Tech Forum

Will 3.5 update to show 17 year olds as preparing for missions?

Not at this point - but I anticipate some change in the report in the near future.

As Elder Holland said at the press conference, it seems that very few outside of the Quorum of the 12 and the First Presidency knew about the missionary age announcement in advance... so neither did the MLS team, I would guess.

When they announced a year ago that 18 year olds from the UK and some other European countries could serve - it took them a good few weeks to update the application screen to allow a date of birth that would indicate someone was still only 17 at the time of application.

These things will get ironed out as we go along, and as people discover and report inconsistencies.

I wonder how long before they update the Handbooks online?

dannykos wrote:I wonder how long before they update the Handbooks online?

The handbooks most likely won't be updated. As with most limited changes to the handbooks the official letter of announcement will be the update. It will be interesting to see if they add a reference to the letter.

We are going to try and sneak a fix for this in next weeks MLS 3.5 final release build. No promises, but something we should be able to put in quickly.

I was a bit surprised to find that the ages had been changed on the on line missionary application system on Sunday afternoon. I was able to start the paperwork on an anxious youth that afternoon. Well done, someone...

TinMan wrote:I was a bit surprised to find that the ages had been changed on the on line missionary application system on Sunday afternoon. I was able to start the paperwork on an anxious youth that afternoon. Well done, someone...

A few days ago I bumped into an old acquaintance who happens to work on the development of the missionary application system. He said that because of the needs of various countries that had different age limits, the system had already been developed to make the age limit a configuration setting on a regional basis.

So when the announcement came out, fixing the age limits did not require changing code with the attendant delays in development, testing, and deployment -- someone just needed to change the configuration setting for a variety of regions to match the new age limits. The way the system had been developed made it easy to respond quickly. Was it luck, foresight, good system design, or inspiration? Perhaps all of them, but I have to think inspiration played a role.