We had some training this morning from Elder Gibson in the General Young Men's Presidency, and he said some interesting thing, so I thought I would share:
- The decision to lower the missionary age stemmed from a desire to curtail the loss of youth after high school. President Monson told Elder Nelson, "We are having a hemorrhage in our youth. You are a doctor and I need you to fix it." When Elder Nelson and the General Young Men's Presidency pitched the idea of lowering the age for Elders to 18 to President Monson, the first thing he said was, "What about the women? They ought to go at 19." His next question was, "Do you think this will result in more temple marriages?"
- When the member of the Presiding Bishopric are set apart, they are given keys similar to those of other bishops, but they are instructed that their keys are "dormant," meaning they take direction from the President of the Church. The Presiding Bishopric has essentially no authority and can't even preside at almost any meeting.
- The Church expects us to have 100,000+ missionaries after the first quarter of next year; however, they recognize that the numbers will drop in coming years and stabilize; one of the concerns they had was not pressuring women in to going on missions. The Church estimates that 25-30% of women will go on missions.
- The Church changed the Strength for the Youth pamphlet to emphasize group dating not as a group of boys and girls in any number of combinations, but instead a group of couples, each boy having one girl he is on a date with
- The Church stripped the activity portions of the Duty to God program because it felt that Scouting covered that need
