Just read a post on Facebook from a TBM friend that they announced in sacrament that the mission age is to be reduced to 18. Anyone know else heard this? Can't see anything on lds.org or sl trib etc. If it's true they either must be really short on numbers or trying to get kids when they are even more naive and impressionable!
P.s this was in the U.K

Probably trying to get more naive kids to go. next thing you know they will offer a discount to attend BYU if you serve like a good little boy or Girl. The older people are figuring out that the church is a cult and are smart enough to say heck no JOE

If this is true, my guess is they're trying to sustain existing numbers of suckers . . . I mean, new recruits rather than increase the number. Just a guess, IMO.

If this is accurate, we will know soon enough. Remember, TSCC changes policy in response to a problem too big to deny. Also, remember that the purpose of the mission is to cement the missionary to TSCC for life. My guess is that this change indicates that during period between graduating and high school and turning 19, too many young men are either committing sin that makes them ineligible to serve or lose interest in serving (too much time to develop critical thinking skill).

My guess is that they are losing too many potential missionaries because of the wait to turn 19. Hip hip horray!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2011 05:25PM by caedmon.

Yeah, I'm surprised they haven't changed the age to 18 already. Its risky letting these impressionable youth go out into the world without being fully brainwashed.

Children of friends already left for their mission at 18 and this was already three-four years ago, in Europe. But I think here it has to do with the passage from high school to university or starting vocational, professional training. It is very difficult here to start learning a job (which requires going to school and do practical training in a firm) or go to university and then interrupt for two years to serve a mission.

are also hearing form more that don't want to go to school for a year or two and then leave on a mission?

I actually turned 19 in the provo mtc. What a fun way to spend your birthday! I seriously think that since they 'raised the bar' they have now realised they raised it too far, and they now know it's unrealistic for 19 yr old kids not to spank the monkey etc. So because they don't want to go back on themselves they're now opening it up to a bigger audience to keep the numbers up!

My guess is that if this claim is accurate and church-wide, that the reason it is being done is because kids graduate High School at age 17-18. What do you do for that year while you are waiting until 19?

Waiting until 19 is a problem, because alot of kids go to college and going for 1 year and stopping causes issues with scholarships, etc. This has always been an issue.

People also might be committed to college once there and might not then want to consider a mission until after they graduate,
and then end up not going at all. Let's face it: Missions are expensive.

The age for missions should have always been 18. The age 19 requirement was always dumb, so all you can say that perhaps the church has finally wised up.

sending a boy right from his mommy's home, never having lived with anyone other than family, never having been on his own and sticking him in the meat grinder of a mission is going to be very traumatic. Just learning to live with people who are different than your family - different interests, values and outlooks is hard to adjust to. I know guys who go into the military have a similar situation but they aren't completely cut off from contact with their families, are usually stateside for a while til they get adjusted (and not in an isolated MTC experience) and they are allowed to go out with friends and blow off steam or sometimes get leave and visit home. If they are deployed in Germany and their parents visit Germany, they get to see each other - unlike a mission.

I'm sure the church will emphasis teaching cooking, cleaning and other life skills being taught to prepare a missionary but there is a difference between doing those things in America under parent supervision with items you are familiar with and actually living alone. I think once again the church is not thinking of the welfare of their members but of what is best for the cult in retaining it's workforce.

It's the same pool of Mormon young men no matter how old they are. There would be a spike but then they'd go back to the same level within a year. If the rumor is true, there are probably more complicated reasons for it.

Missionaries are not really helping grow their corporation in a real way. Very few converts are not from the fringes of society, they don't hang around long, and their tithing contributions are probably fairly inconsequential. Missionary service's sole purpose must be to increase the level of loyalty among the faithful. So for this reason I don't get why LDS, Inc. would get so obsessed with the number of serving missionaries, since they could just lie about them anyway.

when I turned 18, legal age to drink back then, I was a yahoo Young Republican in East Texas beyond stupid.

a year later, I had spent 6 months in Manhattan during the Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, Cruising era.

the difference between me at 18 and 19 is a chasm.

two words. Velvet Underground.

Me at 18 = never tried alcohol, never tried tobacco, virgin

Me at 19 = had been drunk a few times, had smoked marijuana a few times, was worried my gf was pregnant...also exposed to philosophies of men at college

. . . I stayed home until I turned 19 to finish an art course I was involved in, then went on my mission, came back and only at that point enrolled as a 21-year-old college freshman.

Looking back on the timeline, I'm glad I did that way because it would have been an ineffectual and bothersome interruption to go to a year of college first, then get sucked into a mission. Continuing education on the college level is, in my opinion, best done by keeping it as continuous and focused as possible. I know there are reasonable exceptions, but I don't consider the 19-year-old mission mandate reasonable.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2011 05:25PM by steve benson.

Hopefully it don't happen :S I'm scared, because whatever the church leaders say, is what my family will do.

You could grow a pair and tell them no way I'm not going

does it still take months to do the interviews and process the paperwork and all that? i think it was like 3 or 4 months for me from the start of the process to actually entering the mtc...

and if so what's going to happen here when we start getting 17 year olds saying "help! i'm 17 and still in high school and my parents are making me do missionary interviews and fill-out the missionary paperwork"???

personally i don't like giving advice to someone else's 'kid' but... idk

stupid culty cult is a cult

One of my concerns is that there will be family and community pressure on American boys to begin serving their missions before they have graduated from high school. I hope that if this news is true, the church will require their 18-year-old missionaries be high school graduates (and that there will be similar rules in other countries as needed.)

My brother never went on one. He went straight to college when all his friends were going on missions. Our TBM family members were writing him letters and trying to pressure him into going. They just wanted to brag about their nephew or grandson out on his mission, which is what they have done with all the other missionaries in our family. He told us he knew all along he never was planning to go on a mission.

Hmm, judging by the fact that no-one else seems to have heard of this, maybe thus is just a UK or European thing? Did any other UK posters here anything at church today? That would be amazing if the local authorities showed some autonomy to make their own local decisions!