Every 6 months the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints hold General Conference, where they speak about basic gospel truths and share modern day revelation. It is a great weekend where we get to hear from our prophet and other leaders. General conference is a special and cherished weekend for most members of the church. Sometimes leaders take time to announce new temples that are going to be built (like at this conference they announced that a temple will be built in Tuscon, Arizona and Arequipa, Peru). They sometimes also announce changes to general church policies. Last weekend President Monson (the prophet) announced that young men can serve missions when they are 18 years old and young women can serve when they are 19 years old. (The ages used to be 19 years old for young men and 21 years old for young women.)
This policy change is really exciting! And it will change a lot in the future. I have been thinking about how this will change things in the future and I thought a lot about how this will effect my own family and my future children. I think that my children will grow up in a church even more focused on missionary work and that their leaders will work hard to help them prepare for missionary work. Especially my daughters. I don't remember my leaders talking to me and the other girls about serving missions very often. We did talk about it but I think that it was not talked about as much because we could not serve until we were 21 years old and that was still a few years away. After we left young womens there was still time for us to decide if we wanted to serve missions and to prepare for one if that is what we wanted to do. I have read a few things recently about how some women almost feel cheated because they would have loved to serve missions but by the time they were 21 they were married, or in serious relationships leading towards marriage and they were encouraged to get married instead of serving missions. This makes me so sad to hear about women who feel this way and are kind of critical of their leaders and the church for having this view. I know that there is a reason that Heavenly Father waited until now to allow the ages for young men and women to serve missions to be lowered. I have no idea why, but He doesn't do things randomly. There is a purpose and reason for every decision and while it would be nice to know what those are right away we almost never do.
This is where faith comes in and is soooo important in our lives. We need to have faith in our Heavenly Father. He knows what He is doing and has a plan for each and every one of us. We also need to have faith that our leaders are doing their best for us, it may not always seem like that to us but they really are.
So as I've been thinking of these changes my thoughts have turned towards how this will effect my children, and how I will raise them. I believe that my children will grow up in a church where they will learn so much more about preparing for and serving missions. I want to do my best to teach my children about serving missions, but I have been worried about how much I will be able to teach them as I didn't serve a mission myself. I didn't really worry about my future sons because they will have their daddy, grandpas, uncles and other teachers and leaders who will be great examples to them. But what about my daughters? I want to teach them everything that I can but how will I be able to help them prepare for serving a mission (if they choose to) if I never served one myself. I then realized that with this new policy change more young women will probably serve missions! And these same young women will probably be my daughters primary teachers, and young women leaders (not to mention one of their grandmas served a mission and will also be a great example to them!). This was such a relief to me, not because I feel like the burden of helping my daughters prepare to serve missions will be passed on to their teachers and leaders, but there will be other people in their lives that will be able to share their own experiences with my daughters. I am so grateful for this! I don't want my "lack of experience" (even though I don't regret at all that I didn't serve a mission-it wasn't for me) to effect my daughters and the choices that they make. I'm so excited for the future of this great church and for all the youth that will be great missionaries!
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