The Mission Program:
I recently had an interesting conversation with my oldest son who at 18 chose not to go on a mission. He just had his 20th birthday. While in high school he ran around with a group of 8 great boys, all active LDS. Of this original 8, 3 decided that a mission was not for them, my son among them, and they decided to go on with university and life in general. The remaining 5 went on missions.
One of these boys was called to serve in the Philippians. The mission took a heavy toll out on this boy and he ended up coming home after serving three month. He tells of