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Technology and training changes coming to LDS missionary program

Posted at 10:43 AM, Oct 20, 2017
and last updated 2017-10-20 13:21:58-04

SALT LAKE CITY – Changes are coming to the way the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints engages in missionary work around the world.

There will be a new set of interview questions to be asked of prospective missionaries.

Also, there’s a trimming of the number of missions to better fit the needs of each region of the world.

As far as finding people, the missionaries will be replacing tablets with smartphones.

For those preparing for missions, Church leaders have approved a standard set of interview questions to be asked of prospective missionaries uniformly across the world, the church said.

That is part of an effort to ensure each missionary has a more complete understanding of the “rigorous requirements of missionary work.”

The church said it is also close some missions because not as many are needed at this time.

“We’ve leveled off to around 70,000 missionaries—still way up from the 58,000 we had,” General Authority Seventy Elder Brent H. Nielson said. “In the orderly process of accommodating changes in our numbers, we’ll be slowly closing missions because we don’t need as many as we required for the great increase we experienced in 2012-13.”

The LDS church will be implementing reductions to achieve an overall number of missions that better fits the total number of missionaries and the needs in each region.

The use of technology will also change for missionaries.

The number of missions using mobile devices is being increased from 87 to 162, the church said.

Tablets are being replaced with smartphones, and in the future, church officials said most missionaries will arrive on their mission with a smartphone to assist them in their study, finding and teaching.

The internet is also a place the church said it can help get information to people seeking to learn more about the LDS faith.

Click here to get complete information on the changes.