oh, yay!!! (church stuff)
Mormon stuff! For decades, the minimum age for young men to leave for their two-year missionary service has been nineteen, and for young women the required age was twenty-one. (For men, mission service is expected, unless health prevents it. Obviously not all men who can serve missions do, but the social pressure is definitely there. For women, it is more of an 'as you wish' kind of thing.)
The age requirement has just been lowered to eighteen for the young men and nineteen for the young women. I had a brief moment of happy tears as President Monson (current church leader) said of the young women, "We welcome their service." This statement has been made before, but the lowered age requirement makes it very clear. It will make the opportunity available to more young women, because marriage at a younger age is rather common in my church; many young women who had an interest in serving missions have ended up engaged before the minimum age, and chosen to marry rather than serve a mission. Plus in the US, a lot of people are close to finishing college coursework at twenty-one, and it can feel like a large sacrifice to put a (temporary) stop to that.
I started my own mission service at twenty-one (and a half). I don't know that I would have been ready at nineteen, but I'm so pleased that the chance is there now for this generation.
(Hopefully my reaction is coherent. I'm going back into the office to watch more of this particular session of church general conference online. It's available to anyone at LDS.org, by the way.)
Posted at Dreamwidth: http://rose-griffes.dreamwidth.org/257811.html. Comment where you wish.
The age requirement has just been lowered to eighteen for the young men and nineteen for the young women. I had a brief moment of happy tears as President Monson (current church leader) said of the young women, "We welcome their service." This statement has been made before, but the lowered age requirement makes it very clear. It will make the opportunity available to more young women, because marriage at a younger age is rather common in my church; many young women who had an interest in serving missions have ended up engaged before the minimum age, and chosen to marry rather than serve a mission. Plus in the US, a lot of people are close to finishing college coursework at twenty-one, and it can feel like a large sacrifice to put a (temporary) stop to that.
I started my own mission service at twenty-one (and a half). I don't know that I would have been ready at nineteen, but I'm so pleased that the chance is there now for this generation.
(Hopefully my reaction is coherent. I'm going back into the office to watch more of this particular session of church general conference online. It's available to anyone at LDS.org, by the way.)
Posted at Dreamwidth: http://rose-griffes.dreamwidth.org/257811.html. Comment where you wish.