As far as I can see the type and quality of preparation is the same and anybody who wants to go is still allowed to go no matter how unprepared they might be.

So what has really changed?

Someone should make a documentary called, “Sent Home”. I’d totally watch that.

That’s a really good idea, Jeff!

Before raising the bar: Number of missionaries who went home early: 4%

After raising the bar: Number of missionaries who went home early: 7%

The conclusion: parents need to do a better job preparing their children for missions and life away from home.

I think your conclusion needs to be reconsidered.

Perhaps there are more factors about why the percentage of missionaries going home early have gone up rather than just whether or not their parents have done a good enough job preparing them.

Perhaps the missionaries that are going home now that wouldn’t have gone home previously are doing it because:

• Mission Presidents have less tolerance for missionaries suffering from homesickness and depression
• It’s harder to build a strong testimony in an age with such easy access to information
• They might feel they were not worthy for the new higher standard and shouldn’t be there
• Missionaries are working longer, harder days to meet the new standard and are getting worn out
• Mission Presidents no longer feel the same obligation to keep missionaries in the field who they feel aren’t meeting the obedience standard

Also, I am curious what the percentages of missionaries that are “sent” home with a dishonourable release. Also it would be interesting to find out what really happened in those cases.

Someone should make a documentary called, “Sent Home”. I’d totally watch that.

• raising the bar has nothing to do with convert retention. It isn’t something you can put on a scale and figure out if someone was a good missionary or bad missionary by the number of baptisms, and how long people stayed active. I really don’t understand how you think the two equate. Look at missionaries that serve in strong Catholic countries like Italy – they see maybe 1 or 2 baptisms. In my husband’s mission an average missioary had 2 baptisms during his entire mission. I don’t know what it was in my mission – but it was much higher than that – but mostly because we had a big group of Spanish missionaries. They just had to stay out an hour later a few nights a week and they could double their baptisms. In the Spanish wards though there was a really really low retention rate. Tons got baptized. Very few stayed active. Did that make me a better missionary since more of the people I taught that were baptized stayed active? Nope. Just different.

I don’t like this “high quality/low quality” stuff.

Good point. After all, the worth of a soul is great in the sight of God.

But you’re measuring quality of missionaries by the retention of converts

Sort of. I’m making an observation that there has been no improvement at all in the retention of converts in our ward, and I am wondering whether that should have changed with the raising of the bar.

Let’s suppose for sake of argument that prior to the bar raising, missionaries did the bare minimum to get someone converted: no smoking for a week, gone to church once, had all the discussions, and so forth.

Given that benchmark, would we expect missionaries of a higher calibre be meeting the same minimum, or would we expect them to go further? Should the investigators now go without smoking for a month, go to church four times, have all the discussions in a member’s home, and so forth?

But you’re measuring quality of missionaries by the retention of converts, which is an unfair measure. Converts can make a serious commitment to live the Word of Wisdom (and whatever other commandments you judge by), and they can have a strong faith in the mission of Joseph Smith, and still not remain active if they aren’t integrated into the ward. Even lifetime members may go inactive for a time because of social conditions — I admit I did — unrelated to their testimonies or their readiness for baptism. The fellowship of a congregation has more to do with the staying power of a convert than any missionary could have.