Missionary Age Change

I love this moment a mother describes her "gut-wrenching" prayer for her son. "That night as I prayed I poured my soul into that prayer. It was one of those mother prayers, you know the kind where you lay it all out there, ready to bargain anything in the world for your child’s happiness."

The expansion in the number of LDS missionaries over the past year will be met with an expansion of the church's flagship missionary training center in Provo. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced plans to expand the Provo Missionary Training Center to the south of the existing MTC campus where the BYU Laundry Building and the Auxiliary Maintenance Building are currently located," church spokesman Cody Craynor said Wednesday night.

Statistics released for fall semester 2013 at Brigham Young University–Idaho show a total campus enrollment of 15,584 students, a decrease of approximately 4.2 percent over last fall’s campus enrollment of 16,262. This decrease in enrollment reflects the anticipated impact from the change in missionary age eligibility announced by the Church in October 2012. Current projections indicate the missionary age change will continue to affect enrollment at BYU–Idaho through the middle of 2014.

The first group of missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints arrived Wednesday to officially launch the church's new Missionary Training Center facility in Mexico City. LDS officials said the inaugural group at the new MTC facility consists of some 100 new missionaries. Previously, the church had an MTC near its Mexico City Temple at which some 125 missionaries at a time — most of them from Mexico and Central America — were trained. The new facility has been created on the 90-acre site of the church-owned Benemerito de las Americas School, which graduated its final class earlier this month before making the transition to an MTC to help accommodate the surge of young missionaries that will report for training this summer. It will eventually accommodate about 1,000 missionaries at a time, with many of those missionaries coming from North America.

A letter from the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, read Sunday in many LDS worship services, urges members to contribute "regularly and generously" to the church's missionary fund in light of the recent surge in missionary applications. "With the recent change in missionary age of service, the number of missionaries serving has increased dramatically," the letter says. "Many of these new missionaries come from modest circumstances. To help maintain this missionary force, we encourage members, as they are able, to contribute regularly and generously to the General Missionary Fund of the church.

To better accommodate the recent increase in new missionaries, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is expanding its missionary training operations by securing the use of additional buildings near the Provo Missionary Training Center (MTC).Missionaries will occupy the Raintree Commons apartments at 1849 North 200 West, and portions of the BYU-owned Wyview Park apartments at 146 West 1940 North in Provo, Utah. This temporary arrangement is one of the many ways the Church is accommodating more missionaries entering into missionary service around the world.

Candace Richins was in the midst of her freshman season with Utah State University’s women’s volleyball team when the announcement came from Church President Thomas S. Monson: women can serve missions at age 19 and men at 18. Although thrilled about the possibility of serving a mission earlier, Richins — a possible starter on the team in 2013 — worried because her scholarship and spot on the team would not be guaranteed if she left.A few days later, while in a religion class near campus, Richins knew what she needed to do.