“Do you believe in the Bible?” they asked. “Yes I do,” said Collins, resplendent in a deep fuchsia robe. But she couldn't believe her ears when they asked if she had any tasks that needed doing, like washing dishes or taking out the trash.

Collins tilted back her head, wrapped in a silken green scarf, and eyed them incredulously. “For free?” she asked.

Minutes later, Elders Ian Wai and Jonathan Cordoba were on their hands and knees on Collins' front porch, cutting a swag of carpet to her specifications. Before the men moved on up Williams Street, Collins, who attends Shiloh Baptist Church, said they could return with a free copy of the Book of Mormon.

“I love to talk about the Lord,” she said.

“Elder” is what Mormons call missionaries, typically men in their 20s who devote two consecutive years to spreading the word from door to door. Wai, 24, and Cordoba, 20, are assigned to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Quaker Hill, where they live in Spartan social conditions.

Free time is spent studying scripture. They watch no television, steer clear of news, and the only Web site they see is the church's, where they exchange e-mail with family and friends. “We're unplugged from the world,” said Cordoba.

Some news filters through, however, from plugged-in church members, including reports of last Sunday's television debut of “Big Love,” HBO's new drama series about a Utah businessman with three wives. Sooner or later, Cordoba and Wai have been warned, they'll probably get questions about it.

They'll respond, they say, that their church outlawed polygamy in 1890 and that they haven't watched the program.

Although the mainstream Mormon church outlawed polygamy more than a century ago, it is still practiced by some breakaway fundamentalists.

Author, attorney and anti-casino crusader Jeff Benedict, arguably the best-known Mormon in southeastern Connecticut, said last week he'd like to see western states such as Arizona and Utah “crack down more aggressively” on polygamy, which has “severe social consequences for children, especially young girls.”

Benedict hadn't seen “Big Love,” which he said “glamorizes something that is patently illegal.” But he doubted that it would have much social or religious impact. If anything, he said, the HBO series might arouse people's curiosity about Mormons and lead them to discover what the faith is really about.

Benedict's latest book profiles Mormon CEOs of some of the nation's largest companies and is due out this fall. The biggest challenge facing the church today, he said, isn't media focus on aberrations, but managing the church's growth.

“It's the fastest-growing church in the U.S.,” he said, with 13 million members worldwide, about half of them in the United States.

Benedict attends the same Quaker Hill church as Cordoba and Wai and, like them, performed a two-year evangelical service in his 20s. His base was Seattle, not very friendly territory for Mormons, he said.

Cordoba is from Miami, with roots in Costa Rica. “Spanish was my first language,” he said. His fluency served him well in and around the Williams and Blackhall Street neighborhoods Friday.

He chatted in Spanish with Alfonso Lazarte, who was on his way out of his house, and the missionaries made plans to return. Lazarte, like Collins, seemed unconcerned that he might be asked to convert. “I love the Lord,” he said, so any communion on that subject was welcome.

“A lot of people who see us think we're Jehovah's Witnesses,” said Cordoba. On Friday, some people dismissed them with “not interested,” while others listened behind a half-shut door. Ann Saunders stood on her porch, quietly answering “yes” to questions about belief in the Bible and Jesus Christ.

She was a Catholic, she said later, but had Mormon relatives, and thought she might be more relaxed in that faith.

Missionaries are asked where they want to serve but know not to count on it. Decisions are made at church headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Wai, who grew up in Hawaii and sported a colorful Hawaiian tie, laughingly suggested that church officials might deliberately steer missionaries away from any place that held too much appeal or temptation for them.

Cordoba said he had hoped to serve in Europe and was originally headed for Venezuela. But with Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of America, in charge there, he was diverted to Connecticut.

The men travel by bicycle and go door to door from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day but Monday. Such service is not mandatory for Mormons, and not limited to men, but fewer women take part.

Several young women who walked by on Friday took the men's handouts without taking their cell phones from their ears. But no one was rude or dismissive to them.

Wai and Cordoba said they liked this mid- to low-income area, where people were often home during the day. Missionaries don't discriminate among neighborhoods, Cordoba said, but “the rich are the worst ... hardest” to work.

People usually aren't at home there except at night, he said, while Wai added that perhaps the humble take more kindly to strangers at the door.