Starting missions early?

[Carrapicho]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/64986/

Art Vandelay (love the name, btw) mentions that Brazilian elders can start their missions at age 18. Does anybody have support for this? I served a mission there (granted, that was about eight years ago now, so things may have changed since then), but I never heard of this rule. I was told on my mission that mission presidents' sons could start their missions at age 18, but I thought that was a Church-wide thing and not unique to Brazil. Anybody have any more information about this?

[Dragon Lady]

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/51121 ... s.html.csp
Basically, there are visa snags that make it difficult to get US missionaries there, so to increase the number of Brazilian missionaries serving in Brazil, they lowered the age requirement there.

[Tao]

Also along similar lines, there are situations that can allow men as young as 17 serve a mission, one Elder on my mission was completing his second year before most people would have been leaving. (He's here at BYU now, said he has had numerous people disbelieve his insistence that yes, he did serve a full time mission despite his being only 20 years old....)

[Portia]

I'd be in favor of this being a more widespread thing. My friends who were either very old or very young for their grade (19 or 17 when they graduated) seemed to do very well, because they either went straight on the mission or were able to get in a solid couple of years of college.

[Whistler]

wait, don't you have to be 18 to be an elder, or is that not true?

[Carrapicho]

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/51121 ... s.html.csp
Basically, there are visa snags that make it difficult to get US missionaries there, so to increase the number of Brazilian missionaries serving in Brazil, they lowered the age requirement there.

Thanks so much for the reference! Wow, I had not heard a thing about this...surprising, considering I'm friends on Facebook with a lot of people in Brazil. Anyway. I really appreciate it. And I agree that I'd be in favor of this being extended to other countries as well, honestly.