Say More: At Last She Writes It
No. 43 | August 2025
Missions & Money
by Cynthia Winward
Most of you know that the Church worked perfectly well for me
until the age of 40. I went to EFY (Especially for Youth, a type of youth summer camp), graduated from early-morning seminary (daily scripture class for high school kids), drove to stake dances all over the Los Angeles area, played the piano in Young Women, served on youth councils, and the list goes on. And like many of you, I also grew up singing ‘I Hope They Call Me on a Mission.’
I wanted to serve a mission. I loved the Church with every fiber of my being. (Sorry, I had to say that.) I was an extrovert. I loved talking. And I wanted to share the True Gospel with everyone I could. Until then, I invited friends to church activities, seminary, and even gave a Book of Mormon to a dear friend.
Add to that, my patriarchal blessing which talks about missionary work. A lot. It didn’t specifically mention serving a formal mission, but it had phrases like this: “I bless you to understand languages of this earth, those that are necessary for you to bear witness of the truthfulness of the gospel.” And also, “There are those who live in spiritual darkness who will come into the glorious light of the gospel because of your light and testimony.” I just knew I would be the kind of missionary to change lives for the better!
“I hope that I can share the gospel
With those who want to know the truth.
I want to be a missionary
And serve and help the Lord while I am in my youth.”
—I Hope they Call Me on a Mission, Primary Song book
But here’s something I knew deep down but never dared say out loud. My parents would never be able to financially spare the $400 dollars a month it cost in the 1990s to send out another missionary. (With inflation that is the equivalent of $944 today in 2025.) When my older brother went on a mission, I remember the financial discussions in my family. Various relatives had been contacted to see if they could donate a few dollars a month to his mission fund. I didn't come from a family of savers, or rather, we didn’t have the luxury of saving money. My parents worked hard, hard, hard for our family of seven. My dad worked maintenance in a grocery warehouse in Los Angeles and my mom cleaned houses.
By the time I was old enough to babysit, I paid for most of my clothing by babysitting loads of hours a week. The summers of 1986 and 1987 were also spent living weeks at a time at my grandmother’s to earn money by dusting her thousands of knick-knacks. That money always went towards the new school year—clothes, P.E. uniforms, team basketball shoes, and later on to car insurance and gas money.
When it came time to apply to college, I was shocked to be turned down for a Pell Grant, so student loans are how I financed tuition and books. Once in college, I also worked as a cashier on BYU campus to pay for food and rent. I still remember that I lived on $20/week for food and entertainment. (In other words, no entertainment.)
Basically, there was never a dime to spare. I lived hand to mouth like most college students. It’s also worth mentioning that because I had student loans, I was pretty sure I would have to start making payments if I did leave school to serve a mission. So many obstacles!
In 1995 (the year I turned 21) a mission would’ve cost me around $8,000. (That’s $16,000 dollars in today’s dollars, with inflation.) I think I always knew that a mission wouldn’t be a financial possibility for a girl like me. And I wasn’t wrong. Years later when my baby brother served a mission at age 22, he too had to have family members supplement costs. However, some family members never did pay what they promised so “debt” piled up in the ward under his name. After my brother returned, the clerk or bishop finally came to my family and said they needed to pay his debt. My youngest sister had a full-time job by then so she took a significant amount out of her savings account to pay the mission debt.
“It is a great privilege and blessing to help support a missionary. Parents should do so willingly and with gratitude, and missionaries themselves should do all they can to earn and save money for their missions. The Lord blesses those who sacrifice for His work.”
—Ezra Taft Benson, 1986
A few years ago my husband, Paul, was the stake clerk. He noticed that several wards had missionaries with deficit amounts, meaning current and also returned missionaries had “debt,” just like my brother. Some of these missionaries had been home for years and their families had since moved out of our stake! Did you know that if a missionary’s parents move while she is on her mission and that family has missionary “debt,” the new ward’s bishop can choose to accept that mission debt or not? Why would a bishop ever accept debt? Knowing that, it’s easy to see how wards can be saddled with debt years after missionaries come home and their families move.
In addition to missionary debt, Paul also noticed several wards had ward missionary fund surpluses. Surpluses happen when ward members contribute, for example, $10 a month for years on end to the ward missionary fund, but there are no “needy” missionaries being sent out from that ward. Paul, ever the CPA, decided to contact bishops, via the ward clerks in the “surplus wards,” to ask if they would be willing to help missionaries in need (ahem, in debt) from other wards in our stake. Several wards agreed, but some did not. The wards that agreed transferred their missionary fund surplus to the stake and then Paul transferred that money to needy wards, zeroing out debt that had been on the books for years.
“All missionaries, regardless of circumstances, are asked to contribute to the cost of their missions to the extent they are able. Families are also encouraged to help as much as possible. Where there is need, members of the Church, through the General Missionary Fund, may be called on to assist.”
–M. Russell Ballard, Preach My Gospel
I have no idea if every American missionary has to pay for their own mission, or if all wards go into debt if something goes wrong and the missionary can’t finish paying, but I do know that in other countries the Church will pay for entire missions. No questions asked. My daughter-in-law is from Mexico and the entire cost of her mission was paid for by the Church. In the US, prospective missionaries are required—in their mission applications—to list how they will be paying for their mission.
The financial burden to me and my family was out of reach in the 90s but it’s much worse today. In today’s US economy the median cost of a house has increased 93%—in just the last ten years! And since the dinosaur days when I was in college in the 90s, tuition has increased 435%. How can we continue to burden young adults and their families by asking them to fund their missions in addition to giving 10% of their gross pay1 to the church in tithing? How are families supposed to do all that and also pay for housing and tuition?2
Money kept me from even planning to serve a mission. Like I said, I was too afraid to even say it out loud. Just like I knew study abroad programs were not financially possible for students like me, I also knew that a mission wasn’t a realistic possibility either, not without severely burdening my family like it did when my brothers served missions. In a church that has billions in investments, shell companies, land and assets, money should never be what stops a willing young adult from serving. After all, serving a mission is free labor on behalf of the organization, so at the very least shouldn’t the organization bear the cost? I hope that going forward our church can at least consider making big changes to the cost of missions so that all young adults, no matter where they are from on the globe, can serve missions if they choose.
Cynthia Winward
Yes, I know it is not “doctrine” to pay 10% tithing on your gross pay but it is a very strong cultural practice. As so many leaders like to say, “do you want the gross blessings? Or the net blessings?”
Stay tuned for a podcast episode later in August about the financial burdens LDS families face.
When I went to BYU in the mid 80s, my on-campus job only paid $88 every other week. At one point, I had two extra jobs just so I could eat. My parents scrounged the money to pay my tuition, but I had to cover rent, food, and books (English major w/ $800 book fee some semesters). The pressure was high, even then, for girls to serve missions. I knew that was too big of an ask of my parents. And I couldn’t save, even with 2-3 jobs, as a full-time student. Maybe that’s why I have such a negative, visceral reaction to the church’s cheap abuse of members’ time and talents while it spends millions on lawyers, land, and luxury apartment buildings.
If the mission is not free, I think the medical costs that are a result of physical and mental injury that is incurred while in the church's full time employ should be covered. We paid 100% of our four son's missions. Each one returned home with medical issues. We were made to feel like it was an "honor" to have them sacrifice their health for God. What the hell??? Digestive issues, nightmares, claustrophobia, migraines, tissue damage from running away from violence, and PTSD from an abusive companion, as well as emotional abuse from mission presidents. A 100 billion dollar organization should be on the hook for medical care. Or at very least, be required to be brutally honest about the damage a mission can cause. But then, the free labor might dry up. In my opinion it is not godly to knowingly allow young people to be harmed, and label and then praise them as "returning with honor." It sets them up to accept a lifetime of injury and abuse as holy, and sanctified. That's messed up.