I’ve long had a special place in my heart for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who this week have descended 40,000 strong on our Phoenix downtown for their “Love Never Fails” International Convention.

If you work in the downtown, as I do, you see their families going to and from Chase Field and the Phoenix Convention Center.

On Aug. 8, I saw two Latino families leaving Chase in peasant dresses and vaquero hats and boots. The men and boys wore white shirts with colorful bandannas tied loosely around their necks. The women had paper flowers in their hair.

They exuded a quality that is, I think, the hallmark of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were the picture of wholesomeness.

We used to call them the “J-Dubs” when I was a 19-year-old Mormon missionary toiling for converts in the cities of Cincinnati and Louisville. We didn’t call them that out of disrespect, but out of familiarity.

They were knocking on doors. We were knocking on doors.

And we were always running into each other.

That experience left me with a deep respect for who they are. Because I’ve done the labor they do routinely throughout their lives and it’s pure trench work.

The foot soldiers of modern Christianity

The Jehovah’s Witnesses are the foot soldiers of modern Christianity. Nobody works harder than they to spread their faith. Mormon men and women go on missions when they’re young adults or elderly couples. But they don’t sustain that life-long commitment of spreading a Christian gospel in the most stress-inducing way – knocking on doors.

As a young LDS missionary, there was nothing I hated more than “tracting,” (an old expression derived from handing out “religious tracts.”) Tracting means going house to house and, with the best intentions, intruding on people’s privacy with a message about God and salvation.

One never knows what lurks behind those doors.

In rural Kentucky it was an angry man with a shotgun who told us we were trespassing. His gun barrel was quite the exclamation point. He didn’t have to tell us twice.

Another time a fundamentalist Christian answered the door and immediately began speaking loudly in tongues. I’d never seen anything like it and thought I was watching “The Exorcist.”

Me? I hated going door to door

Then there was the day two young Mormon missionaries went out tracting after a small-town barber had butchered their hair. We looked like “Dumb and Dumber” in white shirts and nameplates.

We wanted to hide but couldn't. We had doors to knock on and one was answered by a little old lady with a gentile Southern accent. Smiling warmly, she said through her screen door, “My, it’s wonderful to have two handsome young men on my doorstep today.”

For a moment we forgot we looked like dorks.

We asked her if she’d like to hear a message about the gospel.

She said, “I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m going in this morning to have surgery on both my eyes.”

Our bubble was burst.

And that was tracting. I hated it.

Jehovah's Witnesses do this all their lives

It all ended after two years in the mission field.

But it never ends for Jehovah’s Witnesses. They do it all their lives. And I respect them so much for it that I have made a point of treating them with kindness when they knock on my door. I always take time to talk to them and to take a Watchtower or two.

In the Mormon church, (and I’m sure we’re not alone) we embrace a scripture that is to us a sort of test. Matthew 7:20 – “… by their fruits ye shall know them.”

According to the New Testament, “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.”

Meaning that you can know a people or a faith by the way they conduct themselves, the way they raise their families and participate in work and community.

There's an understated graciousness

In Arizona journalism I’ve known two men who were devout Jehovah’s Witnesses.

One was a staff illustrator for The Arizona Republic named Tony Bustos. We worked closely together for many years, launching the first Viewpoints section at The Republic about 20 years ago.

We became close friends.

Over the years we talked a lot about faith and God, and Tony frequently described to me how his faith had shaped him. It was an exquisite sculptor.

Tony was a man of great personal gifts, a talented artist, but a truly exceptional human being. His style was understated graciousness – a friend to anyone at the newspaper who ever needed one.

A product of Phoenix North High School, his illustrative style would be instantly recognizable to many of our older readers. I remember once he drew a picture of Arizona Diamondbacks star Luis Gonzalez and his children, and Gonzo’s wife went crazy over that picture. She loved it! Tony was overjoyed to give her the original.

The second journalist was a former writer and editor for the Scottsdale Progress, East Valley Tribune and The Arizona Republic.

This about them when you get a knock

Gary Nelson is one of those people you need in every workplace and every community who is firmly grounded in high character and common sense. Men like these are the pillars and posts that hold society together.

Retired now, Gary is an exceptional writer and thinker. He excelled at long meditations on the history of this country and the world. All of his writing was deeply researched and elegantly written.

Like Tony, he was understated in his goodness. And despite his understatement, he was one of our best storytellers. Tony once told me Gary was a big draw for speaking engagements in the Jehovah’s Witness community.

They, too, saw his virtues.

Goodness and integrity have a power that envelops those who have it. In Tony Bustos and Gary Nelson, those qualities told you that whatever produced them could only come from something good.

A good tree.

Think about that the next time the Jehovah’s Witnesses knock on your door.

Phil Boas is editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic. He can be reached at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8292.