The church decided to “raise the bar” in 2002 on entry requirements for missionaries, effectively preventing those with a history of serious sin from repenting and enter the mission field. This reduced the number of missionaries serving (down from a peak of 62K to approximately 51K at a time) and the number of convert baptisms (initially maintaining a rate of 4.7 or 4.8 baptisms per missionary, which rose to 5.5 in 2009), but another trend has also emerged in the last few years. A higher percentage of missionaries are returning home early than before the change. Is there a correlation between high worthiness and low preparation?First let’s consider what changed. Who was weeded out when the bar was raised in 2002? (all % below are complete fabrications based on my own ballpark assessment – feel free to revise the numbers to fit your own observations).
- The unrepentant sinners & the unconverted. The rebellious. There are stories of missionaries who went out because they were essentially bribed with a promised car or job because parents hoped that a mission would “clean them up” or get them back on track from their wayward existence. Anyone who served a mission before the change (like I did) probably knew a few of these guys. If this group used to make up about 3% of the mission population, it has now been eliminated. These guys were probably pretty independent and resilient; cars and jobs are powerful motivators. Of course, the ones I knew were mostly self-serving jerks and not very good missionaries unless their acts did in fact get cleaned up on the course of their missions.
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The repentant sinners. In E. Ballard’s original address on Raising the Bar, he said, “The day of the ‘repent and go’ missionary is over.” Eliminating these from the pool probably has some preventive value (shame avoidance is a powerful motivator). My guess is that this used to be a pretty high percentage of missionaries – maybe as high as 25%. Or else I was just in a unique mission.
Although we’ve all heard great stories of hardened sinners who found their souls while serving a mission, I think we can all agree that might not be the best method of conversion. But losing the repentant sinners feels like a loss on a few fronts: 1) everyone is a sinner, and demarking between degrees of sin doesn’t feel quite right to me, 2) I disagree with the implication that they are more likely to slip into those same sins again on their mission (at least that’s not what I saw), 3) who better than the repentant sinner to relate to potential converts, and 4) they are far more likely to have the life experience needed to live independently without going off the deep end.
In practice, if not based on the actual instructions to “raise the bar,” who was left in?
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The worthy. Candidates who had no serious (confession-worthy) sins in their past to repent. This group is the long-standing majority of missionaries both before and after the change. I’m going to estimate this constituted 60% before the change, which would put it at 83% after the change. If the goal was a higher percentage “worthy” missionaries, mission accomplished.
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The sheltered. Children of helicopter parents. These are the missionaries who have never lived away from home, don’t know how to cook, clean or care for themselves if they get sick, and haven’t had much experience dealing with people (e.g. a companion) outside their own family. I’d ballpark this at 3% of the mission force before the change, but with the change, that boosts it to more like 4.2%. These guys seem slightly higher risk for not making it through a mission.
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The mentally unstable. It’s not a sin to have a mental illness, and depending on the mental illness and its treatment or lack thereof, it can prevent one from making missteps that would lead to a repentance issue. However, this same issue could create problems for the missionary, out on his or her own, trying to cope with the stresses of a mission while also coping a mental issue. Before the change, I would have ballparked this at 1% of missionaries, but with the change, this moves to 1.4%. This group should be shrinking, but according to a SLTrib article, it may go unreported due to the stigma of not serving.
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Those with health issues. Again, not a worthiness issue at all, but this can impact someone’s ability to complete their mission, especially if they are in an area with unfamiliar climates, foods, exposure to other ailments, and different doctor care. I would have ballparked this one for my pre-bar-raised mission at about 3%, and based on these estimates, probably 4.2% now.
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The socially isolated. Those that couldn’t get a date, much less commit sexual sin. Poor social skills. Possibly poor hygiene. Could include extreme introverts. OK, there’s a reason missionaries are occasionally mocked for their dorkiness. I would have pegged this at about 5% of missionaries before the change. With the change (if my original estimates are anywhere near right), that moves this to 6.9%.
In a talk by L. Tom Perry in the 2007 November Ensign, he said: “Full-time missionary service is a privilege for those who are called through inspiration by the President of the Church. Bishops and stake presidents have the serious responsibility to identify worthy, qualified members who are spiritually, physically, and emotionally prepared for this sacred service and who can be recommended without reservation. Those individuals not able to meet the physical, mental, and emotional demands of full-time missionary work are honorably excused and should not be recommended. They may be called to serve in other rewarding capacities.“
So, why is the church struggling to raise the bar in these remaining areas?
- Stigma of not serving. It seems that this idea of honorably excusing those who are not fully prepared is not well understood. Someone who is unprepared emotionally, physically or spiritually is considered damaged goods by the lay membership. Average members often still consider those who don’t serve a mission as unworthy, regardless the reason, not as “honorably excused.”
- Reluctance of local leaders to offend. In some of these cases, a local leader determining that a young man or woman is not ready to serve a mission is an indictment of members’ parenting skills or social skills of the candidate. This can result in hurt feelings and drive people away who are asking to serve.
- Lack of self-awareness. Self-reported social, physical and emotional readiness may be unreliable, especially for young people with little exposure outside their family circle.
- No external assessment. We determine worthiness based on the interview questions, mostly related to confessable sins. But we don’t consistently apply as much scrutiny to issues that are in fact less reliant on self-reporting errors: physical health and mental wellness. Both of these could be assessed in a clear manner through professional instruments and interviews with health care professionals.
What could we do differently? Here are some suggestions (some of which are doubtless being done to varying extents):
- Quit babying the youth. YW and YM leaders should treat the youth who lead the quorums and YW groups to lead those groups, giving them clear opportunities to organize, lead, and instruct others. Parents should push their kids to take on more reponsibility, not less.
- Mainstream viable mission alternatives that are viewed as equal, non-token assignment with no associated stigma. These can’t be populated with just those who are physically or mentally unable to serve a proselyting mission, or the stigma remains.
- Require some minimum time living independently prior to serving (not just in dorms which often act as substitute parents). This one might be a problem for those who don’t have the financial means to make it a reality, but there is something to be said for having to cook your own Ramen noodles and wash your own clothes regularly while living with people who aren’t related to you. Perhaps serving “temporary” field missions would be a good approach; this was done with young members who were not yet old enough to serve missions when I was on my mission.
- Provide better instruction on mission preparation that includes social skills (a bit tough to assess), emotional resilience, independence, and so forth. Use external assessments to assist local leadership in good decision making.
- Ensure better balance in considering all requirements: social skills, emotional resilience, physical health, and worthiness / repentance. Allow the repentant to serve, provided they are clearly ready in all areas, including the spiritual. Technically, the guidelines do allow for this, but the wording of the original talk and instruction was so direct that there seems to be a reluctance to allow for it among local leaders.
Others have blogged on this topic here (friendly) and here (hater).
Have we lost something by preventing the repentant from going? Or should we cut further to eliminate those who are socially unprepared or coping with mental or other health issues? What are your experiences? Do you disagree with my guesses at percentages above? Do you have any great stories (who doesn’t) about the unconverted, the socially awkward, or the rest?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
I think you might be under a misconception of the “repent and go” thing.
What changed is that 19 year olds could no long merely _begin_ the repentance process and go on a mission.
However, the rule after raise-the-bar is that if the transgression happened over 1 year prior to applying for a mission, and was voluntarily confessed (also over 1 year prior to applying for a mission), and the Bishop and the SP gave their clearance for the individual to get a temple-recommend, _those_ young adults still could (and still can) go on a mission. In other words, after the young man has gone through the process and recovered proper standing.
The problem with “repent and go” was that the young man in that situation wasn’t really worthy of a temple recommend, since he had merely begun the repentance process. Someone not headed for the mission field would have had to wait a longer time, and wait for the bishop and/or SP to deem that the sin had been “cancelled”, ie the person had received the Lord’s forgiveness.
A 19 year old with a recent transgression still has until age 25 to go on a mission. If at any point until age 25, the bishop and/or SP deem the young man has sufficiently repented, been forgiven by the Lord, and is now honestly eligible for a temple-rec, and is still single, and meets the other requirements, they (the bishop and SP) can still recommend him for a mission.
The idea that a sexual transgression permanently disbars someone is a misunderstanding of the phrase “no more repent and go”. To belabor the point, the clarification is “No more start-repenting and go”.
However, it may be that some confusion was intentional so as to put greater fear in the teenagers of the church.
The second half of your post also seems to grab the wrong end of the stick, or maybe I understood you wrong. Under the new guidelines, the mentally unstable, those with health probems, and those who are extremely socially inept _are_ among those who are _supposed to be_ honorably excused.
The revision of the missionary system is still in progress on many levels: in the YM and YW programs, in the guidance given to parents, in the training of bishops and stake presidents, in the revision of the various Missionary Training Centers, in the training of Mission Presidents, in the missionary handbooks, and mission rules.
Bookslinger – you make excellent points about the intent of the program. I agree with you, though, that the phrase “gone are the days of the repent & go missionary” also seems to have the effect of eliminating some who are repentant (either through self-deselection or overzealous leaders).
As to the mentally unstable, personally I think there is a tendency to hide it to avoid the supposed stigma of not going. Being “honorably excused” is sort of like being declared unfit to serve in the military; it may get you out of the unsuitable service, but there will be some who will view your exclusion unfavorably.
I got sent home from my mission after 10 days, and there has always been a stigma associated with that. Not that I care. I tell my story about how I got sent home (you can find it here), and people look me straight in the eyes and say things like, “I’m glad that they instituted that policy of raising the bar, because it probably prevented a lot of those types of conflicts.” I think that the outlook of the church on missions is just crazy.
HG: the process of missionary application and evaluation is still evolving, along with the actual roles and contents of the missionary program in the field. I would not be surprised if there were to be some kind of professional psych/emotional evaluation added to the process, to become as standard as a physical exam.
One problem is that even “normal” teenagers (even 19 year olds) exhibit things that in adults would be considered mental illness. IE, some signs of mental illness in teens are normal.
You’re right about hiding mental illness, but most 19 year olds with mental illness, unless it’s severe or has been officially diagnosed, probably just aren’t aware of it. At most, they or their family might realize they are “different”, and leave it at that.
I am a physician and I do a lot of physicals for prospective missionaries who are preparing to go. Recently there has been added to the physical exam form a very detailed list of mental/emotional disorders that are asked about specifically. Before this change, there was only a single general question about any history of mental illness. So I agree with Bookslinger that there does seem to be more of an effort to identify missionaries with mental illness.
I think serving a full time mission is a bad idea for anyone who suffers from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or any other psychotic disorder, even if well controlled. Unfortunately, many of these cannot be identified at age 19 because the illness may not have fully manifested itself until the early 20’s. I also think many who have a history of anxiety disorders or depression may not be able to successfully complete a mission, but again, some can, and it can be hard to tell at that age.
I can’t see this on the front page, a glitch??
Anyways, bookslinger: “still has until age 25 ” that age was lowered to 23 some years ago. Now we may get yet another change in the new handbook rolling out across the world.
But you are correct in the ‘repent and go’ missionary now changing to ‘show repentance for a year’ then go situation.
What E says is true. The problem is that the church leadership thinks that all problems in the mission happen because of these ’emotional problems’ and sins but there is more to it. Mission presidents are told to not worried about sending people home, so we had one guy (worst case) sent home for listening to country music! he was told to stop etc but really it was only country music.
Then the church completely ignores any cultural or cross-cultural difficulties between the missionaries themselves. It isn’t easy to live with a stranger at 19 -and 24/7- let alone a stranger from another culture, it doesn’t happen in the other worldly army (since they are all the one nation) but that doesn’t register with our top leadership because others have done it or others where successful at it.
So then there are problems and the church responds by cracking down harder on a-sinners and b-the ’emotionally disturbed’. But the problems don’t go away and actually by dismissing more and more missionaries early and stopping others from going, they are just stuffing people up more because the stigma involved, in either being sent home early or having a scarlet letter “E” attached to those supposedly excused from service, is massive, even if it is supposedly ‘honorably’. I mean who actually knows in a ward that a kid was ‘honorably’ excused if only stake and some ward leaders find out about it. Its not like an ‘honorably excused’ missionary is invited to speak in sacrament after his ‘honorable excused’ event, is it? anyways i’m ranting now, sorry!
A few comments:
1) Some of the best missionaries in my mission were ones that wouldn’t make it today, but they related to the people wonderfully. The more “toe-the-line” people actually made worse missionaries for many of the reasons you listed above.
2) I have talked to several people in my ward who have returned home from missions early for emotional reasons. This is a fairly big problem that no one talks about. The “unofficial” numbers that the families have found as they have tried to look into this suggest it is as high as 7-10%. That is a lot to me. When I was on my mission, the only missionary sent home was one who slept with a member girl. And that was it. Everyone else we worked with to get them through their mission. We may have assigned someone to clean the mission home or something, but at least they could say they made it through their mission with an honorable release.
3) We should implement a parallel track with equal status. Let someone not “cut-out” for a “normal” mission go on a service mission. And someone with things for which they need to repent could easily do that there. Let them teach English in China. Let them dig wells and build schools for a year or two in Africa. Let them work in homeless shelters and clinics in the USA. This would be a great experience for them, great press for the Church, and is actually what I would picture the Saviour doing.
4) I think the role of a missionary is hard. They WANT to obey and succeed. But at the end of the day, they are just salesmen/women. The Church controls the product. Pushing them harder can be counterproductive. In my mission, there was a set of particularly bad zone conferences where the mission president tried the “pressure-tactics”. There were no baptisms in the ENTIRE COUNTRY for 2 MONTHS after that.
Sorry. Getting too long.
I’m hearing different stories on the current age limit. As of 2 or 3 years ago, the max age for entering the MTC was 25. So if they’ve lowered it again, it’s been recent.
I’ve also heard that there is one age for “standard acceptance” but they’ll allow +1 year for “special request.”
I entered the MTC when I was 26, and soon realized that that was too old. I didn’t have much in common with the younger guys. My favorite companions were one very mature and serious-minded 22 year old, and a couple of 25 year old elders.
re: country music. I doubt that he was sent home for listening to country music. It sounds like he was sent home for repeatedly disobeying the mission president.
Mike S: Service missions are already in place. Many elders are doing them in their home stake or close by.
I guess all this goes to show: “The church MUST be true, or the missionaries would have ruined it by now.”
People still get baptized, new missions are opened, branches are created, wards are split, new stakes are created, etc. etc.
The retention rate of converts may not be anything to brag about, but there IS retention, and there IS growth in the convert population of the church.
I have to admit that my mission was a net negative experience for me, and had long-lasting negative consequences. I got along well with the locals, and enjoyed actual missionary work, but I was not socially/emotionally prepared for dealing with and living full time with high-spirited 19/20 year old Mormon elders.
However, the scriptures are replete with the Lord’s promises for compensation and reward for those who suffer in any way for His cause. His justice will ensure compensation for those who suffered righteously, and for those who suffer due to their own sin or anyone else’s, the Atonement also comes into play.
So while we study and analyze this “mission thing”, let’s also keep in mind that the overall end result is still amazingly miraculous.
This subject was actually on my mind this past weekend as I listened to Conference. I was surprised to hear a talk that really pressed the importance of young men serving missions, as an obligatory service. I have a thirteen-year-old grandson who has dealt with some serious anxiety/mental health issues. With lots of professional counseling, he is doing well, but I can’t (and his parents can’t) really see him serving a full-time mission. He’s a great kid, currently deacon’s quorum president in his ward, and he is well-liked by everyone. It broke my heart to hear that conference talk because I knew he was hearing it too. I may be wrong and he may be able to serve a mission. I know he will want to and will feel pressure from church leaders to do so. However, I worry that he is being set up for failure.
I also have a son-in-law who came home from his mission after just a couple of months because of mental health issues. His own father was so ashamed that he wouldn’t speak to his son for several months afterward.
I appreciate the comments made on this thread and hope that someone higher-up is listening.
I think this discussion actually cuts to the heart of how to measure success in the missionary program. There are a lot of possible answers to that:
– convert baptisms. Problematic because baptisms can be “short-cutted” or outright fudged.
– retention rates. Problematic because putting your missionary force to work on retention reduces “prospecting.” Fewer new converts, fewer contacts who may convert later.
– missionaries who serve their complete term. This is really only being looked at now because raising the bar drastically lowered it.
– new stakes formed. It’s probably the best measure of both converts & retention, but it’s a longer-term metric, so it’s not that useful to motivate missionary work.
CatherinWO – I hope some higher-ups will listen to because the missionary program can always be improved, but right now, this is a real gap.
I agree with Bookslinger as well that in my observation, missionaries who were the least obedient were often the best at relating to the people. They often had the most success. They didn’t take themselves too seriously, and that put people at ease and made church seem fun and cool, which opened minds to the message.
Hawkgrrl,
Good to see you on a new site, sorry for the problems at MM.
I liked your post and it makes me nervous.
My son just got his Mission call (So Cal) and some of the things you cited give me a great deal of concern. It is amazing how God sends them, each child is so different. He is almost a polar opposite of his sister. He is extremely intelligent (35 ACT) and gifted in music. This earned him several scholarships, but did not make him the most popular in school. He was by no means an outcast – he had a lot of good solid friends and went to every school dance. He opted to go on a mission prior to going to school and will leave just after his 19th birthday. As far as I know, he has never touched drugs (includes alcohol) or a girl inappropriately. He has never been in trouble with the Law, nor has he done anything that would cause him to get in trouble with the law. As far as I know, he avoids inappropriate internet sites and does not engage in violent video games (I track it pretty closely). All told, he is a good kid, but likes time to himself to read and study. I would not call him socially awkward, but would say he likes his space.
I was the opposite too some extent. I did not like school and had more friends than I could count. Was a little rebellious and got into a little bit of trouble with girls and some experiments with the WofW. All told, I would still pass the current test, but not with flying colors.
I think the social skills I gained in High School were extremely valuable in the mission field. They assisted me in my interaction with companions and investigators; and help me as a DL, ZL and AP.
Will’s here! Glad you found us! As to your son, I do think a missionary need not be extroverted to be successful, although extroverted missionaries certainly do well in their way. So long as he’s not sheltered and socially awkward, I’m sure he’ll make his way. Congrats on your son going on a mission, BTW!
Yes, he was told 3 times that he couldn’t listen to country music -he would mostly listen trying to sleep- and because of that was judged ‘rebellious’ and dismissed. that’s DISMISSED not sent home.
We all thought it too trivial an issue for dismissal but couldn’t do anything about it nor talk to him to maybe reform him and let him finish in another mission. all we could do is call him as ward mission leader to try to help him fit in again but he went inactive for several years until returning recently. All up it was just a waste of time and effort and only because the mission president considered county music as unsuitable for his mission. Mind you other presidents don’t think the same and don’t ban it. So who’s right?
“When I was on my mission, the only missionary sent home was one who slept with a member girl.”
When president Monson was mission president, no missionary was sent home early, nor excommunicated. In an Ensign article from the ’80s they note this as commendable and it probably helped him in his early call to apostle, although I’m sure he would have been called anyway.
But then in the nineties there was a change. I remember Elder Oaks telling us that he was telling mission presidents to not be scared or worried about sending any missionary home early. Then Elder Perry mentioned this in another training session. So since Monson’s “all stay” mission days the church has only moved more to the right and leaders are less tolerant of these “substandard missionaries”. There is no reformation or helping hand or extra training or punishing by making them clean out the ‘latrines’. The church seems to want today only top officer-level-young men to go and for the standard church grunt to stay home and out of it all.
“There were no baptisms in the ENTIRE COUNTRY for 2 MONTHS after that.”
We would baptize on average 2 to 3 per month but according to all the GA’s who came we had to average 5 a month. Never happened off course and it made me feel as more of a door to door salesman when they talked about these ‘averages’.
“a talk that really pressed the importance of young men serving missions, as an obligatory service.”
I was recently reading a currently serving missionary’s blog who told a story about Elder Aidukaitis (1st counselor in area) in a stake conference: “he made each group stand up, like boys from 19-25 and told them that God would be offended if they didn´t serve missions. Pretty intense. Then he asked the girls from 12-18 to stand up and told them that it´s “better to die single than to get married outside the temple. And if you marry outside the temple, you are basically writing your own bill of divorcement because you´re going to be separated at death.”
So not only in general conference do kids get that sort of pressure. But then the best part was what happened after this: before the closing prayer..some random guy went up to the pulpit and said “I just want to clear something up. I was a little offended by what the authority said because we got married outside the temple. I just want to tell my wife that I love her.” And then he turned around to see his wife, who was sitting on the stand in the choir and said,” Te quiero, Luciana. No voy a divorciarme de vos!” (I love you, Luciana. I´m never going to divorce you!) The stake president got up and escorted him away and left everyone with their mouths hanging open, not really knowing what to say. It was pretty entertaining for me. He´s actually an eternal investigator who´s married to a member and she was bawling, probably of embarrassment. I don´t think he understood very well what the elder said.
Hmmm….some investigators sometimes don’t hear the same message we do!
I need some education here. What’s the difference between “dismissed” and “sent home” ?
HG: re: “missionaries who were the least obedient were often the best at relating to the people.”
That was Mike S who said (something like) that.
That’s true to a degree. But the flip side of that coin, can be that many of the baptisms of those elders are “social” baptisms. When the elder moves on, the convert goes inactive, especially if they don’t make friends in the ward, or if their ward friends move away, or they move away.