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| Deseret News--"Sister Missionaries react to missionary age announcement" |
This
week was so crazy getting ready for General Conference! It was so much fun this
year! We got thousands of referrals and have our work cut out for us. On Sunday
night we had transfer conference and I got called to my outbound; so I am going to Colorado Springs Mission
tomorrow for two transfers!!! I’m so excited! I will come back to Temple Square
on January 2nd 2013 for my last two transfers!!! I don’t have much else to say
right now, and I have tons of things to do before my early morning flight
tomorrow. I will write more next week, and I’ll have a new address soon! Love you all---CTR!
Sister Jarvie
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| October Conference |
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| Last days with Sister Fredrickson! |
Deseret News Article--"A Front Row Seat to a Huge Cultural Shift"
In the Whirled: When the
sister missionaries go marching in
By Tiffany Gee Lewis , For the Deseret News
Published: Wednesday, Oct. 10 2012 5:00 a.m. MDT
As a 19-year-old sophomore at Brigham Young University, I roomed
with a group of strong, intelligent women. We had watched virtually the entire
male half of our freshman cohort leave to serve as Mormon missionaries. We
women had the same ambition — most of us had plans to serve a mission — but because
it wasn’t our time, we saw the world a different way. We took off to study
abroad: in the Middle East, England, Mexico and Russia.
In that group of 12 women, nearly all of us studied in a foreign
country, but only one of us made it on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, and it wasn't me, even though I had worn
future-missionary as a title since I was 8 years old. Life circumstances took
me on a different course.
But I would have served, and so would most of that sophomore
group, if we could have gone at 19.
That, in a word, is why the change in the minimum age for
missionary service, just announced at LDS general conference, is nothing short of monumental. It may well usher in an era of
the sister missionary in a way we don’t fully comprehend. Not only are we about
to see a flood of sister missionaries, but we are going to have front-row seats
to an enormous cultural shift in the church.
The change for women goes hand-in-hand with the alterations being made
to the youth programs, which put more onus on
the youths to teach, testify and carry the church forward. I see this change
not as a marginalization of elder missionaries, but as a terrific strengthening
of both genders.
Imagine, for instance, a seminary class of high school seniors.
They are talking about their upcoming plans, their goals for the future. They
are all talking about missions, not as something they might do in four
years if life circumstances go their way, but as a tangible choice in the near
future. Think of the strength of a proselytizing army that includes nearly an
equal number of men and women, and what that will do for the church.
You can pick a returned sister missionary out of a crowd,
because usually they’re standing at the head of it. In the past three wards
I’ve been in, I do believe every Relief Society president served a mission.
That might be coincidence, but I think it speaks to the power of a mission for
“fast-tracking” one’s understanding of the church and the full scope of its
mission in the world. Of course, a mission is not required for LDS women, but
there’s no doubt that full-time service, at that early age, is an invaluable
test of character and leadership — a refining, soul-stretching experience
that’s hard to replicate any other way.
I've noticed a stereotype in our culture that men are the
knowledge-bearing scriptorians and women are the service-oriented saints. But,
as Elder Neal A. Maxwell has noted, “We need more women who are gospel scholars
and more men who are Christians.”
Because of the dual role to both serve others and study the
scriptures intensively, a mission molds men and women to be both saints and
scriptorians.
Beyond this, the change in minimum age for missionary service is
going to have enormous cultural implications for the church, in terms of dating,
education and life plans. Women who go on missions at 21 face the real-life
concern of coming home to find the marriage pool has thinned considerably, or
that they have to put a nearly completed education on hold. Now those concerns
can be alleviated.
Is every young woman going to serve a mission? No. Nor should
they feel that obligation.
But the truth is there are thousands of young women who want
to serve, and will follow that call. After all, they’ve been singing “I Hope They Call Me on
a Mission” right along with the boys since they were 3 years old.
That hope, quite suddenly and remarkably, can be realized much
sooner.
2 comments:
I went outbound to Colorado Springs Mission too!!!! It's amazing out there! They have a new mission president, so I don't know what changes have been made. But My outbound experience was beautiful! :) I'll write you! :)
PS.
I had a companion in Colorado Springs Mission-- Sister Fredrickson too! lol! I wonder if they're related :)
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