"Statement on Missionary Work" First Presidency Letter, Dec. 11, 2002

Hello! There are several church resources including Preach My Gospel, and talks from General Conference, that reference to "Statement on Missionary Work" First Presidency Letter, Dec. 11, 2002.
I've tried to find this letter, but was unsuccessful. Would it be possible to find this letter? Where is it located?
Thank you!

I tried to find that document, and I was also unsuccessful. However, I did find a possible explanation for why it's not findable. In case not everyone can follow the full train to get to where I found an explanation, I'll document the full path:

Start at the top-level of the Tech Forum: https://tech.churchofjesuschrist.org/forum/index.php

Near the upper left-hand corner, right below the top-most dark blue bar, click on Wiki to go here: https://tech.churchofjesuschrist.org/wiki/Main_Page

Near the lower left-hand corner, in the "Search TechWiki" box, enter "Official Communications" (with the quotation marks) to go here: https://tech.churchofjesuschrist.org/wi ... unications

Click on bullet point 2, Online Official Communication Library. The second sentence of the first paragraph says, "As communications become out of date, they are removed from the repository."

My personal guess is that the 2002 statement has been deemed to have become out of date, and that's why it's no longer visible. However, all of the references in conference talks and elsewhere still refer to the (no longer available) document. It would be convenient if there were a way to find whatever newer document made this older one out of date.

You know, one way to get help finding the document in question or its replacement might be to send Feedback on the site. There's no guarantee, but you might be directed to something useful.

Letters tend to become obsolete when the Handbook is re-written. Handbook 2 was published in 2010 and again in 2019. It's since been replaced by the General Handbook. That's at least 3 revisions since the letter.

A letter from 2002 would be 20 years old. There's been some changes since then, such as lowering the age for sister missionaries. (2012)

I wasn't able to find it online, either, but you could try using the Ask Us link on the Church History Catalog. I'm sure that the Church History Department keeps a record of First Presidency letters (whether they're able to provide access is another question):
https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/?lang=eng

The bane of online resources! The more interconnected you make things (which definitely has benefits), the more likely a change will break that connectivity, and the more likely that those making changes won't identify every reference they might need to update. There's probably enough variation in each case that a general rule isn't applicable. But if documents are being removed per this policy (which makes sense), at the very least it seems reasonable that a generic "replacement page" be supplied that states this fact. Even better would be a customized landing page for a removed link, that points to where one might find the updated info. But then of course that customized landing page would also be subject to eventually going out of date...

That's not always the right thing, and of course you're not going to go back to Conference talks or the like and make edits there. But it's definitely frustrating to have resources removed and not know where the new official resources might be found.

BrianEdwards wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2022 9:15 am ... Even better would be a customized landing page for a removed link, that points to where one might find the updated info. But then of course that customized landing page would also be subject to eventually going out of date...

The problem of a customized landing page going out-of-date can be solved by making a new customized landing page at the next location, so that the customized landing pages form a chain that leads from the original location(s) to the newest/current location. Following the chain is an O(N) process, but it's a lot better than a dead end.