The changing nature of missions

A wise corelary study would be something like "The Missionary Handbook: Its evolution both in stated context and in application through situational addendums in various locations." However since that might invite coverage of those who just ignored it totally, it needs some sensativity.

Clearly the rules of missionary conduct have changed over time. In the 19th-century while "Preaching the gospel two by two in my name" was the stated standard of the Lord, some men traveled long periods without any companion. The majority of the missionary force was married men, who were sent away from their families, for illdefined periods of time.

As the 20th-century dawned the modern missionary model began to take shape. More and more missionaries were young, single men, and missionary calls began to normalize to 2 years in ones native language, and generally 3 years in another language. The native language was almost always English, althogh there were some native speakers of Shoshone serving, although on a more localized and part time basis.

The long and complex developments that lead to the current position of ward missionaries, along side the even less understood, less formalized, less universal and less known stake service missionaries, is worth considering.

To confuse things even more until the Spring of 2002 the position now known as ward missionary was called stake missionary. It was a stake calling, thus the call had to be approved at the stake level. The nature of the calling made it possible to assign individuals across ward boundaries, but this was extremely rare. Since then there has been a stake service missionary postion, that exists to assign across ward boundaries, in just about whatever capacity the stake president deems needed. I have seen it mostly used in cases of people assigned for self reliance development and leadership development, but a few cases I have seen it done with young men old enough to serve missions preparing to do so, or in one case someone who had health conditions who made it doubtful if he would be able to serve a regular full-time mission. That last case actually he was able to go serve a full time mission, so it was good preparation more than anything else.

"stake service missionaries" are different than "church service missionaries". I will get to the distinction later on.

It was not until the 1970s that the missionary force became truly centralized in the heart of the Church. The exact details will require study in various loggs, mission president and missionary journals, etc., but my impression is that there were some, although not nearly as many as we would wish, people serving as missionaries in some sort of capacity prior to the 1970s who had been called not through the central Church in Salt Lake City, but by assignment from their local mission president to serve in the mission they resided in. To what extent these were stake missionaries in non-stake areas, and to what extent these were more full time is hard to say. Even harder because stake missionaries at times have regularly prosellyted, lead out in teaching and baptizing, and basically been like full-time missionaries except they have either also held a job, been college students or been full-time mothers and homemakes as well. This is generally not equivalent to the modern ward missionary, and although somewhat like some modern stake service missionaries, the comparison ignores how non-uniform the later are.

In fact, for some purposes the 1970s are too early for centralization.