Senior Couples are Wonderful and are Urgently Needed
Elder Hales spoke at April Conference 2001 on the need for senior missionaries. He said, “I will speak on the urgent need for more mature couples to serve in the mission field. We wish to express our appreciation for all those valiant couples who are currently serving, those who have served and those who will yet serve” (Robert D. Hales, “Couple Missionaries: A Time to Serve,” Ensign, May 2001, 25).
President Benson had admonished us to have more fun:
We need increasing numbers of senior missionaries in missionary service. Where health and means make it possible, we call upon hundreds more of our couples to set their lives and affairs in order and to go on missions. How we need you in the mission field! You are able to perform missionary service in ways that our younger missionaries cannot.
I’m grateful that two of my own widowed sisters were able to serve as missionary companions together in England. They were sixty-eight and seventy-three years of age when they were called, and they both had a marvelous experience.
What an example and a blessing it is to a family’s posterity when grandparents serve missions. Most senior couples who go are strengthened and revitalized by missionary service. Through this holy avenue of service, many are sanctified and feel the joy of bringing others to the knowledge of the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Also, through the Family-to-Family Book of Mormon Program, send copies of the Book of Mormon on missions for you with your testimonies enclosed (Ezra Taft Benson, Come Listen to a Prophet’s Voice, 74).
Elder Holland has encouraged us with a similar testimony to the ennobling nature of sacrifice:
Now let me increase the tempo of this message just a little. Many more of us can prepare for senior missionary service when that time in our life comes. As the senior couples at the MTC in Provo have said on a poster, “Let’s lengthen our shuffle!” I just returned from a long trip which took me to half a dozen missions. Everywhere I went during those weeks, I found senior couples giving the most remarkable and rewarding leadership imaginable, providing stability, maturity, and experience that no 19-year-old or 21-year-old could possibly be expected to provide. I found all kinds of couples, including a few former mission and temple presidents and their wives, who had come to parts of the world totally unknown to them to quietly, selflessly serve a second or a third or a fourth mission. I was deeply moved by every one of those people (Ensign, May 2001, 14–16).
Bishops Admonish and Exhort Seniors to Serve
Elder Robert D. Hales recounts what our prophets have asked of priesthood leaders concerning the need for more missionaries: “Bishops, there should be no hesitation on your part to initiate a Recommend for Missionary Service interview to discuss and encourage missionary couples to serve a mission” (Ensign, May 2001, 27).
Elder David B. Haight gave instructions on how to deal with this responsibility with sensitivity and constructively:
When in doubt, it is the bishop’s responsibility to suggest to couples that they think about going on a mission. He ought to have a list on his desk of all those couples he thinks are eligible. He needs to know something about their family, health, and financial situations. Then he should call them in for a warm and friendly interview and say, “Now that you’re retired, you have the opportunity to be doing something more to help build the kingdom. Have you ever thought about serving a mission?”
We don’t force anyone! We don’t say you have to go! But we are saying that there is a need! Bishops can talk about the couple’s possibility of going in six months or a year if the couple isn’t ready to go right now. It doesn’t have to happen overnight; the need of the Church is ongoing.
I think that some bishops are a little reluctant to bring up the idea of a mission to some couples because they are not sure of all the details in a couple’s life. In that case, a couple should go to the bishop and say, “We’re ready!”
We need to improve communication from both directions, but it is ultimately the bishop’s responsibility to at least raise the question (Ensign, Feb. 1996, 7).
Elder Haight has encouraged the senior couples to serve. He said,
“[Couples who want to go on a mission] ought to pray and talk to the Lord about it. They hopefully do understand that the purpose of the Church is to carry to all people the message that God lives, that Jesus is the promised Christ and Redeemer, and that this is the church that the Lord has restored to earth in the latter days through the Prophet Joseph Smith. Potential couple missionaries should feel the importance of a mission and feel that they can make a contribution.
Then couples need to review their family, health, and financial situations. If they feel that things are in place and if their bishop has not talked to them yet, they should go to their bishop and say, “Bishop, we think it’s time to talk about our going on a mission.” . . . The bishop will be thrilled and can take care of everything from there.
The Brethren hope that many, many more couples will make themselves available for full-time service to the Church. The need is great! Hundreds of thousands of new members join the Church each year, and they need to hear a friendly voice of support and comfort from experienced members.
The refrain, “I’ll go where you want me to go, dear Lord” (Hymns, 1985, no. 270), should be more than a hymn we sing on Sunday. It should be our own prayer of faith as we serve wherever the Lord has need of us” (Ensign, Feb. 1996, 7).