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

[happyone]

I'll abstain from the poll since I only have daughters

On missionary work in Europe:

My brother went to Denmark in the early 80's and had 1 baptism in his 2 yrs. A few years ago he went back to that area and some of the members told him that was the last convert baptism in that branch

His son just got back from Austria/Bavaria (I guess the combined the missions since I lived there) and baptized 4 people

[Jacob]

If you believe in the church's mission, don't you feel that a young man would benefit more, not only spiritually but also in other ways, by serving the Lord than by joining the military? I think that for an LDS young man, there are things you can learn on your mission better than anywhere else.

That all goes to my point. If I believe in the Church's mission, then I believe that he should go preach the true gospel. If I don't believe in the mission, or that it's the true gospel, then I don't want him wasting his time.

[Surfah]

Strongly encourage? Nah. I will make his ass go. And he will like it and call it the best two years of his life.

[Moliere]

I'm already encouraging my sons to serve missions. They are both young. I will continue to strongly encourage them to serve missions but won't guilt them into doing it. If they come to me one day and tell me they don't want to serve, that is fine with me as it is their choice, but at that point I'll have already let them know the great benefits that can come from serving a mission.

I did the same thing with my son who just got baptized. I made sure he knew it was his decision. We spent 15 minutes together every night for two months studying faith/repentance/baptism/holy ghost prior to the baptism. He had some great questions and it was fun to spend time talking about these things. At no point did I try to guilt him into getting baptized.

Obviously there is a difference between an 8 year old deciding to get baptized and a 19 year old deciding to serve a mission. The big difference is that baptism is a saving ordinance and a mission is not. But as a believing Mormon, I think both are beneficial to developing a personal testimony of Christ and the church.

On a selfish not, I also want them to serve so they can cut the strings. I know when I got back I spent the first two months at my parent's house before going back to college. Those two months were fine (my parent's didn't care if I was out all night or not) but I was so ready to move away and do my own thing after having spent two years away from them.

[jay santos]

That all goes to my point. If I believe in the Church's mission, then I believe that he should go preach the true gospel. If I don't believe in the mission, or that it's the true gospel, then I don't want him wasting his time.

I used to think that black and white, but it's all fuzzy mess of gray now.

[CardiacCoug]

I'm a little bit surprised at how many people are saying they will strongly encourage them.

I have pretty mixed feelings about missions and will make sure they get a very balanced view that includes the downsides of a mission as the time approaches.

All they ever hear about missions (from others) is how awesome they are.

And yeah, I thought about including daughters in the poll, but I think that is a very different question and wanted to keep things simple.

[Indy Coug]

"Strongly encourage" is a very vague characterization.

[statman]

No, it wouldn't be a total waste. I said that the reason was to "preach the true gospel." Of course the reason you preach is to convert, but you can't control what others do.

As an aside, my view is that if a missionary can't convert anyone in the Netherlands, lets send those missionaries to latin america. I never bought into the idea that the main or first object of a mission is to convert yourself.

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.

[ERCougar]

What do you see as a better place to gain the ancillary benefits? And by monetary disadvantage, do you mean the cost of the mission, or the future cost of delaying education by two years, or something else?

Just curious.

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.

[CardiacCoug]

"Strongly encourage" is a very vague characterization.

That's all I wanted to know. Will people tell them they should definitely serve a mission? Will they just tell them it has pluses and minuses? Or will they tell them it's not a great idea?

I answered that I will discourage them somewhat. I really don't feel great about my kids going into that environment -- of course my oldest son is only 10 so I might feel differently a few years down the road.

[clackamascoug]

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.

[Spicy McHaggis]

I would like to see a service only mission for this type of kid.

If they would make half younger missionaries go on service missions the church and humanity would fare much better. Having 20 year old elders digging wells or building schools in 3rd world nations would be miraculous for everyone involved. I have no doubt they would get more converts. It would be much better for the missionaries as well.

[ERCougar]

If they would make half younger missionaries go on service missions the church and humanity would fare much better. Having 20 year old elders digging wells or building schools in 3rd world nations would be miraculous for everyone involved. I have no doubt they would get more converts. It would be much better for the missionaries as well.

I completely agree with this. It's really strange to me that we actually put a limit on service hours...

[mUUser]

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.

[SeattleUte]

Strongly discourage.