Response to Mormon Missionary Age Announcement Remains Enthusiastic and Unprecedented

Candace Richins was in the midst of her freshman season with Utah State University’s women’s volleyball team when the announcement came from Church President Thomas S. Monson women can serve missions at age 19 and men at 18. Although thrilled about the possibility of serving a mission earlier, Richins — a possible starter on the team in 2013 — worried because her scholarship and spot on the team would not be guaranteed if she left.

“I felt very impressed that I needed to go and I needed to go now,” says Richins, who will begin missionary service in March in Stockholm, Sweden. “So I decided right then and there that I would go and it didn't matter what I was leaving behind; I would just go and serve the Lord. It definitely was a hard decision because it not only affects me, it affects my coach, my teammates, the whole school. … But at the same time, I knew that it was right and that what I was doing was the correct thing and that everyone would be blessed for it.”

Like Richins’ experience, the decision to drop everything is not easy for any young man or woman in the Church. Nevertheless, the response to the 6 October announcement remains enthusiastic as unprecedented numbers of young men and women continue to fill out missionary applications.

“I've never seen anything affect a generation of young people like what President Monson announced the Saturday morning of general conference,” says Elder David F. Evans, executive director of the Church’s Missionary Department and member of the Seventy. “What we're seeing is just an absolute overwhelming response from this generation to the invitation of the Lord and His prophet to rise up and go and serve your fellow man and preach the gospel.”

In the weeks following the missionary age announcement, the Church reported that missionary applications had increased dramatically (from 700 applications per week to 4,000), with women comprising more than half of the applicants. While the number of post-announcement applications is still double what it has been in the past, the total number of men and women who have applied since October is now about equal. Prior to the announcement, approximately 15 percent of missionaries were young women.

The Church operates 347 missions around the world, each with an average of 170 missionaries. To accommodate this new influx of missionaries, capacity for many missions will rise to 250 missionaries. When missions exceed that number, new missions will likely be created as needed.

Speaking to missionaries at the MTC on Christmas Day, Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles dispelled false rumors that missions were opening in areas not currently open to missionary work. “Such rumors are absolutely false. Refute them!” Elder Nelson said. "Leaders of this Church enter countries new to the Church through the front door. We do not go in through the back door or via the alley. Our relationships are based on honesty, openness, integrity and complete compliance with local law."

Mission presidents are preparing for increased numbers by training their missionaries who are already serving so they an train incoming missionaries. Mission presidents are also looking at how they can best deploy missionaries within each mission’s boundaries. While the responsibility placed on mission presidents will increase, Elder Evans notes that it won’t be overwhelming.

“We’ve had many missions that have been 220 to 250 missionaries over the history of the modern Church in different places,” he says.

Because the Church has allowed some missionaries in 48 countries to serve at 18 for the past several years, the greatest surge of missionaries from the October announcement will come from countries where the younger age limit was not in place — including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Japan.

Adjustments will also be made at each of the Church’s 15 missionary training centers (MTCs). Training time for same-language and foreign-language missionaries will be reduced by 30 percent — those not learning a language will be at the MTC for two weeks instead of three, and those learning a language will have two weeks cut from their MTC stay.

Two recent developments make reduced MTC time possible. First, the Church initiated a 12-week in-field missionary training program a year ago — before anyone knew of the coming age announcement — in which much of the training that occurs at the MTC is retaught and reinforced in the mission field. Second, the Church initiated a study several months prior to the missionary age announcement that shows that it is possible to improve a missionary’s ability to learn a second language by sending him into the field earlier. These two changes would have occurred with or without the missionary age announcement.

To increase MTC capacity, each training center is maximizing empty space, including putting more bunk beds in each room. For example, the Church’s flagship MTC in Provo, Utah, will increase capacity from 3,000 to 4,800 in the short term. Long-term plans are also being considered. Although in mid-October Church leaders decided to not move forward with the construction of a nine-story building originally proposed for the Provo MTC, plans are still in the works to increase the center’s long-term capacity.

“Not demolishing the buildings that would’ve been demolished to build that nine-story building has proven to be a great blessing in the short term,” Elder Evans says, “because anything we would’ve done would’ve decreased capacity in the short term.”

Although many more missionaries will be at the MTC at one time with the same facilities, Missionary Department managing director Stephen B. Allen says the MTC experience for each missionary will be equally good, if not better.

“[We want] to make sure that the MTC experience for every missionary will be a great experience,” Allen says. “It won’t be a watered-down experience; it won’t be a cheapened experience. It will be a great spiritual learning experience, a time of revelation for those missionaries as they learn how to be missionaries.”

The impact of the missionary age announcement also has a significant impact on enrollment numbers at universities in Utah and elsewhere.

Elder Evans notes that the Church is deeply grateful to university administrators who have taken steps to accommodate young men and women who choose to serve.For example, at the end of November the University of Utah announced a new enrollment deferment policy that allows students to defer the start of their schooling for up to seven semesters. And in October Utah State University appointed a task force that is currently considering strategies the university can implement to best adapt to those who choose to serve a mission.

“The accommodation made by the universities has just been wonderful,” Elder Evans says. “Their willingness to consider the position of the Church and then seek the admission of the young people of the Church with the hope they’ll come back to those institutions after their missions has been very, very gratified, and we would be remiss if we didn’t express appreciation to every university that’s making that effort.”

Richins says her missionary service will help her be a better student when she returns.

“I hope that when I get back I’ll be different, I’ll be changed,” she says. “I’ll work harder, be more diligent in school, develop more of my talents, and I hope that it just develops me more as a person.”

Miranda Rechis, who also has taken advantage of the lower age requirement and will soon be a missionary in Osorno, Chile, agrees. She says missionary service will help her “mature, to be able to take … college seriously” when the mission is over.

It’s no secret that many more young women have volunteered for missionary service since 6 October. Church leaders are grateful for their willingness to serve. In a press conference following the announcement, Church apostle Jeffrey R. Holland said he is “absolutely delighted if this change in policy allows many, many more young women to serve,” noting that “those [women] who do serve are stunningly successful.”

Church leaders are also thrilled in general that more of the Church’s young people — men and women — will now be able to serve missions.

“This is an invitation of love from the Lord to this entire generation,” Elder Evans says. “What I would also say is that the scriptures make it clear, and I think the First Presidency and the Twelve have made it clear, … that we are all equal before God."

I haven;’t recognized what would be called Mormon arrogance or insults, all I’ve noticed is them defending themselves.

Here; perhaps I can help your education.

I'm SURE that MORMONs will show up on this thread to PROVE that these attitudes and ideas no longer permeate MORMONism.

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

It contains ALL of the Gospel of Christ.

Would you not agree that this is speculation on your part? You don't know if it does or if it doesn't. Since the Bible isn't in chronological order nor is it a linear story you can't be sure it contains everything that you should know or do.

You can't show me in any writing where God said to make a subset of all the writings. I mean, there are many references to other prophets and other writings in the Bible that aren't contained in the Bible. If it was important enough for God, in scripture to reference these writings, how do you know that you are not missing something important?

Not a thing wrong with that.

Unless the one doing the translating has a doctrinal bias.

I am simply saying you are looking to the Bible to ask why people don’t agree. People don’t agree on what color car to buy. People don’t agree on what the Constitution means. I posit the problem with people.
That said, the Gospel of Christ is their in black and white.

This is clearly a contradiction and several logical fallacies. People don't agree on colors because of personal taste not because of reading comprehension skills. On the other hand you argue that the Gospel is black and white and people can not see it simply because they are disagreeable.

The more reasonable answer is that the Gospel of Christ is not in black and white.

Oh yea, every day, Christians kill each other... not.

Since you seemed to have missed this part, let me restate it: Its a well documented fact that only recently has the differing factions of modern Christianity stopped killing each other

But this seems to be a distraction. Again, you are focusing on people and not on the issue you raised about the Gospel. Distraction for you?

You cannot separate the Gospel from people. The Gospel was made for the people and they are inseparable. The supreme litmus test for any gospel taught by man is the effect it has on the people. The servant reflects the master. I can look at the behavior of any group and see the true God they follow.

No problem. They show the unchanging Bible.

Only 40% of the DSS's reference the Hebrew Bible. I do not believe the Hebrew Bible references the New Testament. Nor does this justify the latest translations. Hardly shows an unchanging Bible, quite the contrary.

No. I’m claiming that all Scripture is God-breathed and not all is about the Gospel we are discussing. Really, if you read the Bible, you wouldn’t have to ask questions that are basic.

Is the whole Bible scripture or is it not?

Just read the Bible...really? And what if my conclusion about the Gospel is different than yours?

The Pope had the king of Spain launch the Spanish Armada to recapture England for the Catholic Church. Are you saying that if the Pope would have just read the Bible he would understood the basics, as you do, that are right there in black and white and would have thought better of it and all those Catholics would have been spared?... Interesting.

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