I totally agree with everything everyone has said, but I had a interesting reaction, Cynthia. I felt saddened that you did not get to go on a mission because of finances. I have all the same issues everyone else has regarding missions. But, I still sit in your pain for a bit. You would have made a wonderful missionary! You are a missionary of another type now. 😊
I actually agree that missions are really difficult financially for (large) families and the state of the economy right now and most parents both needing to work just to make ends meet. I member my sister paid for her entire mission and went really late because of it. She also missed an entire semester of school to save for and pay for a study abroad. We were stable but not even close to wealthy. Study abroad’s and missions are similar in expense and if you can’t afford study abroad why are you expect to pay for a mission?! (And donate like 10% of the pre mission earnings to the church also?!)
I don’t think the LDS church is really keeping up with the financial realities of most families today. The leaders are very well
Into their 80s and don’t have a lot of data or feedback what it is like for families financially today. I wholeheartedly agree with this messages!
"I don’t think the LDS church is really keeping up with the financial realities of most families today. " YES!!! It's something we cant to keep talking about here at ALSSI.
As soon as I read this, I thought wow. You do know how to spotlight issues that need to be addressed. I personally served in the 70's. I worked hard from the age of 16 to save money for my mission. And I had the funds needed. But when I returned home, I found that my parents had not used my money, instead paying for most of it themselves ("for the blessings"). My mom told me she wanted me to use my savings for college and marriage. In retrospect she worked in a Government Job where she was exposed to second hand smoke and died of Lung cancer in her early 70's. I was upset when I found out that they had not used my savings and that my mother had worked to pay for my mission. Never more upset than when she was diagnosed. I made a point to make sure that I repaid those dollars to them after I was married in assistance to my parents and siblings. It still hurts knowing that she worked to pay for an expensive mission (some missions were more costly than others back then). After a major confrontation in 1978 (prior to the Priesthood Revelation) with General Authorities about my teaching by telephone a large group of investigators in Ghana, I was hours away from leaving my mission. The number one reason I stayed, my mom. I didn't want to disappoint her. But in so doing, I put her through another year of work in that job environment not knowing she was doing it for my mission expenses.
As a side note, as a Stake Employment Specialist I made the "error" of encouraging parents to think of saving education funds for their daughters with the same priority as their sons. My Stake President called me into his office, and said that with families needing to prioritizing paying for their sons' and in some instances, daughters', missions, it was unrealistic to think or expect they could save for a daughter's education.
I served in the 60's and my father, a school teacher, worked at a gas station at night to help fund my mission. By the time he had paid for seven children's missions, he was convinced to "share the blessings" and let others help. He always protested that he wanted the blessings of pay for his kids missions. My experience is different than yours, Cynthia, because missionary funds and stake and ward members, paid for my other friends who served missions and needed help. My first missionary child worked very hard to save his hard-earned money to cover the costs of his mission. But as a single mom with 10 kids, there was an abundance of help for him from friends and relatives and the ward missionary fund. It took a bit to convince him to accept the help. I might be old fashioned, but I love helping with mission expenses. I've always thought it was more about the giver than the receiver when it comes to mission help.😊
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.
I agree. A commitment to send missionaries into third world countries and other problematic areas can have long-term consequences that the Church should cover.
I had been a member for 13 months when I left on my mission. As a college junior at a state school, with little or no parental or scholarship help, I was in debt already. My stake president - my local Institute director, who was also a mentor to me in my early months as a new, curious, inquisitive member - arranged to have my mission funded by stake and ward members, somehow. I was never sure of the details. I suspect they also ended up making a few student loan payments, although we jumped through all of the deferment hoops (this was in the late 1980s so rules were a little different then). My ward's EQ president handled the money, it went into my checking account every month, and in every mission city the church had a deal with a local bank allowing us to write a personal check, in $US, for cash and get the equivalent in lire at a fair exchange rate.
Back then, missionaries paid actual cost so when you sent in your papers, you rolled the dice. My mission in southern Italy came in at $400/month; my then-fiancée went to Bolivia for $110/month. I knew people in the MTC on their way to Japan paying upwards of $1,000/month.
I have no idea if I created a deficit in a ward or stake mission fund, attached to my name or otherwise. Knowing my stake president, he might not have been too concerned about "balancing the books," but I think he would have tried to make sure it never came back on me. I suspect he sweet-talked or strong-armed locals into just covering it. The only conversations we ever had about it consisted of "Don't worry about it. Someday, you can just make it possible for some other young man to do the same thing." (My two oldest sons both served so I hope I met that obligation in the Lord's eyes, at least.)
The church, of course, did cover air fare from Minneapolis to SLC/Provo to the MTC, SLC to Italy, and then back home again. They didn't tell me this, so I bought my own ticket to SLC and arranged transpo to Provo, then had to jump through reimbursement hoops with a frustrated church travel agency rep who didn't quite understand that not everyone knows the rules of the game when they don't have member parents or anyone to tell them what to expect.
All of which is to say, in my usual too-wordy way, that it would be a lot easier for the church to just take care of it all. The "evening out" of the monthly cost was a great step, especially for kids from lower-income families who ended up going to expensive parts of the world, and it took away the monthly hassles of rent, utilities, etc. which were all handled by the mission financial secretary in my mission (the most overworked elder in the office). It would simplify things and smooth the way to just have the church cover it. If there's a need to "put skin in the game," outfitting your missionary is expense enough, generally. There's no need to create additional stress and concern for families already concerned about their ability to pay their way to exaltation, that they might not be able to meet the cost of sending a child on a mission.
Wow thank you Steve for sharing the perspective of a missionary in the real dinosaur days before mission costs were equalized! I too heard similar stories about $1,000 missions to Tokyo versus South America ones for peanuts.... and they got a maid too!
As to your point. "If there's a need to "put skin in the game,"", how is putting off college and potential earnings NOT skin in the game? How is free labor also not skin the game?
You also bring up another great point about American kids who are converts who want to serve missions. I'd love to know how often your experience of "don't worry about it" was, and is, the norm. ~Cynthia
In re. "skin in the game," this dinosaur :) agrees completely. Free labor and derailing one's education should have been more than enough. The University of Minnesota (one of America's finest land-grant universities - proud Gopher? You betcha!) was not as accommodating as BYU about taking two years off for a mission, and my mission seriously derailed my educational plans. I was a junior (American History major, Political Science minor) when I left. I had to step back into upper division courses after a two-year hiatus, having lost contact with professors, classmates, the flow of my course of study, and any idea about what I wanted to do for what was supposed to have been an honors thesis. I got married to the young woman who introduced me to the church about three months after we returned from our missions (19 days apart) in the spring of 1989.
I felt like I had little or no time to readjust, take my time to recalibrate myself academically, and I ended up not only not graduating with honors, I found myself busy with a kid and a wife and a job (gotta *provide!*) and I never graduated at all. I lack only that one paper, and thus never went on to graduate school and never made a living in the field I love.
But as your listeners know, whether it comes to cleaning the chapel, working to merit fast offering support from your bishop, being "worthy" of your temple recommend, or anything else, "skin in the game" in the church means "up-front financial contribution or in-kind equivalent."
I suspect that the "don't worry about it" experience is roulette-dependent but pretty unusual. More common for converts, and even more common for smart, "golden," up and coming converts romantically involved with the eligible daughter of a well-known couple in the small pond that was Twin Cities Mormonism in the late 1980s. I had privilege - borrowed but very real - coming out my ears. Some young man, dare I say of color, less than ten years after the lifting of the racist ban, who had been tracted out or run into the elders on campus? He'd have been told he didn't need to serve (as was I) and he should just wait until retirement to serve a senior mission. The chances that a youth like that would have had the opportunities that well-meaning members laid in front of me when I was 21 are vanishingly slim.
On the plus side, we've been married for 36 years, and even without a degree, I've managed to make a decent living. But it wasn't what I had planned, nor what I was working toward.
What in the world?!? I had NO idea that the Wards and Stakes could accrue mission debt!! This is new news to me and, I don’t know why, but I’m shocked. SHOCKED. What a crazy set up we have here: The church expects the teen and young adult members to advertise for them by paying lots of their own $$$ for their own missions while the church is using their marketing funds to pay third parties non profits, who then pay lots of money to online influencers…there’s definitely a need for a huge redesign of how this this whole corporation (business) works.
Corporation-BINGO! I would opine, that it is working exactly as most thriving American corporations are working. Profits at all cost, on the back of the worker.
Yea I had no idea either until my husband had to deal with it, or rather he chose to deal with it because the problem just kept getting bigger and bigger every year. Women are truly kept in the dark on so many churchy policies. PLenty of men too, but ALL WOMEN. ~Cynthia
Imagine women being allowed in these meetings and coming in with new eyes and fresh insights and pointing out things like: WAIT WHY IN THE WORLD ARE THE WARDS AND STAKES ACCRUING DEBTS?! This is not ok. We could make this corporation run so much better.
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.
Yes!! My son served in Ukraine and lived in a decrepit rat infested building. The mission president live in a 2million dollar penthouse apartment. The president told them it was honorable for them to live through a Ukrainian winter with sporadic heat and hot water....yeah, no. I would NEVER have allowed him to serve if I'd known.
Just ugh. What a ridiculous, unfair, abusive system. Being in debt for years to pay for a time when you gave free labor selling for the corporation's needs. Trying to make it make sense is a Sisyphean task.
Love this and couldn’t agree more! I’m curious if you feel like the reason your brothers served and you didn’t was related to gender. Was there more emphasis on them serving as a duty for men? Or did you feel like your desire to serve was less than because you are a woman?
100% it is gender related. It was a commandment for young women, just an option for women. And still the age difference to serves persists, so we still don't value the missionary efforts of girls the same we do for boys or we would equalize the age and the time they serve. ~C
I totally agree with everything everyone has said, but I had a interesting reaction, Cynthia. I felt saddened that you did not get to go on a mission because of finances. I have all the same issues everyone else has regarding missions. But, I still sit in your pain for a bit. You would have made a wonderful missionary! You are a missionary of another type now. 😊
I actually agree that missions are really difficult financially for (large) families and the state of the economy right now and most parents both needing to work just to make ends meet. I member my sister paid for her entire mission and went really late because of it. She also missed an entire semester of school to save for and pay for a study abroad. We were stable but not even close to wealthy. Study abroad’s and missions are similar in expense and if you can’t afford study abroad why are you expect to pay for a mission?! (And donate like 10% of the pre mission earnings to the church also?!)
I don’t think the LDS church is really keeping up with the financial realities of most families today. The leaders are very well
Into their 80s and don’t have a lot of data or feedback what it is like for families financially today. I wholeheartedly agree with this messages!
"I don’t think the LDS church is really keeping up with the financial realities of most families today. " YES!!! It's something we cant to keep talking about here at ALSSI.
As soon as I read this, I thought wow. You do know how to spotlight issues that need to be addressed. I personally served in the 70's. I worked hard from the age of 16 to save money for my mission. And I had the funds needed. But when I returned home, I found that my parents had not used my money, instead paying for most of it themselves ("for the blessings"). My mom told me she wanted me to use my savings for college and marriage. In retrospect she worked in a Government Job where she was exposed to second hand smoke and died of Lung cancer in her early 70's. I was upset when I found out that they had not used my savings and that my mother had worked to pay for my mission. Never more upset than when she was diagnosed. I made a point to make sure that I repaid those dollars to them after I was married in assistance to my parents and siblings. It still hurts knowing that she worked to pay for an expensive mission (some missions were more costly than others back then). After a major confrontation in 1978 (prior to the Priesthood Revelation) with General Authorities about my teaching by telephone a large group of investigators in Ghana, I was hours away from leaving my mission. The number one reason I stayed, my mom. I didn't want to disappoint her. But in so doing, I put her through another year of work in that job environment not knowing she was doing it for my mission expenses.
As a side note, as a Stake Employment Specialist I made the "error" of encouraging parents to think of saving education funds for their daughters with the same priority as their sons. My Stake President called me into his office, and said that with families needing to prioritizing paying for their sons' and in some instances, daughters', missions, it was unrealistic to think or expect they could save for a daughter's education.
Whaaaat? the stake was upset you prioritized the needs of girls? YIKES! ~C
I served in the 60's and my father, a school teacher, worked at a gas station at night to help fund my mission. By the time he had paid for seven children's missions, he was convinced to "share the blessings" and let others help. He always protested that he wanted the blessings of pay for his kids missions. My experience is different than yours, Cynthia, because missionary funds and stake and ward members, paid for my other friends who served missions and needed help. My first missionary child worked very hard to save his hard-earned money to cover the costs of his mission. But as a single mom with 10 kids, there was an abundance of help for him from friends and relatives and the ward missionary fund. It took a bit to convince him to accept the help. I might be old fashioned, but I love helping with mission expenses. I've always thought it was more about the giver than the receiver when it comes to mission help.😊
THANK YOU for this perspective!
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.
I am so sorry your sons suffered so much. Heartbreaking.
I agree. A commitment to send missionaries into third world countries and other problematic areas can have long-term consequences that the Church should cover.
With you Cynthia!
I had been a member for 13 months when I left on my mission. As a college junior at a state school, with little or no parental or scholarship help, I was in debt already. My stake president - my local Institute director, who was also a mentor to me in my early months as a new, curious, inquisitive member - arranged to have my mission funded by stake and ward members, somehow. I was never sure of the details. I suspect they also ended up making a few student loan payments, although we jumped through all of the deferment hoops (this was in the late 1980s so rules were a little different then). My ward's EQ president handled the money, it went into my checking account every month, and in every mission city the church had a deal with a local bank allowing us to write a personal check, in $US, for cash and get the equivalent in lire at a fair exchange rate.
Back then, missionaries paid actual cost so when you sent in your papers, you rolled the dice. My mission in southern Italy came in at $400/month; my then-fiancée went to Bolivia for $110/month. I knew people in the MTC on their way to Japan paying upwards of $1,000/month.
I have no idea if I created a deficit in a ward or stake mission fund, attached to my name or otherwise. Knowing my stake president, he might not have been too concerned about "balancing the books," but I think he would have tried to make sure it never came back on me. I suspect he sweet-talked or strong-armed locals into just covering it. The only conversations we ever had about it consisted of "Don't worry about it. Someday, you can just make it possible for some other young man to do the same thing." (My two oldest sons both served so I hope I met that obligation in the Lord's eyes, at least.)
The church, of course, did cover air fare from Minneapolis to SLC/Provo to the MTC, SLC to Italy, and then back home again. They didn't tell me this, so I bought my own ticket to SLC and arranged transpo to Provo, then had to jump through reimbursement hoops with a frustrated church travel agency rep who didn't quite understand that not everyone knows the rules of the game when they don't have member parents or anyone to tell them what to expect.
All of which is to say, in my usual too-wordy way, that it would be a lot easier for the church to just take care of it all. The "evening out" of the monthly cost was a great step, especially for kids from lower-income families who ended up going to expensive parts of the world, and it took away the monthly hassles of rent, utilities, etc. which were all handled by the mission financial secretary in my mission (the most overworked elder in the office). It would simplify things and smooth the way to just have the church cover it. If there's a need to "put skin in the game," outfitting your missionary is expense enough, generally. There's no need to create additional stress and concern for families already concerned about their ability to pay their way to exaltation, that they might not be able to meet the cost of sending a child on a mission.
Wow thank you Steve for sharing the perspective of a missionary in the real dinosaur days before mission costs were equalized! I too heard similar stories about $1,000 missions to Tokyo versus South America ones for peanuts.... and they got a maid too!
As to your point. "If there's a need to "put skin in the game,"", how is putting off college and potential earnings NOT skin in the game? How is free labor also not skin the game?
You also bring up another great point about American kids who are converts who want to serve missions. I'd love to know how often your experience of "don't worry about it" was, and is, the norm. ~Cynthia
In re. "skin in the game," this dinosaur :) agrees completely. Free labor and derailing one's education should have been more than enough. The University of Minnesota (one of America's finest land-grant universities - proud Gopher? You betcha!) was not as accommodating as BYU about taking two years off for a mission, and my mission seriously derailed my educational plans. I was a junior (American History major, Political Science minor) when I left. I had to step back into upper division courses after a two-year hiatus, having lost contact with professors, classmates, the flow of my course of study, and any idea about what I wanted to do for what was supposed to have been an honors thesis. I got married to the young woman who introduced me to the church about three months after we returned from our missions (19 days apart) in the spring of 1989.
I felt like I had little or no time to readjust, take my time to recalibrate myself academically, and I ended up not only not graduating with honors, I found myself busy with a kid and a wife and a job (gotta *provide!*) and I never graduated at all. I lack only that one paper, and thus never went on to graduate school and never made a living in the field I love.
But as your listeners know, whether it comes to cleaning the chapel, working to merit fast offering support from your bishop, being "worthy" of your temple recommend, or anything else, "skin in the game" in the church means "up-front financial contribution or in-kind equivalent."
I suspect that the "don't worry about it" experience is roulette-dependent but pretty unusual. More common for converts, and even more common for smart, "golden," up and coming converts romantically involved with the eligible daughter of a well-known couple in the small pond that was Twin Cities Mormonism in the late 1980s. I had privilege - borrowed but very real - coming out my ears. Some young man, dare I say of color, less than ten years after the lifting of the racist ban, who had been tracted out or run into the elders on campus? He'd have been told he didn't need to serve (as was I) and he should just wait until retirement to serve a senior mission. The chances that a youth like that would have had the opportunities that well-meaning members laid in front of me when I was 21 are vanishingly slim.
On the plus side, we've been married for 36 years, and even without a degree, I've managed to make a decent living. But it wasn't what I had planned, nor what I was working toward.
What in the world?!? I had NO idea that the Wards and Stakes could accrue mission debt!! This is new news to me and, I don’t know why, but I’m shocked. SHOCKED. What a crazy set up we have here: The church expects the teen and young adult members to advertise for them by paying lots of their own $$$ for their own missions while the church is using their marketing funds to pay third parties non profits, who then pay lots of money to online influencers…there’s definitely a need for a huge redesign of how this this whole corporation (business) works.
Corporation-BINGO! I would opine, that it is working exactly as most thriving American corporations are working. Profits at all cost, on the back of the worker.
Yea I had no idea either until my husband had to deal with it, or rather he chose to deal with it because the problem just kept getting bigger and bigger every year. Women are truly kept in the dark on so many churchy policies. PLenty of men too, but ALL WOMEN. ~Cynthia
Imagine women being allowed in these meetings and coming in with new eyes and fresh insights and pointing out things like: WAIT WHY IN THE WORLD ARE THE WARDS AND STAKES ACCRUING DEBTS?! This is not ok. We could make this corporation run so much better.
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.
Yes!! My son served in Ukraine and lived in a decrepit rat infested building. The mission president live in a 2million dollar penthouse apartment. The president told them it was honorable for them to live through a Ukrainian winter with sporadic heat and hot water....yeah, no. I would NEVER have allowed him to serve if I'd known.
"the church’s cheap abuse of members’ time and talents while it spends millions on lawyers, land, and luxury apartment buildings." NAILED IT.
Just ugh. What a ridiculous, unfair, abusive system. Being in debt for years to pay for a time when you gave free labor selling for the corporation's needs. Trying to make it make sense is a Sisyphean task.
It's so unfair, and so extra unfair for families and individuals who don't have extra cash.
Love this and couldn’t agree more! I’m curious if you feel like the reason your brothers served and you didn’t was related to gender. Was there more emphasis on them serving as a duty for men? Or did you feel like your desire to serve was less than because you are a woman?
100% it is gender related. It was a commandment for young women, just an option for women. And still the age difference to serves persists, so we still don't value the missionary efforts of girls the same we do for boys or we would equalize the age and the time they serve. ~C