God is on our side: 18 year-old missionaries

[DU Ute]

It is so the MTC doesn't shutdown during the winter months.

This is one good reason. I think it would also be a little crazy having a bunch of high school guys and girls a month out of high school converging on the MTC together.

[Donuthole]

I wonder how this will impact high-school grades? I can only imagine how trunky some kids will get during their final semester of high school when they have a mission call in their pocket and all of their arrangements in place to leave on a mission a couple months after graduation.

[mr_thekid]

I wonder how this will impact high-school grades? I can only imagine how trunky some kids will get during their final semester of high school when they have a mission call in their pocket and all of their arrangements in place to leave on a mission a couple months after graduation.

High school seniors in their final semester are trunky anyway. If anything I think we'll see a major improvement in freshman grades at BYU. Freshmen boys will either be RM's ready to start their college careers strong, or "Pre-Mees" who are there because they made the decision to wait that extra year. There will be much fewer students just "waiting around" for a year before their missions.

[All-American]

Because they still believe there is some "wisdom" in an age differential.

I'm not sure I understand why, but this does seem to be important to them. Under the old policy, I thought the age difference made for a pretty handy dating buffer, but the current age gap won't do much in that regard, especially since the elders and sisters will go home at just about the same age. The best I can think is that they really don't want women to feel like they have to go, and giving them a different, individual deadline might help reduce peer pressure. But that's just me trying to guess what they are thinking.

[Cougarmandias]

It will be interesting to see how quickly the transition happens to where almost all the young men just leave at 18.

I could see a lot of parents and kids still thinking it is good to get a year of college under the belt before the mission if for no other reason than that's the way we've done it for decades. I could see a significant percentage kids just wanting to still do it the same way their older brothers and fathers did. Time will tell I guess.

Especially because a lot of guys use the year after they graduate HS to work full-time to pay for the mission. (But mission costs are low enough this may not be that important a factor?)

One other thing to keep in mind is that the over-protective parent is as much an LDS phenonemon as the pushy parent. Since the church is clearly signaling that its ok NOT to go at 18, I expect a decent number of parents who will insist that little Johnny isn't ready yet.

[Cougarmandias]

I like it too and don't see it dramatically altering because they've made the age requirement more flexible.

In fact, it may strengthen the trend, because the announcement didn't say that if you didn't go at 18, you were expected to go at 19. If the new rule is flexibility in determining when you are ready, it makes it easier to hold out hope of going on a mission at some later date when you're 'ready,' or arguing that special circumstances excuse you altogether.

To be honest, I expect a clarifying announcement sometime soon that young men are still expected to leave at age 19 if they haven't gone earlier.

[Katy Lied]

Nick Emory just tweeted that he will go immediately after graduation.

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