On Friday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made a major announcement concerning missionaries. Traditionally, missionaries were only permitted to contact their families twice per year: Christmas Day, and Mother’s Day. According to a news release from the Mormon Newsroom:

Effective immediately, missionaries may communicate with their families on their weekly preparation day via text messages, online messaging, phone calls and video chat in addition to letters and emails. Previously, missionaries relied primarily on email and letters for communication.

As news broke, I was flooded with text messages and emails from people who had very strong opinions about the policy change, an overwhelming majority of them positive. But I was noticing a trend – men who had served a mission seemed to have more conflicting feelings concerning the policy change compared to others. I created a very non-scientific survey with the aim of seeing if there was a correlation between male returned missionaries having “conflicting” feelings regarding the new policy change for missionaries to contact home weekly vs. the general public. This survey ran from noon on Saturday, February 17 until 6:00 pm Eastern Time on Sunday, February 18, and received 235 responses. This survey was posted on the Mormon News Report Twitter, the Mormon News Report Facebook page, the Latter-day Saint Subreddit, and the following Facebook Groups: The Mormon Hub, Millennial Mormons, and LeadingSaints Helpers.

Below are the results and selected verbatim responses from the survey.

On the whole, respondents were supportive of the new direction, feeling that the impacts would result in positive consequences.

AMONG MEN

This survey was originally constructed to identify a potential correlation between males who served a mission and a conflicting response to the new policy change. I looked both at the impression of all men (163 respondents, 69% of respondents), and male returned missionaries (153 respondents, 65% of respondents):

Men were slightly less bullish on the results, and male returned missionaries continued that trend, but compared to the overall result (68% positive), the drop was not what I originally hypothesized.

AMONG WOMEN

There were interesting trends among women, but it should be taken into consideration that because women were less represented in the survey (especially female returned missionaries), the results skewed even more dramatically. Again – this was not intended to be a formal survey. There were 65 female respondents (28% of survey) and 19 female returned missionaries (8% of survey):

I would like to stress that with a much smaller population, the results for women can be skewed dramatically, and including a larger population of women and female returned missionaries might show results more consistent with the overall population.

VERBATIM RESPONSES

Male RM: Both negative and positive. They’re going to miss out on blessings. There will be a greater opportunity to bless and feel partnership with families. They’re probably not as equipped as previous generations to learn the lessons we had to learn anyway.

Male RM: Distraction

Female RM: On my mission, I called my parents twice: at Christmas, and to give them my travel plans at the end of my mission. Other than that, all communication was by mail. Sometimes it didn’t work out so well. Times change, and these changes seem good.

Female non-serving: I’m very undecided. I don’t know how it will work out. I hope for the best, because I think it will be hard to take away contact in the future. My husband (who served, I didn’t) thinks it will make missionaries want to be home more and feel more left out.

Male RM: Good for the stated reasons. Not so good for those who require a right of passage that needs a separation from family. I think it would have been better to allow greater contact if and when the missionary needed it, thus removing any shame of guilt should they feel they needed to talk to a family member.

Female RM: My initial reaction was a negative one: thinking that this generation of missionaries is being more and more coddled. However, the fact of the matter is that this generation of children is more coddled and connected (phones, screens, etc) and is struggling when it comes to that cold-turkey adjustment. I also see positive in getting more feedback from their families about who they’re teaching, things they can try, etc. Being a missionary can be very isolating- in many cases this helps the missionary grow up and mature. But in more and more cases this brings on depression and loneliness that kids that young don’t have the tools to fight on their own. So overall I think it will be a positive change.

Male RM: I dealt greatly with depression on my mission 20 years ago where this would have been helpful for me. I had a companion who called his family weekly and it helped him even though it was against the rules.

Female non-serving: This has come at such a good time, as my sister with Asperger’s is planning to go on her mission in the near future. Being able to keep in contact with home is going to be so helpful and such a relief for her. I know this will help so many young missionaries and I so excited about this change.

Male RM: I…work frequently with early-returned missionaries that came home due to reasons associated with mental illness. I’ve found that many (2/3) of those missionaries do not meet the minimum criteria for anxiety-related disorders. Many of these folks were under-prepared for the rigors of mission life. Many have admitted in therapy that they didn’t leave due to anxiety, but that mission life was just harder than they expected. Simply put, they faked it- not unlike an athlete that doesn’t want to run sprints. I was astonished to hear this. I’m sure that this change will help *some* missionaries and parents. Understanding attachment theory, I cannot help but think that some missionaries that otherwise would thrive in the “mission-isolation” to which we have been accustomed will struggle due to increased communication and exposure to home. From a psychological standpoint, this change is only about communication on its face: this redirects and redefines what we expect out of our missionaries. Dramatically increasing the regularity of communication with home will undoubtedly alter the mindset individual missionaries as “losing oneself in the work” becomes, nearly by psychological definition, much more difficult. I would anticipate that this change will not alter the number of early-returned missionaries due to mental illness and other emotional stressors. I anticipate many more cases of “home sickness” because, homesickness is not cured by distant communication (a person at college that struggles with homesickness isn’t “cured” by calling mom more frequently. In fact, a study in Canada found it made it *worse*! Instead, developing an identify as a student and excelling academically and socially proved to lessen the impact of homesickness and likewise prevent or mitigate diagnoses of adjustment disorder, anxiety disorders, and depressive disorders. The Church must know this, so that must be more about a reduction of expectations on missionaries rather than seeking to ease homesickness and associated mental health issues. Psychology would tell us that we will see a less devoted/motivated population rather than a less-stressed population. I hope mission presidents do their reading on these issues. Further, pre-mission psychotherapy and assessment, and post-mission psychotherapy should be wildly more encouraged; potentially required.

Male RM: I came home early due to anxiety. I was not aloud to speak directly with my family until I arrived home. This has always seemed wrong to me. I do t know that being able to talk with my family would have prevented me from needing to return home, but I don’t think I would have felt as alone and broken when I did.

Female non-serving: There’s something to be said for having to grow up and be independent of family by force. On the other hand, if extra family contact helps a missionary, then it’s a good thing. I like leaving the level of contact in the missionary’s hands.

Female RM: This is all good! Any concerns people have about this leading to missionaries not being able to break away from family or being distracted by the ability to actually speak with family weekly will be swept away by all of the improvements it will bring to mental health. My mission president (nearly 30 years ago) would not allow us to call home even for Christmas or Mother’s Day. We survived, but why simply survive when that regular contact can help a missionary thrive? The lack of contact and communication only via letters was originally due to the simple fact that there was no other way to communicate across long distances. As technology advanced, we came to believe that cutting off communication beyond letters was somehow key to a successful mission. But where is the proof? These days we applaud the connections we are all able to make thanks to technology, but shun it for missionaries. That is backwards thinking. Relationships are at the core of the gospel—especially families—and that is what will eventually bring us all back to our Father together. Missionaries will be more successful when they have a better support system and this is going to be a wonderful addition to accomplishing that goal.

Female non-serving: Helps to check mission president power/abuse

Female RM: I think it’s a mixed bag. Would I have liked it? Yes. Would I be as strong, independent and confident if I did? Probably not. Would talking to family weekly have helped me during the rough spots? Probably would have made me even more homesick.