LDS Church announces new leadership role for women

Women praying in general conference is still a question mark, but a recent announcement from the LDS Church will increase the involvement of women in mission leadership.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced Friday that its 405 missions are being reorganized to better use leadership skills and abilities of all missionaries. This announcement comes six months after the decrease in missionary age, which has resulted in a huge increase in missionaries entering the field.

According to the church, each mission will create a mission leadership council that will consist of the mission president and his wife, assistants to the president, zone leaders and sister training leaders -- a newly created role. Both elders and sisters will be expected to contribute to the councils.

"We are very excited about the new mission leadership council and this role for sister missionaries," Elder David F. Evans, executive director of the missionary department, said in a news release. "It will be a blessing to both missions and missionaries throughout the world, and better employ the remarkable faith, talents and abilities of all missionaries."

The role of sister training leader was created as more female missionaries are going on missions; the number of sisters in the Provo MTC has almost doubled in the last six months. Sister training leaders will be responsible for the training and welfare of female missionaries assigned to them along with participating in the mission leadership council. The roles of assistants to the president and zone leaders will remain unchanged, and the organizations of missions into zones and districts will not change. However, the mission leadership council will replace the zone leader council.

According to the church, sister training leaders will continue to proselytize and will spend time each week training and evaluating the needs of female missionaries. They will report to the mission president on the needs of sister missionaries. The wives of mission presidents also will have an increased role in training and caring for sister missionaries.

The changes were announced to general church leaders on Friday morning and will be given to mission leaders shortly. Each mission will implement the changes as quickly as is practical.

The LDS Church's semiannual general conference starts today in Salt Lake City. Many members are waiting for prayers with unusual attention, after an LDS feminist group started a campaign earlier this year to have a woman pray in conference. Members of the LDS Church also are wondering if there are more big announcements following the unexpected announcement in October that lowered the missionary age from 19 to 18 for men and 21 to 19 for women.

Source: http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/lds-church-announces-new-leadership-role-for-women/article_5601fe09-7de3-5973-bc30-ccc07c832198.html

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