It did not take long for Conference to make me go "Wow" yesterday. Actually, it happened twice. First when President Monson said that young men could go at 18, there was one "Wow", and then I wondered if they would lower it to 19 for women, and they did. Wow.
I'm going to travel back in time here for another example of me getting weird thoughts in my head. Back when I was in the Missionary Training Center (entered 2/3/1993), I was studying Laotian, but I was the only Lao sister, so my companions were two Hong Kong-bound sisters in the Cantonese class next door. One thing that was commonly repeated by the missionaries studying any of the Chinese languages (because missionaries going to Taiwan studied Mandarin) was that whenever China was opened up for the preaching of the Gospel, all of the missionaries who had ever served a Chinese-speaking mission would be called to serve again, and there would be so much work in China, that missionaries would only go there.
I believe this was one of those faith-promoting rumors, where it starts with some truth--China has a lot of people and it would take a lot of missionaries to cover it--and then it gets overblown and picks up elements that are not true. I do remember thinking about it though, and thinking that to really cover things fairly, you would need to triple the number of missionaries: one third for the existing work, one third for other areas where more people were needed or that were not currently open, and then one third for China.
At the time we had 46,025 missionaries, so I rounded up and decided we would need 150,000 missionaries. The other thing they said about the opening of China is that temples would be built faster than meetinghouses. This actually makes a lot of sense. You can meet in schools and basements and hotels and conference rooms, and people have, but temple work needs temples. I can't find the exact number, but I think it was about 48 temples then, so I decided we would need 150.
While I was still in the field, President Benson died and President Hunter became the President of the Church. I remember being amazed at the strength he projected, when he had been so sick, and he exhorted all members to have current temple recommends, even if they were not able to attend the temple due to distance.
Something I had realized in terms of where you can put temples is that you need people who can go before you can have one in the area. There need to be people who can be workers and attendees, and yes, for some of the workers and the presidency you can call people to the area, but you still need a base. Seeing this made me feel like it would pave the way for more people to go, because while it would still be impossible for some, maybe there were others for whom it was only improbable, and getting their recommend would inspire them to find the possible.
I guess it was about three years later that President Hinckley announced the smaller temples, both the idea of how it was going to work, and a slew that were already planned. That was an amazing announcement, and I was briefly overcome by the implications.
Since then the number of temples has skyrocketed. I think the last count was 139 operating, with another 28 announced, under construction, or under renovation. 150 seemed like it would take forever, but is happening way faster than I could ever have imagined.
The number of missionaries has increased as well, but not by nearly as much. The 2011 report cited 55410 full-time missionaries, which is comparatively a much smaller change. Of course now there are over 20,000 service missionaries, a number that used to be included in with the full-time, and of course the temples are permanent while missionaries rotate in and out, but still, I would say we don't have enough to teach the whole wide world, which I guess was what I had in mind with 150,000. (Actually, now that I think about it, I probably decided it should be 144.000 to match Revelation.)
Now let me try and come to a point. There were steps that were needed to make it possible for the temples to grow, like getting the members to focus on temple-worthiness and coming up with the idea of smaller temples. Consider that to be the preparation of the infrastructure to allow the growth.
I think this is also from my mission, but I also remember someone explaining that part of the older age for women to go is that there would be too many wanting to go otherwise, and they could not handle the influx. To have more missionaries you need greater training center capacity, lodgings, more mission presidents, you need transportation--you need the ability to deal with all of those extra people and their needs.
The announcement makes me feel like we must be ready for another leap forward. I don't know what has changed, but our capacity is greater. The need is there, and I see this as being a movement towards filling that need.
It may not be right for everyone. I think there can be some advantages to having that first year of college under your belt, and then going out. However, for people who want to join the military, or are not interested in college, or don't know what to do with themselves yet, this can be huge. And yes, people are excited about girls still being able to go, and get married younger. At first look, that gives me qualms, but if girls are going to get married young, doing so after having served a mission should really help mitigate the lack of life experience.
I thought writing this post would be about my remembering that missionary work is important and exciting, and how can I participate more. If all members are really doing a good job, maybe we don't need 150,000 full-time missionaries. That is important, but as I was writing it also became about the importance of laying a groundwork and building a strong foundation, but also we are not doing it with an architect's knowledge. If you're constructing a building, you probably know what you need for the foundation, and how to do it, and are keeping track while it is being laid. In life, there are things happening that you do not realize. You think you are just dealing with some hassle, but actually rebar is going in.
We live in exciting times. Sometimes I get why that is a curse, but usually I like it. For my preparation, I am trying to remember to pray for missionary opportunities, and I did create a profile on Mormon.org and link it to my Facebook profile. These are minor things, but they're a start.
I guess we can always use more people who speak Chinese.
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