How strongly will you encourage your son(s) to serve a mission?

[jay santos]

My son #2 is 20 and not on a mission. Son #1 went and came home 3.75 years ago. Surprisingly, I don't feel a lot of angst over the non mission issue. He's working out his life on his own terms, and doing OK. The best part is that he's a good kid, but not prone to get all churchy. I'm OK with that.

That's a great attitude for a father. My dad didn't take that attitude and it kind of ruined at least one of my brothers.

[Non Sequitur]

I've told my 16 year old that it's his decision and that I'll love and support him no matter what he does. It's not my place to take sides.

[Spicy McHaggis]

Depends on my mood.

After 4 years serving as a WM and WML, I've concluded far too much of a full-time missonary's day is spent figuring out how not to be bored -- usually solved by bugging others. Can't say I think that's worthy of two years of somone's time. OTOH, there's a lot of potential good to be done.

Mostly, I lay low on the topic.

I agree. I look back on my mission and believe I tried to work fairly hard in that I didn't slack off very often, but now I realize a lot of days were spent trying to avoid boredom and simply trying to be productive. Missions, at least where I went, are mostly a waste of time. Even the hardest working missionaries were extremely unproductive most of the time.

The church just has it set up wrong. They think tracting is a productive use of time. I really believe sending the kids out on service missions would create far more converts than full time proselyting would. Plus in the long run it would make the church look much better which is ultimately what they want. Image.

[happyone]

They're starting that already - cutting the number of European missions as well as the total number of missionaries who serve in those missions.

My mission (Germany Munich) is now called the Alpine German Speaking Mission, and is comprised of what in my day was three seperate missions - Munich, Swizterland and Vienna. The total number of missionaries in the new mission is about 40% of what the peak number was back when there were three missions.

There must be a whole lot of wards without missionaries now. There were a couple cities with multiple companionships (Salzburg, Innsbruck, Esslingen, Villingen-Schwenningen, at times a few others), and Stuttgart, Munich, Nuernberg all had several companionships (and multiple wards) - but even with the high relative density of missionaries we had at the time, there were always a few units in the mission that didn't have missionaries.

Now, it has to be getting to the point that MOST units in Southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland won't have missionaries. I assume missionaries will be in most wards and bigger branches, but most of the small branches will be left without missionaries. And that would be a shame. It was in the smaller branches where the missionaries were most appreciated.

But pulling out missionaries from those areas really can't be called a bad idea. Sending missionaries to Europe simply isn't very efficient.

Back when I was there, the average missionary baptized ~1 person per two-year mission. And about 60% of my mission's baptisms came from 7 or 8American Serviceman's wards/branches. Those are all gone - as are about 90% of the servicemen (they're mixed in with German wards now), and the baptisms are down about the same amount - about half of one baptism per missionary per two year mission. My nephew came home from Frankfurt about 2 years ago, and the averages were about the same there.

I taught 6 people who were baptized and got to personally baptize one of them. My nephew didn't baptize anyone, and only one person that he taught got baptized.

I don't know when Statman was in Munich, but when we were in the Nuremberg Area between 70-73, the Germany South Mission (Munich) had about 150 missionaries. Half were assigned to work with the U.S. servicemen. According to my father, who worked closely with the Mission Pres, kind of a 3rd councelor, the American Servicemen and their families accounted for 3/4th of the baptisms in the mission in that time frame.

[wuapinmon]

I've told my 16 year old that it's his decision and that I'll love and support him no matter what he does. It's not my place to take sides.

I will strongly encourage him to go, but I will adopt your loving policy about his decision.

[Topper]

The Peace Corps.
I think it brings all of those positives (except the societal norm one, obviously) without a lot of the negatives. It's a better introduction to the other cultures. It looks better on a CV/resume. It makes you a lot less weird.
I agree with Jacob--if you don't believe that preaching the Gospel is an essential aspect, there are much better uses of your time.

Topper doesn't know much about missions but Topper knows a little about the Peace Corps. At one time, Topper was gung ho about the Peace Corps but after personal experience not so gung ho. It's not the pretty picture it's painted to be. Kinda like joining the military during times of war. Although Topper admires the discipline instilled by a volunteer, professional military, it is one big bureaucracy.

By analogy, Topper believes his children should be informed of their choices, have knowledge of what they're getting involved with and after that Topper should love and support them if they are making informed and healthy discussion. Based upon personal experience, Topper would not be a big fan of the Peace Corps, despite its lofty mission, but would be more impressed by a choice of the military.

[TexTechCoug]

In spite of a very mixed bag of personal mission experiences, some of which were detrimental to me, I think I will still encourage my kids to go.

I have girls, so it is entirely a different situation. That being said my wife had an idyllic mission experience and I'm sure she will strongly encourage our kids.

Most importantly I would support their final decision and hope to be understanding of whatever happens to them during their mission, should they go.

[Eddie]

I will strongly encourage him to go, but I will adopt your loving policy about his decision.

Ditto.