One Year Later: A Look Back On Age Changes For Missionary Service

[Scott Lloyd]

Here's an interesting piece by my friend and Deseret News colleague Joe Walker, a retrospective on the announcement a year ago that the ages would be changed for eligibility for missionary service.

 

Thought the board might like to have a look.

[Calm]

Hillary Bowler, a recently returned missionary from the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission, agreed. She spent the last five months of her mission serving as a sister training leader, and she said having sisters as leaders and in the mission leadership council is already making a difference.

"We went from 18 sisters in the mission when I first came out to about 60 now," she said. "The elders who serve as district and zone leaders are great, but there are certain things that it is just difficult for sisters to talk to them about. I think it really makes a difference to a young sister to have an older, more experienced sister to talk to and receive training from."

Bowler said she is also excited about what this will mean for future ward and stake councils. "Fast forward 20 years," she said. "If I'm a Relief Society president, I'll know a lot better how to work with a bishop after serving in our mission leadership council."

[Calm]

I am on an iPad and it is not cooperating...so that is a quote above and I am adding my comment here:

I think this may even be the most fundamental change due to the lowering because as they stated it really isnt anything new in the experience, just many more to deal with.

[Scott Lloyd]

Reportedly, things have happened pretty much as the Missionary Department projected they would.

 

While there has been commentary in some quarters that the greater number of missionaries is a temporary thing, Elder Evans told me a few months after the announcement that the expectation at the Missionary Department is that even after the surge, the missionary force will still be significantly higher than it was before. It seems, from Joe's article, that is still the expectation.

[Kenngo1969]

This is awesome, Scott!

 

Kudos to your colleague.

 

And thanks for sharing!

[cdowis]

I had two daughters on a mission a few years ago.  Don't want to be negative, but clearly the zone leader just "didn't get it".

 

So happy that we have sisters as trainers and leaders now.

[jwhitlock]

Good article! We've significantly increased the number of sisters in our mission, and now we have two sets of missionaries in our ward - one set of sisters and one set of elders, all good, solid missionaries. 

[Avatar4321]

Hillary Bowler, a recently returned missionary from the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission, agreed. She spent the last five months of her mission serving as a sister training leader, and she said having sisters as leaders and in the mission leadership council is already making a difference.

"We went from 18 sisters in the mission when I first came out to about 60 now," she said. "The elders who serve as district and zone leaders are great, but there are certain things that it is just difficult for sisters to talk to them about. I think it really makes a difference to a young sister to have an older, more experienced sister to talk to and receive training from."

Bowler said she is also excited about what this will mean for future ward and stake councils. "Fast forward 20 years," she said. "If I'm a Relief Society president, I'll know a lot better how to work with a bishop after serving in our mission leadership council."

 

Funny. I knew Sister Bowler. She was in my ward for a while on her mission.

 

I thought it was an excellent article. I can see the Spirit of the work.

[danieldemol]

Why would a person have to wait until they are 19 to be a missionary?

[Storm Rider]

Why would a person have to wait until they are 19 to be a missionary?

 

Hello Dan, I think you can answer your own question. As a missionary you serve in locations far from home, sometimes in foreign lands with a need to learn and speak a foreign language. You need to be capable of not only interacting and cooperating with fellow missionaries, but you also must be ready to teach others the gospel of Jesus Christ.  24-hours a day you are dedicated to serving others while denying yourself of your own wants and desires.

 

At what age would you think individuals are ready for such a situation?

[Kenngo1969]

Why would a person have to wait until they are 19 to be a missionary?

In the spirit of President David O. McKay's injunction, "Every member a missionary," they would not.  One of the best missionaries I know is a nine-year-old girl who helped the Spirit of the Lord covert her grandparents to the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, and now she's working on her nonmember father.  In keeping with the injunction in the Church of Jesus Christ to avoid throwing good money after bad, I don't bet , but if I were a betting man, I wouldn't bet against her.  I was in the Temple with her grandparents when they were sealed last month.

[Hamba Tuhan]

The impacts of the change are just beginning to show up in our ward, but they point to a rather seismic shift in the years to come. We've gone from one set of Sisters serving in our ward to two, and still we can't stay on top of the work. This past Sunday morning we spent over an hour at ward council meeting just reporting on who had been visited and planning follow-ups for the week. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we already have 60% of our ward who attend regularly (though not each week), and that number is increasing. At the same time, conversions remain steady, and our converts are growing and cared for. I was talking to our YM president at Mutual tonight, and he asked my permission (!) to visit more people than he'd been assigned. Our Sunday school president and primary president just do it and then report back.

[Storm Rider]

The impacts of the change are just beginning to show up in our ward, but they point to a rather seismic shift in the years to come. We've gone from one set of Sisters serving in our ward to two, and still we can't stay on top of the work. This past Sunday morning we spent over an hour at ward council meeting just reporting on who had been visited and planning follow-ups for the week. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we already have 60% of our ward who attend regularly (though not each week), and that number is increasing. At the same time, conversions remain steady, and our converts are growing and cared for. I was talking to our YM president at Mutual tonight, and he asked my permission (!) to visit more people than he'd been assigned. Our Sunday school president and primary president just do it and then report back.

 

Ah, yes the deceitful reporting on membership numbers again. Were those that attended Church believing members or not? Do they believe in all the doctrines of the Church or just some of them? Which meetings did they attend?  How do you know?  Are you sure it was 60% of the total membership or 60% of members with the letters A through L or some other subset of qualifiers just so that you could inflate the membership numbers?  

 

I have you now; yes, another example of lying, deceitful Mormons trying to deny the truth of what the real story is on the Church's membership!  For shame. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

Ah, yes the deceitful reporting on membership numbers again. Were those that attended Church believing members or not? Do they believe in all the doctrines of the Church or just some of them? Which meetings did they attend?  How do you know?  Are you sure it was 60% of the total membership or 60% of members with the letters A through L or some other subset of qualifiers just so that you could inflate the membership numbers?

 

All your questions answered here.

[Storm Rider]

Alas, an excellent response, but my allegations were done tongue-in-cheek. I find these type of allegations to be farce for the most part and a colossal waste of time for those that are committed to making them. It is a straw man used to wage a war with themselves. 

[Spammer]

The missionaries came by for a chat last weekend.  Usually it's the sister missionaries.  They stop by to say hi and check on the wife and kids, who are LDS.  This time the elders came to see me.  They were very nice but rather insistent that I share with them my reasons for leaving the church.  I knew it would get them and me nowhere.  They're just kids fresh out of high school with (maybe) a year of college under their belts.  I politely tried to decline several times before they took the hint and left.  They came back ten minutes later to try again!   So, sighing inwardly, I went ahead and shared my reasons, briefly touching on patristics, epistemology, and ancient history.  As expected, being typical recent high school grads (from Indiana and Utah), they didnt' know what the heck I was talking about.  All they had was their testimonies and as I said to them, "sorry guys, I'm immune to testimonies".  Lowering the mission age to 18 likely won't help future missionaries' prospects of an engaging conversation with folks like me. 

Edited October 8, 2013 by Spammer

[Hamba Tuhan]

Lowering the mission age to 18 likely won't help future missionaries' prospects of an engaging conversation with folks like me. 

 

I have a PhD in history, and I hope to serve a senior mission (or five) someday, but I sincerely doubt that my experience at your door would be any different to what these 18 year olds experienced.

[Scott Lloyd]

Hello Dan, I think you can answer your own question. As a missionary you serve in locations far from home, sometimes in foreign lands with a need to learn and speak a foreign language. You need to be capable of not only interacting and cooperating with fellow missionaries, but you also must be ready to teach others the gospel of Jesus Christ.  24-hours a day you are dedicated to serving others while denying yourself of your own wants and desires.

 

At what age would you think individuals are ready for such a situation?

There is also the practical consideration that the individual or his family might not be financially ready for him to serve a mission just yet.

[Spammer]

I have a PhD in history, and I hope to serve a senior mission (or five) someday, but I sincerely doubt that my experience at your door would be any different to what these 18 year olds experienced.

 

Lol, you're probably right.  But at least you would give me a real run for my money.

[Scott Lloyd]

Lol, you're probably right.  But at least you would give me a real run for my money.

No missionary, young or old, should be trying to win converts with intellectual argumentation.

 

They are looking for people humble enough to approach God in prayer with real intent. If a person is in that state, the age of the missionary extending the invitation to him or her to do so is of no great import.

Edited October 8, 2013 by Scott Lloyd

[Spammer]

No missionary, young or old, should be trying to win converts with intellectual argumentation.

 

They are looking for people humble enough to approach God in prayer with real intent. If a person is in that state, the age of the missionary extending the invitation to him or her to do so is of no great import.

 

There's the rub.  If someone listens to the missionaries, approaches God in prayer, and gets the 'wrong' answer, does that prove that they lacked humility and/or real intent?

[halconero]

I had two daughters on a mission a few years ago.  Don't want to be negative, but clearly the zone leader just "didn't get it".

 

So happy that we have sisters as trainers and leaders now.

 

From the viewpoint of a former zone leader, I can sympathize with your views.

 

It comes from a number of limitations, the most basic being the rules placed on the interactions between members of the opposite sex while serving a mission.

 

There were a number of times that I saw sisters struggling, be it with the work in an area, a relationship from home gone south, family issues, etc.

 

With an Elder going through the same I felt like I could help more. If the work was struggling or if they were having a hard time teaching I could go on exchanges with them and spend a day or two with them helping them find, practicing teaching, viewing the area, etc. If it was a family or girlfriend issue I could sit down with them, talk to them one on one, cry with them sometimes, give them a hug, etc.

 

None of those things I could do with sisters. I could talk with them about the area on the phone, practice teaching at district meeting, and sometimes give them a quick pump up pat on the back or quick call, etc. Beyond that I had to refer things to the mission president.

 

With Sister training leaders I feel that those sisters can finally get the one-on-one help that they need, which the mission president sometimes struggles to do just from logistical reasons and the age difference. It is a grand idea.

[Scott Lloyd]

There's the rub.  If someone listens to the missionaries, approaches God in prayer, and gets the 'wrong' answer, does that prove that they lacked humility and/or real intent?

Depends on the individual. The reason in an individual case might be known only to God -- and perhaps the person himself.

 

But one's inability to identify the reason in a given situation does not negate the spiritual experiences of those who have sought and received answers.

 

And my prior point still stands: Missionaries are not about arguing people into the Church anyway, so individual age and academic background is of no great moment.

Edited October 8, 2013 by Scott Lloyd

[Spammer]

Depends on the individual. The reason in an individual case might be known only to God -- and perhaps the person himself.

 

But one's inability to identify the reason in a given situation does not negate the spiritual experiences of those who have sought and received answers.

 

And my prior point still stands: Missionaries are not about arguing people into the Church anyway, so individual age and academic background is of no great moment.

 

I agree with all three points.  No one should draw inferences about anyone's internal dispositions in spiritual matters.  My spiritual experiences (or lack) do not negate yours, and vice versa.

Edited October 8, 2013 by Spammer

[cinepro]

Alas, an excellent response, but my allegations were done tongue-in-cheek. I find these type of allegations to be farce for the most part and a colossal waste of time for those that are committed to making them. It is a straw man used to wage a war with themselves. 

 

If the numbers are supposed to mean something, then why isn't it valid (and necessary) to discuss what, exactly, they are supposed to mean?