Mission Papers
LDS Mission Papers: The Process, Timeline and What to Expect
What people mean by mission papers, how the missionary recommendation actually works, the health assessments and interviews, when it can be submitted, and how long the wait usually is.
Published 9 min readMissionary Tracker
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There are no papers. What families call “mission papers” is a missionary recommendation: an online form you complete with your bishop, backed by medical and dental assessments, confirmed through two interviews, and submitted to Church headquarters by your stake president.
The process itself is not complicated. What catches people out is the timing — when it can be submitted, how long the assessments take to arrange, and how much of the calendar is decided by a rule most candidates have never read.
What a missionary recommendation actually is
A recommendation is a single online record in the Church’s Missionary Recommendation System, accessible to local leaders and to the candidate. It gathers, in one place:
- your personal and membership details;
- your health information, including assessments completed by medical and dental professionals;
- the financial contribution you and your family commit to each month;
- the outcome of your interviews with your bishop and your stake president;
- your availability date.
When your stake president submits it, that record goes to the Missionary Department, and the information in it feeds directly into how your assignment is made. That is why leaders are instructed to make sure everything requested is fully disclosed rather than smoothed over — a health condition disclosed properly is worked around; one left out is discovered in the field.
When to talk to your bishop
Earlier than you think. The recommendation itself can be completed in a few weeks; everything that feeds into it cannot.
A reasonable trigger is six to eight months before the month you hope to enter the field. That leaves room for the medical and dental appointments, for any dental work that gets found, and for the interviews to be scheduled around real people’s calendars.
Two situations need an even earlier conversation. If you have not lived in your ward for a full year, your bishop confers with the bishop of your previous ward early in the process. And if there is anything you need to resolve with him before you can be recommended, the handbook is clear that a recommendation is not submitted until that has genuinely been worked through — a timeline that is comfortable nine months out and impossible nine weeks out.
The part you complete yourself
Your bishop starts the recommendation, which gives you access to your own section of it. Most of it is straightforward, and most of the delay in it comes from information you have to go and find rather than questions that are hard to answer.
Have these to hand
6 items
Fill in the health section carefully and completely. It is the section people are most tempted to minimise and the one where minimising it helps nobody — assignments are made partly on the basis of what is in there.
Medical and dental assessments
Every candidate is required to have their health readiness assessed by medical professionals. Those assessments are then reviewed by the area office and the Missionary Department — not just filed.
If a health concern could affect your ability to serve away from home, the recommendation may be returned with instructions on how to improve your health readiness before it goes further. That is a normal outcome, not a refusal, but it does add time.
In practice the dental appointment is the one that moves timelines. Work identified at the assessment has to be completed, and dental appointments are booked weeks out. Book both examinations as soon as your bishop opens your recommendation rather than waiting until the form asks for them.
The interviews
There are two: your bishop, then your stake president. Both work from the same readiness guidelines and the same published list of missionary recommendation interview questions. You can read them in advance. Nothing in the interview is designed to catch you out, and leaders are explicitly instructed not to add eligibility standards of their own or to change the questions.
The order is worth knowing, because it surprises people:
- First, your physical, mental and emotional health readiness, and your financial situation.
- Then, if those are in order, your testimony of Jesus Christ and His restored gospel, and the standards of worthiness.
If either leader has concerns about readiness, the expectation is that they counsel with you — and, with a young candidate’s permission, possibly with parents — rather than simply stopping. Where health circumstances make it appropriate, the conversation may turn to a service mission served from home, which goes through the same recommendation process and is a mission call in exactly the same sense.
Your availability date, and the 150-day rule
This is the rule that decides your calendar, and most candidates meet it for the first time halfway through the process.
Your availability date is the date you are able to begin serving. It cannot be earlier than the point at which all three of these are true:
- you have reached the qualifying age for service;
- you have been a confirmed member of the Church for at least one year;
- you have completed or are no longer attending high school or the equivalent — a condition that applies only to candidates who will not be 19 by their availability date.
Your stake president may then submit your recommendation up to 150 days before that availability date. Not earlier. That single number is why a recommendation cannot simply be filed a year in advance, and why the answer to “when can I submit my papers?” is really a question about when you want to leave.
Submission, and what happens next
Your stake president submits the recommendation. From your side nothing else happens — there is no second form, no follow-up questionnaire and nothing to chase.
At Church headquarters the recommendation goes to the Missionary Department, health information is reviewed, and the assignment is made. Assignments for young teaching and service missionaries are made by Apostles through revelation, and the call itself is generally extended by the President of the Church.
The full sequence from submission through to the call arriving is set out in the LDS mission call process.
How long do mission papers take?
Two different questions hide inside this one, and separating them is the whole answer.
Completing the recommendation usually takes a few weeks, and is almost entirely governed by how quickly you can get a dental and medical appointment and how quickly your ward and stake leaders can schedule interviews. This is the part you can actually influence, by booking early.
Waiting for the call after submission is not something the Church publishes a turnaround time for, and it is not worth trusting a number you read on a forum. It has commonly been a matter of weeks rather than months, but it varies, and your stake president is the only person with any visibility on it. If it feels long, ask him rather than speculating.
The thing genuinely worth understanding is that the second wait is usually shorter than the first. People picture the wait for the call as the long part; more often the long part was arranging a dentist.
If your recommendation is delayed or returned
Recommendations do get returned — most often with instructions about health readiness, occasionally for other reasons. It is not a judgement on you, and it does not mean the answer is no.
Sometimes a candidate who wants to serve is not called as a teaching or service missionary at all, because of health, legal circumstances, worthiness or something else. The handbook asks leaders to express love and gratitude for the willingness to serve, and to help the person keep going with education, work and Church life. If that happens to you, the conversation to have is with your bishop and stake president, who can raise questions with the Missionary Department directly.
In the meantime, the preparation is not wasted. Almost everything in the mission preparation checklist is worth having done regardless of what the answer turns out to be.
Questions people actually ask
Do I still fill in physical paper forms?
No. The recommendation is completed online, which is why the phrase “mission papers” now describes a process rather than a document. The name has outlived the paperwork.
Can I submit my papers before I finish high school?
Your availability date cannot be before you have completed or stopped attending high school, unless you will already be 19 by that date. The recommendation can be submitted up to 150 days before the availability date, so the submission itself can happen while you are still in school.
Do I choose where I go?
No. You provide information; the assignment is made through the Missionary Department by Apostles. You can raise genuine circumstances — health, family, legal, language — with your bishop and stake president so they are recorded properly, but there is no preference field.
What if I have a medical condition or take medication?
Disclose it fully. Health conditions are extremely common among missionaries and are worked around in the assignment. The commitment expected is that you keep taking prescribed medication as directed throughout your service.
Who can see my recommendation?
Your bishop, your stake president, and the Church departments that review it. It is not shared with your ward.
What happens on the day the call arrives?
You get a mission, a reporting date and a set of instructions to respond to promptly — and then a genuinely busy fortnight. There is an ordered walkthrough in what to do after receiving your mission call.