“Senior missionaries are absolutely critical to our work, and we have thousands of them serving. But we only have about half of what we need,” said Elder Brent Nielson, executive director of the Missionary Department.
So what's the bottom line? "We need a lot more senior couples," he says in a new Church video.
To help recruit more senior couple missionaries, the Church has released a new website, seniormissionary.lds.org. Through this website, "the world opens up to [seniors]" as they search for service opportunities that fit their needs, Nielson explains.
"As you get on the site, it will ask you a lot of questions about yourself and it will ask you what you are interested in," Nielson says in a video about the website. "And you just click through each question that it asks and then it comes up with some opportunities and says based on what you've said to us, these are the opportunities available to you either at home, in a church service mission, or around the world."
Using an online wish list, senior members can compile a list of opportunities that would fit their lifestyle. This includes indicating how long they want to serve, the expenses they can afford each month, and where they would like to live.
In addition, senior members can also indicate languages skills, medical needs, or preferred assignments that could impact their service, according to Mormon Newsroom.
Once submitting this information, senior members can search lists of available service opportunities that match their preferences and add their choices to an online cart and submit them to local Church leaders, who then forward their recommendation to serve to Church headquarters.
"Senior missionaries are absolutely critical to our work," Elder Nielson says. "We would encourage senior couples to begin looking at opportunities where they could serve around the world."