Now, if we were to empirically prove that more people do in fact prefer only sisters (which is certainly possible), I’m sure that just the opposite would turn out to be true if the ratio of Elders to Sisters in the mission field were somehow reversed. I suspect that the good traits most valued in Sisters are only in higher demand because they are in shorter supply. They also carry their own brand of problems, which members would probably notice and complain about more frequently if there were a large increase in the number of Sisters.

That said, anecdotal evidence from my own experience mirrors arJ’s, but it’s a statistically insignificant sample, so I’m not going to draw any generalizations from it.

That said, I enjoy having Sisters because I feel I have more to contribute both in conversation and actual help. I can drive them places, go to lessons with them, and have them for dinner where I cannot do any of those things with Elders. Also in my experience with sisters there were a few here and there who didn’t really want to be there and so were sub par, but the rest were excellent. There were also many excellent Elders, but because they were around in greater numbers the less stellar Elders were more numerous.

(Just for the record, I only ever had a “fight” with one out of my eleven companions and I was in five threesomes. And the Office was most certainly not called. It just depends on the sisters involved.)

This is an area where the prospective missionary and their family is not likely to want to talk about it. Even with a ‘honorably excused’ response. They almost certainly are not going to want to go into detail about what medical/psychological issues got in the way.

Tim J–I am skeptical, although Bookslinger’s theory sounds plausible.

That sounds like it may have been an “honorably excused” type of thing. Such as if her physical or mental health was not well enough to meet mission rigors.

There are some go/no-go decisions where the bishop and Stake pres don’t have enough medical or psych knowledge on their own to determine if someone should go or not. And the missionary candidate’s local non-member doctor may not know enough about mission conditions to make the go/no-go decision. In those cases, the church’s medical consultants may make a “no go” decision after reviewing the medical history, current medications, etc.

Removing such decision-making to the faceless consultants at the missionary department, and wording it “your service is not needed at this time” or “you are hereby honorably excuse” saves the Bishop and Stake Pres the hassle of angry parents accusing them of denying their child the opportunity of missionary service.

It’s also better for the excused missionary candidate to be able to answer the question “Why didn’t you serve a mission” with an honest “I was honorably excused” than being forced to say “The bishop wouldn’t let me” or “my mental state is too fragile to bear up under the rigors of a full-time mission” or “the church doesn’t want any more basket cases going on missions.”

I had a companion who I now think would have been honorably excused under today’s standards.

And I probably would have been, or should have been, declined/excused myself.

I assume that you were addressing me regarding Sisters calling the office. I’ll clarify further. First, we didn’t have elderly sisters, so that wasn’t an issue at all. Second, nobody (with the exception of the office) had a telephone. In fact making a phone call was quite a hassle and expensive. I called the office once in my mission because I received a telegram telling me to do so. My grandmother had passed away.

So when missionaries called the office they really wanted to call the office. And there were often legitimate reasons to do so. But most of the calls were of the nature that you mention, companionship squabbles blown out of proportion or some other concern that we couldn’t do anything about.

We got these such calls from both elders and sisters, but the sisters made a disproportionate number of the calls. They were also more likely to randomly show up at the office (which in most cases meant that they had wasted one or two entire days to do so) with a complaint that didn’t even merit being brought up to a DL.

If you read my comments carefully I said that elders seemed more likely to go home in memorable fashion, but that usually happened early on in their mission and was one day of drama and then they were gone. Bad sisters never got anyone pregnant (other than perhaps themselves) and they certainly never got multiple people pregnant, but they were problematic in their own ways day after day.

Again, my primary point was that elders and sisters are distributed very differently in terms of quality missionaries. With elders you pretty much know what you’re getting since they tend to be about average with some very good and some outright evil ones sprinkled in here and there. Sisters tend more towards the extremes in terms of being really good or really useless. I’d add that more were good than useless.

If it did happen, I seriously doubt the sister would be told in a letter that looked like a call. It would come from the stake president.

Any corroboration on this? He said he heard it happened recently to another Sister in the Stake as well.