The days of mission leaders using outdated email addresses or scouring Facebook to keep in touch with former missionaries are over. The Church has now added a unique feature—a mission directory—which lets returned missionaries opt in to allow their former mission presidents and their companions to see their contact information.
Steve and Becky Larson, former mission leaders for the Peru Lima Central Mission, told Newsroom they are looking forward to using the tool to reconnect with their former missionaries. President Larson noted the sacred relationship between mission leaders and missionaries, and appreciates that this new tool will allow him and his wife stay in touch with them. Sister Larson called the missionaries “like our secondary children,” and said they still care so much about them, worry about them, and want to know about their lives.
How to share your information with former mission leaders
After logging in to your member account on ChurchofJesusChrist.org, you can click here for the Former Mission Leader Limited Visibility opt-in page. Check the boxes to the left of each mission leader’s name to allow them access to your information and click Save.
To opt in on the Church’s Member Tools mobile app, a module titled “For Returned Missionaries” should appear when you first open the app (make sure you have the latest version of the app installed). You can check the toggle switch to the right of each mission leader’s name to share your information with them.
According to the Church’s FAQ page about this new feature, after you opt in to share your contact information, your former mission leaders can only see the picture, phone number, and email address listed for you in the Member Tools app.
This feature is only available for missionaries who served from the year 2000 to the present (additional phases for missionaries who served before 2000 will be released later) and for missions with a former mission president who is still living. The returned missionary directory is also only available to former mission leaders for the mission in which they presided. Individual missionaries cannot see information for other missionaries who served in their mission.
“We hope that former mission leaders and missionaries will take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to stay connected, because these relationships are important to both,” Elder Marcus B. Nash, General Authority Seventy and Executive Director of the Missionary Department told Newsroom. “Missions are full of life-changing experiences and relationships can continue to bless, teach, and strengthen missionaries, mission leaders, their families, those they taught and the whole Church, if kept alive.”
Learn more about this new feature on the Church’s Newsroom.
