I went to the museum with a friend of mine, and the topic of religion and Mormonism came up. She's not Mormon, she's not even religious at all. Which is fine by me.
I found myself discussing some of the things that frustrate me about religion, Mormonism included. We talked about hypocrisy and people who just need to be punched (in a Christ-like sort of way, I would add). Of course, me saying that I dislike hypocrites makes me a hypocrite, I'm pretty sure. I will be the first to acknowledge that I've got at least 1 hypocritical area in my life. I don't know what that area is, but if you'd like, you can point it out to me. I'm open to that.
We talked about how faith does good things for people, but sometimes the answers can feel a little shallow. She has cancer (currently it's HAD, but she never knows), and hears a lot about how she should have faith in God and His healing power. "Yes, but, if we're going to go there, God gave me cancer." Religion can be used both ways.
We talked about people who want to be perfect. Perfect lives, the perfect house, perfect kids. About how sometimes, even though we "know" it isn't true, we have a tendency to think that if something is going wrong in someone's life, that person isn't as righteous as they should be. I told her about someone I knew who told me that bad things don't happen to good people. And then something bad happened in that person's life and I wanted to say, "Okay, which is it? Do bad things happen to good people? Or are you a bad person?"
And that was my friend's introduction to Mormonism. I suppose the positive spin is that, while I can see that my religion isn't perfect, I still actively participate in it and draw a lot of positives from it. I kept saying, "I really do like my religion, I promise!"
I am SO the worst missionary ever.
That may have been the best thing that you could have done. People outside of Mormonism (and religion generally) need to see that there are people inside of the religion who are healthy and logical and that means admitting that there is no rational basis for faith. A good missionary doesn't pretend that there aren't bad things about religion and Mormonism, and in this case you probably would have only confirmed her already negative suspicions about religious people.
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