That said, I still have faith that a lot of humans, probably more than I myself would count, will make this policy change work to improve proselytizing overall and give LDS young men a better mission experience. I see myself being a resource not for young men going on missions, but for young men who don’t. The LDS church will need its older male members to step up and fill a tutelary role for young men whose work and growth in the church is still necessary, even without specific mission service in their youth.

I do indeed see the need for consistently prepared proselytizing missionaries, a common set of criteria throughout the church. As it is now, not all wards or stakes in the church use the same criteria for recommending young men and women for missionary work. Rather, there are a host of young people who have left to serve missions without the physical, emotional, or spiritual readiness to handle the stress of a full-time proselytizing mission–let alone one involving foreign language, foods, culture, and companions. No doubt too that the age change from a few years ago has only made the problem more acute. Mission presidents (and senior companions) who should be focusing on missionary work are instead spending a good share of their time counseling, coaching, and babysitting.

One commenter above said that 40% of missionaries in his area have come home early. I’m not surprised it’s that high in some areas. It’s a lot to expect from an 18-year old young man who’s never lived away from home.

But here’s the thing: this isn’t a problem created by non-standard criteria or insufficient pre-mission questioning on the part of bishops and stake presidents. The cause of ill-prepared missionaries runs much deeper. The current level of ill-prepared missionaries is simply a natural consequence of 6+ decades of admonishment from the pulpit that, “Every male member of the church should serve a mission just as he should pay his tithing, just as he should attend his church meetings.” And “It’s your greatest and most important duty to preach the Gospel.” (Those are President Kimball’s words from just one example talk in 1981). Even our current Aaronic Priesthood manual disparages the reasons for not serving a mission as mere “common excuses.” And as others here have said, our Mormon culture has grabbed onto these prophetic directives and run with them combining to create tremendous pressure on young men to serve.

This is the source of the problem. With such a heavy push for duty-bound missionary service, it’s natural for young men feel duty-bound to serve–even if they’re not fully physically, emotionally, or spiritually ready to do so. After all, they’ve been taught that missionary service is the most important thing they need to do at that age!

My concern here with this First Presidency letter and sixteen criteria is that does absolutely nothing to address this root cause, to quell the pressure young people feel to serve a full-time proselytizing mission. In fact, it will quite likely compound the problem: it’ll add a layer of exclusivity or privilege on top of the already duty-bound need to serve. I pity the increase in young men now caught in the middle: feeling a prophetic and cultural duty to serve, but then not being allowed to do so. They’re going to feel shame and may direct that towards disaffection with the church.

I do worry we create a false dichotomy between service and proselytizing. We can do both I think.

Cameron, I didn’t know that about service missionaries. Is that true for all service missionaries or just certain types of service? And what counts as a service mission?

When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?

This is the ‘spirit of Christ’: conscripting involvement in the work of right things.

I remember at that time there were building missionaries who helped with the construction of chapels. We had 3 viable wards/branches in our Mission. These missionaries were assisting with the construction of chapels in the 3 cities.

The Church is consolidating in Europe. (Something that should happened years ago.) Missionaries are being moved to developing countries, where new members are frequently poor. Soon 1/2 of all members will be in developing countries. These areas would be perfect for service missionaries. But it needs to be service for service sake, and not have ulterior motives.

“Let us prepare every missionary to go to the temple worthily and to make that experience an even greater highlight than receiving the mission call.”

I think you’re right that part of the issue with making the Endowment the great “coming-of-age” ceremony is that it is so private.

It may be in the church’ past that men (and women) received their Endowment prior to Sealing to a spouse in the Temple, then were called on a mission (sister missionaries were still single, I believe). After settling in Utah, that pattern changed, as young men and women could be sealed in the Temple, or remain single and serve a mission before getting sealed/married. This choice between Temple marriage or mission/Temple marriage would work differently depending on time and place, but Temple marriage was the real social expectation of young men and women no matter where they lived.

My son followed the pattern of serving a mission then getting married, similar to my own pattern. My daughter did not choose to serve a mission, but did receive her Endowment while remaining single. I believe that the social impact for my daughter was minimal, mostly because of cultural/historical time and place. However, my spouse was somewhat disappointed, especially as my spouse was watching many of the other eligible young women serve missions from our stake.

In a non-Catholic or non-Protestant Christian culture which is being LDS, it’s easy to see how an LDS mission became an external sign of coming-of-age, an event you could openly share with non-LDS family and friends. The Endowment has limited social currency, espescially if you live where the LDS church is not prominent.

More or less all I’m saying is we shouldn’t have a one size fits all mission program. I think if we can figure out how to attack the problem from multiple facets, putting people where they’d best be of use that we’d accomplish a lot.

Jerry, my MTC teacher went to the Amazon for his mission. He was told to send home all his suits and get camouflaged fatigues and jungle ware. He used a machete rather than bike. He had quite the tales about his mission (this likely would have been the mid-80’s for him). I suspect that happens more than people suspect even if the bulk of missionaries go to more urban or suburban areas.

I remember an LDS couple in my ward growing up where one spouse is Native American, as they met when the other spouse served a mission in the reservation where the first spouse lived.

Not only does this recollection emind me that LDS missions provide a circumstance for meeting a potential spouse (I have no idea on those statistics), my observations of the male spouse was he looked liked a ranch hand that dressed for church, with denim jeans and a white shirt. I could imagine him on a mission dressed just like that, and fitting in as well as any white man could, lending his hands to whatever chores needed doing.

I have to be honest, I really do hope the church broadens what it considers to be ‘full-time’ missionary service to include service missions and cyber-missions.

We violated the white handbook’s rule on ‘only 4 hours of service’ given weekly and ended up giving around 22 hours (12 hours x 2 missionaries) weekly to a charitable organization. We never directly proselytized by agreement with the agency. We acted now and asked for forgiveness later. At first our mission president frowned at us and was miffed that we were so cavalier, but after we invited him to see the work we were doing and the results it produced, he endorsed the effort and encouraged us to expand it a little by involving another companionship. What it did for the image of the church in our area was profound, and there was a visible, trailing convert effect.

My personal belief is the church is in a place where it would benefit by having more service missions where young men who are builders, workers in jeans and t-shirts in their abilities, personalities and interests could be called to serve. This in addition to our white shirt and tie proselytizing missionaries. Some of the missionaries who struggled in my mission would have excelled in that kind of roll. (I’m thinking well digging, house building, school teaching, tutoring, etc., branded similarly to ‘Helping Hands.’) The same is true of cyber-missions. The more the church can do to open up ways to serve, the more success I think we’ll see among young men and women who are better suited to those kinds of non-traditional, proselytizing roles. When I served, it was really at the height of ‘one size fits all,’ which made it really difficult for about 20% of our missionaries to “succeed.”

We also had a couple of autistic elders and while they were committed and very sweet young men, the tax it put on them, their companion and the wards in which they served was very heavy. These elders were brilliant and focused and would have excelled serving in a family history center, for example. But having them proselytize was a disaster and placed so much negative stress on them it was heartbreaking to see.

More than critical of the church’s missionary efforts, I am excited to see where this all heads.