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LDS Church Sends Out Safety Survey To All Young Missionaries

Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
62,000 missionaries worldwide will fill out surveys to help the LDS church better understand the physical risks they face.

Mormon missionaries with their black name tags can be found all over the world, and at times they find themselves in harm's way. For the very first time The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is sending out a safety survey to each of its 62,000 young missionaries worldwide to better understand potential dangers to physical safety.

Last year four missionaries were seriously injured during the bombing at the Brussels airport while more recently a missionary fended off an attempted mugging on a street in Brazil.

 

And now, just days after multiple terrorist attacks in London, a spokesperson says the LDS church wants a better understanding of the day-to-day experiences of their missionaries.

 

The survey will be confidential and will help “identify areas or circumstances where missionary safety may be at the greatest risk.” Safety guidelines will be adjusted as needed.

 

Missionaries are already instructed to exercise extreme caution. They typically don’t proselytize past 9:30 p.m. and are always accompanied by at least one missionary companion.

 

In recent years the death rate for Mormon missionaries has been relatively low, with four deaths last year and six in 2015.

 

Lee Hale began listening to KUER while he was teaching English at a Middle School in West Jordan (his one hour commute made for plenty of listening time). Inspired by what he heard he applied for the Kroc Fellowship at NPR headquarters in DC and to his surprise, he got it. Since then he has reported on topics ranging from TSA PreCheck to micro apartments in overcrowded cities to the various ways zoo animals stay cool in the summer heat. But, his primary focus has always been education and he returns to Utah to cover the same schools he was teaching in not long ago. Lee is a graduate of Brigham Young University and is also fascinated with the way religion intersects with the culture and communities of the Beehive State. He hopes to tell stories that accurately reflect the beliefs that Utahns hold dear.
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