Full-Time Missionary Rules and Guidelines from 1946

                                        A page copied from the 1946 Missionary Handbook.

FULL-TIME missionary regulations and guidelines for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were somewhat different in the 1940s than they are today.

For example, back then swimming WAS allowed (just not with the opposite sex); Saturday was pretty much the universal preparation day back then; missionaries often wore hats; no tracting was recommended on Sunday; and sample door approaches didn’t say “Mr. Smith,” or “Mr. Jones,” but rather “Mr. A,” or “Mr. X.”

Membership in YMCA’s and similar organizations for missionaries was not only legal in 1946, it was encouraged, since not only is recreation necessary, but “may be turned to preaching the gospel.”

If there were enough elders in one area, a team for basketball or baseball was suggested to be formed – and to face local competition.

“The Missionary’s Hand Book,” 1946 edition (and first printed in 1937) is 164 pages long. It was published by the Church Radio, Publicity, and Missionary Literature Committee, of which future President Gordon B. Hinckley, was a key member of.

The Hand Book did not mention going without purse or scrip (not having money, food, nor a place to reside and having to live off the generosity of those you meet). That's probably because that practice stopped in about 1941, at the start of World War II. (Yet, into the 1950s, some mission presidents still sent some of their elders to the country for several weeks each summer to get a taste of what living without means and by such great faith really felt like.)

Some of the Hand Book’s advice is certainly relevant today. However, since sister missionaries were very rare in that era, the entire Hand Book only talks about rules and guidelines for elders.

Other interesting excerpts from the Hand Book are:

-“Never call a woman by her first name … Do not touch a woman except to shake hands with her.”

-“Bless, but do not curse.”

-“The missionaries greatest reward from tracting is the humility it never fails to bring.”

-Tracting door-to-door was not to be done on Sunday; and often also NOT on Saturday, if there were other missionary duties.

-“Do not engage in undignified games, sports or pastimes.”

-An occasional good picture show or better still, a fine artistic production, is stimulating.”

-“Remember that you are sent out to preach the first principles of the gospel and to call men to repentance; not to pose as expounders of mysteries …”

-Dress – The Latter-day Saint ministry wears no distinguishing costume, but missionaries should always dress with respect to the the dignity of their work … dark shoes, dark suit, quiet hat …”

-“Sacrament meetings – “…Ushers should always be posted at the door to greet the Saints and welcome strangers.”

-“It is important that missionaries keep up appearances and maintain physical fitness.”

-Notwithstanding a prohibition against swimming with the opposite sex, the 1946 Missionary Handbook also quoted the late President Joseph F. Smith (who died in 1918): "It is not a good thing, neither is it at all wise, for our elders to go out on excursions on dangerous lakes, or streams, or bodies of water, just for fun. They had better stay away. The Lord will protect them in the discharge of their duties."

Thus, missionaries by an early 20th Century admonition, were advised not to run rivers or take any pleasure boating excursions on  any “dangerous” bodies of water.

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the author's conclusions and opinions only.

When You First Went to The Salt Lake Mission Home ...

      The Church history Library today sits near where the old Mission Home was.


BACK in the olden days, departing LDS Missionaries (English speaking), first went to the Mission Home in Salt Lake City.
There was NO MTC in those days.
From 1925 to 1970, missionaries first went to 31 N. State State Street, where the first such "Mission Home" was used. This was a two-story, red brick home, with a white porch. Missionaries spent up to two weeks there for training.
Later, they slept in nearby residences, or by the 1960s (due to overcrowding), if they lived in the Salt Lake area, many often went home at night and returned the next day.
Starting in 1971, the old Lafyette School, 75 E. North Temple, was used for five days of English speaking mission training.
(Foreign language missionaries went to the Provo LMT, later the MTC.)
Myself, I spent 5 days in late June 1973 at this Salt Lake "Mission Home."
It was a whirlwind of training and pep talks. I recall bars on the bedroom windows, which seemed strange at night as I looked out at the Salt Lake Temple.
We ate at the not-yet-dedicated, new 28-story LDS Church Office Building. The Deseret Gymnasium was across the street, but except for Saturday afternoon -- when many missionaries were receiving last ditch haircuts -- we didn't get to use it otherwise.
Missionaries at the time received a solemn assembly meeting in the Salt Lake Temple with the Church Prophet, Harold B. Lee.
President Lee even opened it up to a Q&A by missionaries. The only question I recall of several being asked was "Where are the lost Ten Tribes?"
President Lee quipped, "Now Elder, if we knew where they were, then they wouldn't be lost now, would they?"
In later years, missionaries would only receive a solemn assembly by a General Authority. And, by 1977, it was usually the Salt Lake Temple President who was at the solemn assembly.
Finally, not only had parents and family said "goodbye" to missionaries as they began their 5-day mission home stint, but in that era, they also returned to the Salt Lake Airport to say bye-bye all over again as missionaries flew out.
By the fall of 1978, this mission home was replaced by the Provo MTC.
The old school was demolished soon after and there was just a parking lot there until the new LDS Church History Center was built in the 21st Century.

NOTE: There is a photograph of the pre-1970 mission home on the Church's history site, but you have have member log in to see and then there seems no way to download the photo outside of maybe some sort of screen capture.

Go to: https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/122b7d9b-4b2a-402b-a7ad-d3e4ee6907e6/0/0?lang=eng

To see the photo.....

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.