Nobody really likes to talk about their underwear, and Mormons probably have better reason than most to be reticent. They don't even call it "underwear." The term they prefer is "garments," which is taken from the King James Bible, and gives these scraps of white cloth a formal name to go along with the vaguely talismanic character they hold in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They don't look like anything special: a white T-shirt and boxer briefs, slightly longer than average, distinctive in nothing much but their color and the fact that all adult, devout Mormons, men and women, wear them.
Mormons don't use the word "underwear" to talk about their garments, and they certainly don't use the word "magic," or really believe that garments have any special powers to stop bullets or keep them from getting sick or serve as a sort of nylon-and-cotton flame retardant. There are stories of some of these things, like there are stories of the relics of Catholic saints curing epilepsy or blindness, but to most Mormons these are faith-promoting rumors, evocative but archaic folklore. The garments are a sign of devotion, a marker of faith, to be respected for the same reasons that it's considered rude to burn a Koran, but hardly mystical.
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