Every six months the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints televises a worldwide conference for its member and the general
population. This past weekend at General Conference the policies regarding
missionary service in the Church for young adults were revised. Young men now
have the option to begin missionary service at 18, instead of 19, upon high
school graduation. But I think the biggest surprise was the reduction in age
for young women to serve from 21 to 19. Gasps resonated throughout the
Conference center as the delight of this news and as the implications of the
revision began to sink in. Over the past three days on BYU campus (one of the
Church’s universities) I have heard multiple snippets of conversations
regarding this change. Everyone agrees that big changes are in store. The
demographics of Church schools will change drastically and we likely lose
significant numbers of students, but the world will receive so many more missionaries to preach the gospel. Young
women throughout the world are rejoicing in this new revelation and I
personally know of many sisters who are going on a mission in the very near
future rather than in a couple years.
How did you feel after you heard the announcement?
What kind of changes will this make in our society and culture?
Have your own personal plans for serving a mission changed
since Saturday?
I think it's great because it cuts through a lot of the garbage that women have to deal with if they decide to go on a mission: postponing an almost finished education or career, choosing between faith and relationships, and the catch-22 of being looked down on for not serving a mission if they remain unmarried past 21 and stigmatized as unmarriable if they do. Also, having a ton of missionaries is awesome.
ReplyDeleteI am interested to see how this affects marriage ages. Provo and BYU are known for young marriages, particularly with females. Now that girls can leave at the age of 19, serving a mission is not only more realistic, but it is also part of "the plan." I predict that 18 year olds who would have previously gotten married, will now wait because they are less than a year away from being able to serve a mission.
ReplyDeleteHow did you feel after you heard the announcement?
ReplyDeleteI felt freakin' awesome. I was REjoicing! Even the second I heard it I was jumpin' um and down. And I didn't even know why! I had no plans of serving a mission right now (I am already 21), and I still don't. But, this is an amazing revelation from Heavenly Father and we should be celebrating that the work will be spreading so quickly! I think many of us just felt the Spirit so strongly during when we heard the announcement (and I think that could confuse a lot of girls... makes them think it automatically means they are supposed to go on a mission immediately when that may not be the case).
What kind of changes will this make in our society and culture?
Ummmm... I think thaaaat... I don't know. I am still not really sure on this one. However I think that a lot of people are making a lot of assumptions when I am really not so sure that we can predict what in the world will happen.