'Coming Home Early' article in Ensign


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On 6/29/2016 at 2:31 PM, TeresaA said:

I have a great deal of compassion for anyone who comes home early, for any reason. We ask a lot of our young people. Too, much sometimes, in context of that their brains are still not fully developed yet. The part of the brain that responsible for decision making, executive decision making, is not formed in the human being until about 25 years of age. 18,19 year olds are not yet well equipped for many of the demands of missions. 

Most people haven't the slightest idea what that brain development fact means. If it truly meant what so many people say it means, the human race would have died out eons ago.

In Joseph Smith's time, it wasn't unheard of for 18-year-old men to be fathers,  husbands and career men.

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I'm going to rant further: it seems every time some one drags out that quote they are cherry picking what those under 25 can and can't do.What else should we ban those youth from? Military? Drinking? Walking a block without an over-25 babysitter?

 Sure, missionaries back in the day were mature men. How does that properly compare with younger men/women in a far more scaffolded mission setting? 

If 20-year-old, give or take some years, missionaries were truly developmentally inappropriate we would have far, far more issues than we do. We would have fixed it long ago. But, most missionaries manage without too many huge issues. Most people who don't go on missions would also probably do just fine if they went. It's not a freak few successes, it's an age range that heretofore has proved generally capable of handling missions regardless of their brain development not being fully mature. Rather, I'd say the mental exercise and new experience is helping their brains.

So please don't throw out that brain development spew unless you have evidence of regular mass major issues with the responsibility and the age.

Rant over.

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Guest MormonGator
3 hours ago, Backroads said:

\In Joseph Smith's time, it wasn't unheard of for 18-year-old men to be fathers,  husbands and career men.

I see where you are coming from Backroards and I mostly agree-but keep in mind that society has changed drastically since the time of Joseph Smith. Back than people aged must faster and usually died a lot younger. Most people my age (Generation X) were already dead. Yikes! 

I agree with what you are saying for the most part though! 

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8 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

I see where you are coming from Backroards and I mostly agree-but keep in mind that society has changed drastically since the time of Joseph Smith. Back than people aged must faster and usually died a lot younger. 

I agree with what you are saying for the most part though! 

Which proves culture has a lot on any brain maturing.

And I don't think anyone was biologically aging all the faster back then.

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Guest MormonGator
2 minutes ago, Backroads said:

Which proves culture has a lot on any brain maturing.

And I don't think anyone was biologically aging all the faster back then.

Yup, we agree. Culture does have a lot to do with maturing. 

No one biologically aged faster but when you die at 35 and see your family and friends do the same-you realize you don't have time to kill and it forces you to grow up faster. 

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3 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

Yup, we agree. Culture does have a lot to do with maturing. 

No one biologically aged faster but when you die at 35 and see your family and friends do the same-you realize you don't have time to kill and it forces you to grow up faster. 

True. But also keep in mind most people weren't exactly buying the farm at 35.

I get what you're saying. People didn't have the luxury of all the things keepu g us alive/preventing untimely death that we do now. But don't think the natural ideal lifespan was all that younger than it currently is.

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Guest MormonGator
6 minutes ago, Backroads said:

True. But also keep in mind most people weren't exactly buying the farm at 35.

 

Remember that we didn't have vaccines, medical care, or anything else back then. People really did die much younger than they do now. Granted, the life expectancy rate is somewhat skewed because babies died at astounding rates before their first birthday-but life was truly solitary, poor, nasty, brutal and short up until the time of Smith jr, etc. Even then it wasn't like it was now, and thank God for it.  This article from Slate tells how in a better way than I ever could.

I really like your point about "If we had a problem with development, larger amounts of missionaries would have problem." Absolutely true. 

  

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I stepped away from this thread and returned to find it 4 pages deep now. Sorry if someone else has already posted this, but I skimmed over all the posts and didn't see this link so I thought I would share it. Video posted in May 2016 by the Church on the same subject matter:

 

 

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