If you have flown out of Salt Lake City in August, you have seen it: a family clustered at the arrivals barrier holding a laminated photograph of a young person in a suit, someone crying, someone filming.
If you have lived in Provo for a single semester, you have been to a sacrament meeting where a nineteen-year-old spoke about a place they are about to go, or a place they just came back from.
Here is what is actually happening, why the vocabulary is confusing, and how to behave if you are invited.
The short version
A mission is a period of full-time volunteer religious service undertaken by many young members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — typically two years for young men and eighteen months for young women, with older couples serving shorter terms.
Missionaries do not choose where they go. They apply, and they receive a call assigning them to a specific mission somewhere in the world.
Before leaving, a missionary usually speaks in their home congregation. This Sunday is colloquially the farewell.
After returning, they usually speak again. That Sunday is colloquially the homecoming.
Both words describe something real. Neither describes a program the Church currently runs — and the gap between those two facts is where all the confusion lives.
What changed in 2002, in the Church's own words
This is the part almost no outside explanation gets right.
In the priesthood session of October 2002 general conference, Church president Gordon B. Hinckley addressed the subject directly in a talk titled "To Men of the Priesthood." His framing of the problem was blunt: in some wards, between outgoing and returning missionaries, most sacrament meetings had become farewells and homecomings.
Then he made the comparison that carried the argument. Nobody holds a farewell for a newly called bishop, or a stake president, or a Relief Society president, or a General Authority. Why should missionaries be different?
The changes he announced were specific:
- The departing missionary speaks for 15 or 20 minutes in a sacrament meeting.
- Parents and siblings are not invited to speak.
- Two or more departing missionaries may speak in the same service.
- The meeting is entirely in the hands of the bishop and is not arranged by the family.
- No special music or anything of that kind.
- Families were asked not to hold elaborate open houses afterward — family gatherings are fine, large public receptions are not.
- A returning missionary may again be given opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting.
He acknowledged directly that this would disappoint many families, and asked them to accept it.
So the thing being described when someone says "farewell" — a family-arranged program with musical numbers, several relatives speaking, and a reception afterward for the whole ward — was formally set aside more than two decades ago.
Why the word survived anyway
Because the word was never really about the program.
What the 2002 counsel changed was who runs the meeting and how elaborate it gets. What it did not change, and could not, is that a family is about to send an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old away for two years with tightly limited contact.
That is a genuine threshold in a household's life, and thresholds attract ritual regardless of what the ritual is officially called. So members generally use "farewell" as shorthand for the Sunday, plus dinner afterward, while understanding perfectly well that the meeting itself is standard and belongs to the bishop.
A newcomer hearing the word and expecting a production will find something considerably more ordinary: a young person speaking nervously for a quarter of an hour, followed by an ordinary meeting.
The mission call, which is its own event
Before the farewell comes the call, and this may be the ritual outsiders find most unfamiliar.
A prospective missionary submits an application. Some weeks later the assignment arrives. Historically this was a physical letter; the notification has since moved largely online, but the shape of the moment survived the format change.
The opening of the call is done as an event — family gathered, often extended family patched in by video from elsewhere, sometimes friends filling a living room. The envelope or the screen is opened and read aloud. The reader discovers, in front of everybody, that they are going to Brazil or to Idaho or to the Philippines.
The reaction is filmed constantly. There is a substantial genre of these videos.
Two details make the moment land harder than it might otherwise. The assignment is genuinely unknown in advance, and it is not negotiable. And it decides not just a place but a language — which in turn decides how long the missionary spends in training before departing.
The Missionary Training Center, which is in Provo
Utah Valley's role in all this is not incidental. The Church's largest Missionary Training Center sits in Provo, adjacent to BYU campus.
Missionaries arriving there spend a period in intensive preparation — considerably longer for those learning a language than for those who are not — before flying to their assignments. At any given time the campus holds a substantial population of young people in the specific costume of the thing: dark suits and name badges for the men, modest professional dress and name badges for the women.
This is why Provo has an unusual amount of surrounding commerce. Luggage retailers who know the weight allowances. Tailors who understand a two-year suit. Photographers who shoot missionary portraits as a specialty. Immunization clinics. Our MTC visitor guide covers the site itself and what visitors can and cannot see.
It is also why the drop-off has its own local reputation. Families deliver a child to a curb and drive away. It is brief by design.
The airport, and the posters
The homecoming half of the cycle produces the scene most visible to people outside the faith.
A returning missionary flies into Salt Lake City International, and the family goes to meet them. They bring signs — a photograph from two years ago, the person's name, the mission, frequently an in-joke that has been building through two years of weekly letters.
At peak times there may be several groups waiting simultaneously, each watching a different door.
What follows is loud, physical and unguarded in a way airport arrivals usually are not, because these families have had strictly limited contact for eighteen months or two years. Under longstanding practice, missionary communication home was largely confined to weekly letters and a small number of calls a year, though the Church has loosened video contact considerably in recent years.
If you are a traveler walking past: it is fine to notice, and most families are far too occupied to care. Do not photograph other people's children.
The homecoming talk
The first Sunday back, the returning missionary is generally invited to speak.
In Utah Valley this is a recognizable genre. Some stories from the field. A few sentences in the mission language, usually to appreciative noise from the congregation. Thanks to a ward that has been hearing about strangers in a distant city for two years. Frequently some reflection on what was harder than expected.
It is also, quietly, the beginning of a difficult transition. A returning missionary has spent two years with a rigid schedule, a companion at all times, a clear purpose, and no decisions to make about how to spend a Tuesday. They come home to a bedroom, an empty calendar and a question about what to do next.
Provo receives a large number of these people every year, many of whom enroll at BYU or UVU within weeks. Our post-mission guide covers that adjustment, and it is a considerably more substantial subject than the talk itself.
The 2012 change that made all of this more visible
One further piece of context explains why the pattern feels so intense now.
In October 2012 the Church lowered the minimum age for missionary service — for young men from 19 to 18, and for young women from 21 to 19. The effect was immediate and large: a surge in applications, a sharp increase in the number of young women serving, and a corresponding jump in the number of missions.
For Utah Valley the practical consequences were concrete. More farewells and homecomings per ward per year. A larger MTC population. And a noticeable effect on university enrollment patterns, because the gap between high school graduation and mission departure narrowed to almost nothing for many young men.
What preparation actually involves
The Sunday talk is the visible part. Behind it sits several months of logistics that shape a good deal of local commerce.
The paperwork is substantial. An application involves interviews with local leaders and a full medical and dental clearance. The dental requirement is the one that catches families out — a missionary is expected to leave with dental work completed, and wisdom teeth are frequently dealt with in the window before departure. That is a genuine scheduling constraint rather than a footnote, and it is why our wisdom teeth guide mentions mission timelines at all.
Missions are self-funded. Families pay a set monthly amount into a general fund rather than covering the specific cost of a specific assignment — so a missionary sent somewhere expensive and one sent somewhere cheap cost the same. Many prospective missionaries spend the preceding year or two working and saving toward it, which is part of why the summer sales industry has the grip on Utah Valley that it does. Our summer sales jobs guide covers that economy.
There is a packing list, and it is long. Two years of clothing suitable for a climate you may never have experienced, within airline weight limits. This is why the luggage and clothing retail here is unusually specialized — the shops know the allowances without being told.
The portrait is close to obligatory. A formal photograph is taken before departure, and it is the image that goes on the airport sign two years later. Local photographers advertise the session by name.
The two years in between
For the family, the interval is the actual substance of the thing, and it is worth describing because outsiders tend to imagine either total silence or ordinary contact. It is neither.
Historically the arrangement was a weekly letter or email on a designated preparation day, plus phone or video calls a small number of times a year — traditionally Christmas and Mother's Day. The Church has loosened video contact considerably in recent years, and weekly calls are now common where they once were not.
What has not changed is the shape: contact is scheduled rather than spontaneous. A family cannot simply ring their child, and a missionary having a hard week waits for the day.
This produces a specific texture in Utah Valley households — a weekly appointment the whole family arranges itself around, and a running knowledge of people none of them have met. Congregations experience a version of it too, since letters are frequently shared and a ward can spend two years following the progress of investigators in a city they will never visit.
It is also why the airport scene is as unguarded as it is. The barrier is the end of a countdown that has been running for 730 days.
When someone does not serve, or comes home early
A guide that only describes the successful version of this misrepresents the community, so it is worth saying plainly.
Not everyone serves. Service is strongly encouraged for young men and framed as optional for young women, but health conditions, mental health, family circumstances, finances and personal decision all keep people home. In a place as saturated as Utah Valley, where the assumption runs the other way, that can be socially awkward in ways it would not be elsewhere.
Some missionaries come home early. Illness, injury, mental health and other reasons end service before the full term regularly enough that the Church has addressed it directly and repeatedly, emphasizing that an early return is not a failure. The lived experience does not always match the guidance, and returning early into a community where the two-year completion is the visible default can be genuinely hard.
Two practical notes for anyone new to the culture. Do not ask a young adult whether they served, or why not, as small talk — it is a considerably heavier question than it sounds. And if someone returns early, the useful response is the ordinary one you would offer anyone coming home from something difficult, which is to be pleased to see them and to not investigate.
A note on the terminology
A few words that appear constantly in Utah Valley and are rarely explained:
- Elder and Sister are the titles missionaries carry, and how they are addressed for the whole term — with the surname, never the first name.
- Companion is the other missionary assigned to serve alongside them. Missionaries work in pairs and are together almost continuously.
- Transfer is a reassignment within a mission, typically on a fixed cycle, moving a missionary to a new area or a new companion.
- P-day, preparation day, is the weekly day for laundry, shopping, letters and rest.
- RM means returned missionary. In Provo it functions as a demographic descriptor as much as a religious one, particularly in conversations about dating and university enrollment.
- The field means the mission itself, as distinct from training.
Our post-mission guide and dating in Provo both use this vocabulary, because in Utah Valley it is simply the ambient language.
If you are invited
Take the invitation at face value. It is genuine, and sacrament meeting is open to visitors.
What to expect. The meeting runs about an hour. It is not a performance — there is no choir processional, no collection plate. Congregational hymns, the sacrament itself passed by young men in the congregation, and then talks given by ordinary members rather than clergy.
What to wear. Smart rather than formal. A collared shirt, a dress or slacks. Nobody is scrutinizing this.
The sacrament. A tray of bread and one of water will pass along your row. You are not expected to partake. Passing it to the next person is completely ordinary and draws no attention whatsoever.
Afterward. If a family gathering follows, it is a normal social occasion — food, relatives, the missionary being asked the same three questions forty times. Bringing something is welcome and not expected.
Our guides to visiting a church in Provo, LDS wards explained and living in Provo when you are not LDS cover the wider set of things a newcomer usually wants to know without wanting to ask.
The thing worth understanding
For a household in Utah Valley, this is one of the larger events on the family calendar, and it happens twice — once outbound and once back — with two years of waiting in between.
The Church trimmed the ceremony in 2002 for reasons it stated plainly. What it did not trim, and could not, is the weight of the thing itself. That is why the word "farewell" is still in use for a program that formally ended, and why the airport still fills with handmade signs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a missionary farewell?
Why do people still call it a farewell if the Church ended them?
Why exactly did the Church change the practice?
What are the posters at Salt Lake City airport?
How long is a mission and where do they go?
What is a homecoming?
Should I go if I am invited and I am not a member?
Why does Utah Valley feel especially full of this?
