Family and friends mourn slain missionary

ALAMO, Nev. -- Friends and family in this tiny town said a poignant good-bye Monday to 20-year-old Jose Mackintosh, a Mormon missionary with an infectious smile who was killed in Russia while realizing his lifelong dream of spreading the church's message.

Signs on a smattering of businesses in the town of 400 bore the scribbled message "Closed 10 a.m.-1 p.m. for Jose's funeral."

Mackintosh was stabbed as he left an apartment building in Ufa on Oct. 17. A missionary companion, Bradley Borden, 20, of Mesa, Ariz., was stabbed but survived in the attack. A suspect has been arrested.

Becki Mackintosh told a crowd of some 700 mourners that her son had dreamed of being a missionary in Russia since he was 8-years-old.

She recounted experiences their son had relayed to the family in the tiny town of Hiko, north of this ranching community, from walking through snowy Russian streets to being warned to stay inside during a Communist Party protest 10 days before his death and using the time to make 21 batches of brownies.

The mother said her son recalled talking with an elderly Russian man who had been in a concentration camp.

"It was a peephole into a different kind of life," the missionary wrote. "It made me glad for what I had."

He said he planned to step up his missionary work because he had "many people to teach."

The young man's father, Jose Mackintosh Sr., sobbed as he told that his son had died doing what he loved and there should be "no animosity and no ill feelings whatsoever for the people of Ufa - or Russia. They are our brothers and sisters."

Church elder Jeffery Holland, one of 12 apostles for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, said the Russians were weeping for the loss of Jose.

"Today Jose is everybody's son," he told the parents. "Thank you for letting us all today share something of Jose."

Holland said that Mackintosh's smile was something that everybody remembered about him.

"This was some remarkable young man," he said. "When life got toughest, that's when he smiled the most. He was majestic."

Holland recounted the missionary who graduated from tiny Pahranagat Valley High School, where he wrestled and was a member of the football team and as a young man anxious to serve his church."

"He was a sense of joy. Like a sunset," Holland said.

"God knows everything about losing a son on a mission," Holland told the crowd as both men and women often dabbed at their eyes. "I'm sorry it is so hard. I'm sorry it is such a loss."

Among those attending Monday's services were Myrna and Vale Borden, the parents of Bradley Borden. Mrs. Borden said she wanted to be at the services to show support from her family, and her son would have been there if he had been well enough to do so.

Bradley Borden is currently recuperating in Frankfurt, Germany.

Wesley Wilson, a friend of the family, described Mackintosh as "always smiling, a very loving, caring young man. He loved the Russian people. Since he was eight, he wanted to go on a mission there. I think he was doing what he wanted to do, he was where he wanted to be, around the people he loved."

Mackintosh was serving a two-year mission in Russia, which he began in November 1997.

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