Have you thought about serving a senior mission? Too scary? Too expensive? Don’t want to leave the grandkids? Here are answer to all these questions.

Too scary?

Most senior missions are not proselyting missions and they don’t have the same rigorous schedule as young missionaries. There are lots of ways to serve as senior missionaries, either from your own home or away from home. Here are a few examples:

• Seminaries and institutes
• Church headquarters operations
• Church history
• Construction, property, or building maintenance
• Family history
• Health care
• Legal support
• Leadership and fellowshipping
• Military relations
• Mission and area offices
• Public affairs
• Records preservation
• Visitors’ centers
• Historic sites
• Self-reliance
• Young single adult programs
• Storehouses and canneries
• Temples
• Humanitarian efforts
• Managing and maintaining Church camps, farms, and historic properties

The opportunities are as diverse as the men and women who make up the membership of the Church. There is a place for you if you want to serve. Go to SeniorMissionary.ChurchofJesusChrist.org and enter information about your talents, skills, financial situation, and family situation, and it will show you missionary opportunities that may be a good fit. Review the options and indicate one or more preferences.

• Choose whether to serve close to home or away from home (in your same country or in another country).
• Choose how long you want to serve—from 6 months to 2 years.
• Indicate if you speak another language.
• Select the cost per month that you can afford.

Although mission calls are extended by inspiration from an Apostle, the preferences you select are taken into consideration.

You can be called beginning at age 40. You can serve part-time (8+ hours a week) before you retire or you can serve full-time after you retire. Senior missionary companions can have the same or different assignments. Senior missions are not just for couples. Single sisters may serve either full-time or Church-service missions. Single brothers may serve Church-service missions.

Too expensive?

You can choose an assignment that matches your available finances. A live-at-home mission wouldn’t cost any more than you currently spend. Some away-from-home missions are as little as $1,200 a month. Each mission option on the site lists the estimated cost for housing (some as little as a few hundred dollars a month), transportation (usually $150), insurance, and personal costs.

Don’t want to leave the grandkids?

If family, health, or financial circumstances don’t allow a full-time away-from-home mission, there are many live-at-home opportunities. Just indicate your preference at SeniorMissionary.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

If you choose an away-from-home mission, modern technology allows you to stay in contact with friends and family. You can make voice and video calls for free anywhere in the world using WhatsApp, as long as you have an internet connection. With permission, senior missionaries can return home for critical family events for 7–10 days.

There is a great need for senior missionaries. The number of senior missionaries serving around the world is only about half of the current need. Consider this quote from President Russell M. Nelson:

If you are tempted to think you’re not needed, let me reassure you that you are. There is not a mission president in the Church who would not love to have additional couples serving in his mission. Seniors are often a literal answer to the prayers of bishops and branch presidents.”  “The truth is, no senior missionary finds it convenient to leave home. Neither did Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, or Wilford Woodruff. They had children and grandchildren too, and they loved their families just as we do. But they also loved the Lord and wanted to serve Him. (“Senior Missionary Moments,” Ensign, Apr. 2016, 66–67.)

Learn more

• Recommendation Process for Senior Missionaries
• Recommendation Process for Senior Service Missionaries