This morning, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints announced that young women may now begin full-time missionary service at age 18 — the same minimum age as young men
This decision carries significant potential: by providing additional options for young women to serve missions right after high school (or its equivalent), the worldwide full-time missionary force may grow in scale and diversity. It opens a new season of opportunity for women who desire to serve, whether before pursuing further education, entering the workforce, or undertaking other life ventures. While missionary service remains optional for young women, the change reflects a continued evolution in how the Church supports individual choice, preparation, and contribution with its proselytism efforts Effective immediately, young women graduating this year and going forward will be eligible to submit mission applications starting at age 18. Moreover, the recent announcement to create 55 new missions in 2026 will provide additional support to accommodate potentially large influxes in young women serving missions in the next 12 months.
I will provide additional analysis of today's announcement in the coming days.
2 comments:
Looking forward to any further analysis you will provide, Matt! With missionary service being optional for women still, I am not entirely convinced this will lead directly to more women serving, but I recognize I don't have the data you do to back that belief up. This is a tremendous announcement, as it puts women and men on equal footing when it comes to the decision to serve a mission, even though it remains a choice rather than a priesthood duty for women. Thanks again for this update, Matt!
This is an exciting development that will probably increase missionary numbers more than one might think from an adjustment that because it applies after completing high school or its equivalent is less than a year for most young people and not at all for a few.
This gives most young people the option of serving missions immediately on graduation, and while there will be young women who chose some college or other endeavors for a time and then go on missions, as there are young men who do so, the option to go then will allow some yo go who if they start some other endeavor find it not possible to arrange to serve.
The decision to announce it now and let it go in effect as of today instead of waiting to announce it at general conference as the previous missionary age change was done is exciting. It also probably creates a little less rush for leaders. Those who are in a situation to go immediately now would be whenever you announced it. However a bunch are high school students who do not graduate until June, and another bunch are in college or other commitments, many of which will not be able to go until April-June anyway. Announcing it now gives people a longer time to prep for the crunch times, and also avoids having people free at other times swept into the crunch time push of April-June that would occur if this was announced in April.
Although I am sure whenever such a change is announced it will lead to lots of people contacting their bishop,even if many of them will not be able to actually start serving for several months.
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