For many in Utah’s graduating class of more than 40,000 high school seniors, this is a year unlike any other. Amid the traditional pomp and ceremony, there are the usual declarations of short- and long-term plans — work, college, military service, marriage. But this year a new declaration is heard with startling frequency: “I’m going on a mission.”
Many young members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have already received a letter from church headquarters in Salt Lake City calling them to serve as a full-time missionary and assigning them to one of the church’s 405 missions worldwide, an event once reserved for college-age Mormons.