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Missions at 18?

orangello

Well-Known Member
I think it is a great thing. I wish that would have been available for me when I graduated high school.


Thoughts?
 
I think it is a great thing. I wish that would have been available for me when I graduated high school.


Thoughts?

I don't have a problem with that. They'd probably make it age 18 and out of high school.
 
Is that what they really announced? Dave Rose, Bronco Mendenhall, and every other athletics coach at BYU has to be smiling. This is a huge boon. There is less mystery to the missionary process now. You are almost going to be 95% sure whether a guy is going to leave on a mission now or not before they even come to BYU. You could have guys graduating early from high school in January, going on missions, and then back when they are 20 for four straight years of athletics training. Instead of lolling around at BYU for a year redshirting, then losing most of the benefits of the training from that year prior to the mission.

And on the church front, there is little difference between 18 and 19 year olds, except that you're probably more likely to get 18 year olds to go on missions. The guys that usually don't go are either those that have never wanted to or those that waffle around for awhile in indecision after high school. You plug them in right after high school and you're bound to get more missionaries out there.

I think it's good to get missions out the way. I've never liked the idea of....starting college...getting serious girlfriends....leaving college and girlfriends for two years thing. Much better focus if you don't always have something that's breaking your life path up.
 
They announced guys can go at 18, girls at 19. Yeah that will be a game changer for sure, now instead of athletes committing to other schools and playing their freshman year before going on a mission, only to be convinced /guilted into transferring to BYU after their missions (I. E. Riley Nelson), the other schools will be saved the trouble.

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That decision wouldn't have affected me much. I graduated from high school in June (I had turned 18 the prior November), and left on my mission in December, a few weeks after my 19th birthday. At least for guys, this mainly impacts those who graduate at the age of 17 or those who turn 18 late in their senior year of HS.
 
The fact that girls can go at 19 now will bring a significant rise to the number of Sister missionaries. Not many are getting married before 19, so now they can go on a mission instead of waiting until 21.
I fit in the category of those that it would have changed. I didn't turn 18 until two months after I graduated HS. I could have gone almost immediately after graduation instead of going to college for a year first.
 
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