live in the Czech Republic?'"

Kunz, an earnest and confident guy with an athletic build, is clearly passionate about his work.

The Mormon church does not require missions of its members, but it's seen as a rite of passage among young men and most do it. Kunz, whose two older brothers also served missions, says he personally has found the truth. Whether or not people believe him is another matter.

"You come to give your testimony," Kunz says. "That's all you can do."

Czech atheism is not actually a major problem, says the Driggs, Idaho, native, adding that each missionary has to overcome different obstacles. It would be tougher to proselytize in a country like Poland, he says, which is 95 percent Roman Catholic.

"If a person is an atheist, you can at least give them a fresh start about God. A person who has no faith at all is more likely to be open-minded about what you have to say."

But Mission President Fred Yost admits that work here can be rough sledding. Yost currently oversees 76 missionaries in the Czech Republic and Slovakia — of which 67 are men. In 2005, the two countries' missionaries managed to achieve just 31 baptisms.

"That's indicative of just how challenging it is," Yost says.

Training day

Kunz is spending the day breaking in Johnson, 19, who is on only his second full day of spreading the church's word.

The two men approach people on the street, at tram stops and in squares. The people they select are usually young and — because of clear rules about contacting members of the opposite sex — mostly men.

Over the course of the nearly four hours the two spent spreading the word on a recent Friday, people waved them away only twice.

Johnson is clearly nervous, but Kunz sympathizes with him. Between talking with people on the street, Kunz and Johnson walk and work on Johnson's error-laden Czech.

"I know how he feels," Kunz says. "You're excited, but you just don't know how you are going to do it."

All missionaries to the Czech Republic get nine weeks of intensive language training before arriving here, but there's a big difference between that and street Czech.

Missionaries keep to a grueling daily schedule in which nearly every minute is accounted for, and Kunz only has one day a week free, which he spends planning for the following week or taking day trips.

Breaking the ice

Kunz has honed his Czech canvassing for more than 22 months in homes, villages and cities throughout the country, 10 hours a day.

"Vím, že Bůh žije a vím, že nás miluje," Kunz says. "That was the first thing I learned how to say in Czech: 'I know that God lives and I know that God loves us.' It's simple, but it's true."

During his mission, he has heard every type of criticism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which was organized in 1830 in Fayette, New York, by 24-year-old Joseph Smith, a man believed by Mormons to be a prophet.

"We get nailed on polygamy," Kunz says. "The Church has not practiced polygamy for over a hundred years, but still people will ask how many wives we get."

People will also tell him that Mormons don't believe in the Bible. The church actually teaches the Book of Mormon, alongside the Bible, as another testament of Jesus Christ.

Some ask Kunz if he and his fellow missionary are gay because they wear similar clothes and live in the same apartment. "You hear it," he says. "Not a lot, but you hear it."

Only 30 percent of Czechs have heard of the Mormons, Kunz says, and of those people only 10 to 20 percent are well informed about it.

From Tetons to Krkonoše

Truth be told, Kunz did not choose the Czech Republic. He applied to be one of the 51,000 Mormon missionaries currently serving two-year stints throughout the world and might have been assigned to any of the Church's 335 global missions.

Prague is a far cry from his home outside of Driggs, a town of 1,300 nestled in a valley between the Grand Teton and Big Hole mountain ranges. Besides being a bastion of Mormon faith, it is the adopted home of Dawn Wells — Mary Ann on the '60s TV hit Gilligan's Island.

Missionaries pay for all of their own expenses during their mission; Kunz, who will likely spend $10,000 while he is here, started saving as a teenager. "You use your time a lot smarter when you know you are using your own money," he says.

Kunz has loved his work so much that he extended it an extra month. He will leave in May and plans to enroll in college in the fall, possibly to become a pilot. "I've just loved to fly since I was a little guy," he says.

But he's a little hesitant about leaving now and is considering studying abroad.

"This is all I know," he says. "It's a bit of a cliché, but I don't miss a lot. My family of course."

He runs down the mental checklist to see if he forgot anything.