Implications for Missionaries.

I may be touching on something of a tricky subject. It is something I have fairly strong feelings about but I hope not to cause any offence by any remarks I make.

I have been wondering for some time since my involvement with the JavaME Gospel Library application about the implications for Missionaries.

This issue is a tricky one because it touches upon a fundamental attitude towards Missionaries particularly when it comes to technology.

Last year in the UK the missions had a renewal and update of mobile phones. Given at the time the go ahead had been given to investigate getting the scriptures to run on JavaME I had a look at the missionaries new phone and checked out the specs online to see what JavaME capabilities it had. To my great disappointment the phone did not support JavaME. I had taken for granted that even the most entry level of phones supported JavaME but unfortunately the Samsung phone in question (I can't remember the model number of the phone of the top of my head but could try and find out) has no Java support.

I was very disappointed by this wasted opportunity. Some might think that this is a matter of the Church saving money but I don't think that is the core of the reason for the choice of phone. Current missionaries use their phones quite a lot. I would expect the phones to be to be on some kind of a contract. It would cost more for them to be "pay as you go" and would not be economical. For the past several years a JavaME capable phone would be thrown in for free with even the most basic of contracts. It seems to me (unless some official source knows otherwise) it is not that the phones provided for the missionaries were the best that would have been available on the contracts but rather the Church/Missions are specifically getting the mobile providers to give them the most cut down and basic phones available instead of the more powerful one which would have normally been provided for free.

It seems like the driving force behind this is a level of distrust towards the missionaries (I could be wrong as maybe it is about ease of use but am not convinced of that). I was a missionary about 10 years ago. Owning a PDA was against mission rules. Having a mobile was against mission rules. There was a general paranoia that missionaries having technology would mean that the technology would distract them from their missionary service. Missionaries now have mobile phones but it seems that the paranoia of technology in the hands of missionaries still exists.

Even 10 years ago I could imagine how technology and particularly mobile devices could be a powerful asset to the missionary work. I imagined the scriptures and Church materials in the palm of my hand in multiple languages. I imagined being able to have easy access to information I needed and vast libraries of potentially not only books but audio and video resources that I could have with me on a mobile device.

Welcome to 2010. The technology is there. I have a phone with 16gb of storage in it or about 4 DVDs worth. The technological problems may prove less difficult to address than attitudes of distrust towards missionaries. This seems a real shame as the vast majority of missionaries I have known are committed to the work but for the sake of the few disobedient ones rules are put in place which affect all of them.

The mission mobile phone renewal opportunity in the UK has come and gone and in my view been wasted. I am writing this post in hopes I can use my professional energy to try and stop similar opportunities being wasted in the future. If the Gospel Library application works out it could just be the tip of the iceberg as regards what could be done. JavaME could provide this on commodity phones provided free with contracts (or even many for little money on pay as you go).

I hope my views don't cause offence but I was frustrated by the wasted opportunity and had at the time been thinking about talking with the mission president about the potential for mobile applications in the hands of missionaries given (as I then hoped) the devices the missionaries had would support JavaME. After finding that the phones did not support JavaME it didn't seem there was much to talk about. It may have to wait until however long in takes the phone renewal cycle to come around again.

Carl Jokl wrote:I hope not to cause any offence by any remarks I make.

You say you hope not to cause offense, which is indeed a good hope. Perhaps it would be helpful for you to consider the possible effect of using words like "distrust", "wasted", and even "paranoia" when you are trying to avoid giving offense.

Carl Jokl wrote:The mission mobile phone renewal opportunity in the UK has come and gone and in my view been wasted.

It seems to me that you have provided only one item I will grant as fact (that the Samsung phones provided to missionaries in the UK don't support JavaME), since I have no reason to doubt that assertion. But much of the rest of your post is quite speculative and needlessly critical:

• I'm guessing you are basing your assumptions about pricing for cellular phones and service on your personal experience with buying individual plans. But volume purchases are often made with an entirely different set of rules. We all know that no phones are free; they are simply included with a service plan because the provider will recoup the cost of the phone many times over in the monthly service charges. It could well be that the price the Church has negotiated for service is low enough that the provider won't include more powerful phones. That seems to be as plausible an assumption as yours.
• You seem to be concerned that those who have been called to make these decisions for missionary work in the UK have a high level of distrust for the missionaries. But I see no reason to leap to that conclusion; there are many other possible reasons for their decisions. In the absence of facts to the contrary, I prefer to trust that they have all the needful data at hand, an understanding of the relevant Church policies, and the privilege of receiving divine inspiration in their assignments. Neither you nor I have any of that.
• Technology can certainly provide benefits, but it has costs, both in terms of money and time. Providing mobile applications to missionaries would require time and money to be devoted to analyzing needs, selecting appropriate applications, then installing and supporting those applications. It could be that these costs were actually considered and weighed against the possible benefits, and other items were considered to be a higher priority for both missionaries and administrators in moving forward the missionary work.

Clearly I am making speculations here, and by no means am I trying to say that I know any facts in this case. I am simply hoping to show that one can make charitable assumptions just as easily as critical assumptions.

Perhaps the original post sounded harsh but I understand where it’s coming from. I’ve recently started to ponder how much I use technology for church-related duties and how the very things I enjoy using are (for all I know) prohibited for missionaries. For one, I always avoid taking paper books to church. I’d much rather use a pocket-sized device which holds all scriptures, lesson manuals, hymns, pictures, and other study materials. The missionaries in our stake literally carry backpacks full of books. Also, as a general habit, I can't seem to go anywhere without taking a handheld GPS receiver. There are places where it would be indispensable for anyone (including full-time missionaries).

Since I don’t have a family member either serving as a full-time missionary or preparing for a mission I don’t know all of “the rules” about electronic devices. Is there a definitive list online?

When I think of my own missionary experience, it included lots of photography on “P-days” and, from time to time, making a cassette tape to send to friends or family members back home. Those things are precious today. But how does a currently-serving full-time missionary manage to create such a record (particularly in a third-world country)? Are they allowed to have things like the Zoom H2 flash recorder (a relatively cheap device with high-quality output)? Are they allowed to use a computer (other than computers at public libraries) to back up their camera memory cards to CD-R or DVD-R? Are they able to have large attachments on the email they send home?

I was able to do my photography and audio recordings without becoming “distracted” from my work as a missionary. But I wonder how difficult it would be today and how current rules would further complicate things.

I also happen to agree that many of the restrictions on electronic devices appear to be based on a lack of trust.

Carl Jokl wrote:Some might think that this is a matter of the Church saving money but I don't think that is the core of the reason for the choice of phone. [...] For the past several years a JavaME capable phone would be thrown in for free with even the most basic of contracts.

For the most basic of individual contracts, yes. But when dealing with a large group contract, it could easily be quite different. The service provider still has to pay for the phone, and in order to cut costs to the bone to win a competitive bid, they will likely do a special order for a cheap phone.

In addition to my personal phone, I carry a phone with a volunteer agency. It's a basic model that I can't find in any store. Even in the store for the service provider that provides the signal. This was for a group of maybe 20 phones - not all that large.

Carl Jokl wrote:Even 10 years ago I could imagine how technology and particularly mobile devices could be a powerful asset to the missionary work. I imagined the scriptures and Church materials in the palm of my hand in multiple languages. I imagined being able to have easy access to information I needed and vast libraries of potentially not only books but audio and video resources that I could have with me on a mobile device.

While there are certain advantages, I've noticed the church seems to be working hard to "get back to basics" in missionary work. Things like discarding memorized discussions for example. As much as we can see an advantage to having technology at our hands, I wonder if the Priesthood has a different approach to missionary work when it comes to the full time missionaries. I'm trying to think back when I've been in the presence of General Authorities when they've done Q&A sessions to remember how they did it. I can't think of a one that used an a electronic device.

GregAnderson wrote:But how does a currently-serving full-time missionary manage to create such a record (particularly in a third-world country)?

Interesting question. They might well use a machine in a local store to back it up to CD/DVD or to print them out. It's really no different then getting film developed.

RussellHltn wrote:

GregAnderson wrote:But how does a currently-serving full-time missionary manage to create such a record (particularly in a third-world country)?

Interesting question. They might well use a machine in a local store to back it up to CD/DVD or to print them out. It's really no different then getting film developed.

You're right -- the same kind of shops that used to develop film now provide digital image services, so this is generally not difficult.

Over the last 5 years I've had three missionary children serve in three different countries. All were easily able to find places in every town they served in that would copy the pictures recorded on their digital camera's flash memory card onto a CD to send home. We made sure they had two camera cards, and once they heard back from us that we had safely received the digital pictures, they would clear off that card and continue the rotation.

I don't know how difficult it might be in some third-world countries, but missionaries in almost all places manage to send e-mails, so it's not like there is no technology available.

If the clarification of the situation is as you suggest then the issue may be different. I did wonder if the cost situation would be different when buying in bulk but I am not closely enough acquainted with the administration within the Church to know how the Church goes about making such contracts.

If cost is the only factor in that decision then that is really the end of the matter.

I suppose the discussion is an opportunity to clarify if that was the main reason. The impression given to me by the missionaries (and I know that this isn't officially authoritative) was the decision was more about a desire to have very simple phones.

10 years ago the official reason given for not allowing missionaries to have PDA's was because of a fear that missionaries would play around with them and this would detract or deflect focus from their missionary work.

Due to the fact than modern phones are becoming more and more like PDA's and historically (as well as potentially currently) missionaries were banned from having PDA's then this is a good opportunity to clarify whether this is still the case and the reason for the official position.

As the mobile phone renewal cycle is likely to be a number of years in duration then I would expect there is a long time to go before these decisions are made again.

If the motivation to not have more sophisticated devices is that they may cause a distraction and that stance is going to remain then I suppose it doesn't matter how long until renewal comes up again because I would not expect matters to be different in a few years time. Also in that case it may serve no purpose to discuss what might be possible in terms of creating mobile tools which support the missionary effort. If that case there would be no grounds for further discussion.

I am frustrated and probably too outspoken for my own good. Perhaps I should have used different language.

As regards distrust I don't think that this is an unreasonable stance. The white handbook contains many rules which the majority of the missionaries would consider common sense. For the sake of the few or those who have caused problems in the past, rules are created to govern all missionaries.

If I refused to lend my phone to someone and gave as the justification that I did not want to let them borrow it because they would play around with it and it would detract from their work I would consider that act to demonstrate some degree of distrust on my part for that individual to do the right thing. The distrust may or may not be justified but in either case it still constitutes distrust.

RussellHltn wrote:I'm trying to think back when I've been in the presence of General Authorities when they've done Q&A sessions to remember how they did it. I can't think of a one that used an a electronic device.

We had one of the newer apostles at stake conference a few years ago. At priesthood leadership meeting, after a few introductory remarks, he said, Get out your laptops, PDAs, workbooks, phones, or whatever you are using for scriptures, and let's get to work. Paper still works just fine, too.

And he cracked open his black triple combination and off we went.

I now have everything I need on an iTouch. I use it a lot in meetings, but almost never when I am speaking, and not very often when I am teaching or training. I will use it when called upon without notice, and in class discussions or meetings as a participant, and in those kinds of circumstances.

But when I am the presenter, I find that paper doesn't reboot, doesn't scroll too far, doesn't go into screen saver mode, and the print doesn't disappear when the screen hasn't been touched for a minute or two, I don't have to reenter passcodes to get back where I was, and I can thump the page for emphasis.

However, if I did happen to run off and leave the printed notes for my talk at home, I would no longer hesitate to crack out my iTouch and use it.

I just have a personal preference that this is not yet the way to go in formal speaking situations in the chapel.

As for the original question concerning missionary work, the objective is still to teach the lessons in Preach My Gospel and get the investigator into reading the Book of Mormon, helping that person to begin understanding and feeling the Spirit. I have always found that happens best with one on one conversation, and does not require any electronic devices at all.

In 2004 our ward received its first Windows XP-based computer to run MLS. Even then I was kind of amazed that the CD-ROM hardware was a read-only device. I thought: Wow! You'd have to really go our of your way to get one of those now. Then, last year, we received a brand new computer and, again, it had a read-only optical drive. (At least it had the ability to read DVDs this time, so that's nice.)

Of course, I don't know the specifics of the giant contract with Dell to get all of these computers but I was still wondering if it was more difficult to get a read-only drive instead of the more common read/write hardware. I did wonder if there was a trust issue and the hardware choice was simply a way to discourage people from copying things which shouldn't be copied. Then again, I have a flash drive in my pocket that far surpasses the capacity and convenience of a CD-R and I can use it with the ward's PC.

Well there have certainly been many things to think about. I regret my choice of expression for my original post. Should I revise it or is it a bit late for that now?

Carl Jokl wrote:It seems like the driving force behind this is a level of distrust towards the missionaries (I could be wrong as maybe it is about ease of use but am not convinced of that). I was a missionary about 10 years ago. Owning a PDA was against mission rules. Having a mobile was against mission rules. There was a general paranoia that missionaries having technology would mean that the technology would distract them from their missionary service. Missionaries now have mobile phones but it seems that the paranoia of technology in the hands of missionaries still exists.

It very well could be that the "driving force" as you say is that the Priesthood department (and ultimately the Brethren) are/were afraid that shiny new technology could distract missionaries from doing the Work more than help them. However, there is also a possibility that this was only a secondary concern. Someone shared with me their idea of another possible explanation for the hesitancy, which I share here just to show that there really is no one and only one assumption that can be made without having intimate knowledge and being directly involved in the decision making (and inspiration receiving since ultimately the Brethren made these calls).

It is possible that there is a certain stereotype invoked with men in nice business clothes holding fancy electronic gadgets. It could be that we don't want to give potential investigators or passer-byers the impression that young missionaries are really wealthy, busy business men. Perhaps it's a stretch of an argument, but it has just as much merit (or rather lack of evidence) as your assertion does.

Carl Jokl wrote:Well there have certainly been many things to think about. I regret my choice of expression for my original post. Should I revise it or is it a bit late for that now?

Many of the responses will only make sense in the context of the original post. If you were to edit the original post, people reading this thread would likely be confused about what the responders were talking about.

So I would recommend that you simply make a new post, explaining how your current thinking now differs from the wording of your original post (perhaps quoting portions of it, where that would be helpful).

Carl Jokl wrote:If the clarification of the situation is as you suggest then the issue may be different. I did wonder if the cost situation would be different when buying in bulk but I am not closely enough acquainted with the administration within the Church to know how the Church goes about making such contracts.

I don't know it for a fact, but for a commodity item like phones, I'd expect the church to do it the same way a large business would: As long as the quality was acceptable, cost would be the primary criteria for selection.

GregAnderson wrote:Then, last year, we received a brand new computer and, again, it had a read-only optical drive.

If it's like the ones I got, it included a flash drive.

For casual use, I'll take a flash drive over a burner any day.

My niece recently told me that her Stake President (I will only be specific enough to say that this is in Utah) has specifically prohibited the use of electronic devices in their church meetings. While I admit that I don’t know more than what my niece told me, the clear implication is that he doesn’t trust the youth to use these devices responsibly in church… that he expects them to be texting or using Facebook all the time.

Personally, I don’t like the policy. So I’m encouraged to hear that an apostle acknowledged other gospel library formats (besides paper books) in a leadership setting. There seems to be a general perception in the church that The Brethren have encouraged people to study using paper books instead of other formats. (If memory serves, a recent Mormon Channel interview of Elder Scott included a moment where he berated other formats, but this could easily have been interpreted as nothing more than a personal preference.)

My point? I’m glad I’m not in the same stake as my niece. I also think that it’s counterproductive to be completely distrustful of our youth’s use of electronic devices. There must be a way to encourage responsibility before they’re already returned missionaries without blanket prohibitions. After all, these are just tools. They can be used for construction or destruction and they will be part of society for a long, long time.

Whatever else is said about the scriptures on electronic devices, I read the scriptures more now that I have them on my phone than I did when I had them just on paper. I don't carry my paper scriptures around everywhere with me but I do practically take my phone around everywhere with me. When stuck waiting for a bus or a train or while traveling it is easy to just go to the scriptures and start reading. Sometimes I have even done controversial things like read the priesthood lesson ahead of time (something which I would almost never do otherwise).

I have access to the scriptures on my mobile but many don't and that is why I will be spending the bulk of this long weekend working on the JavaME app.

Whatever the rocky start this thread may have had I am still glad we are having this discussion because I have been given something to think about. As a technologist I can solve technical problems but it is not within my power to change attitudes, perceptions and policies.

GregAnderson wrote:My niece recently told me that her Stake President (I will only be specific enough to say that this is in Utah) has specifically prohibited the use of electronic devices in their church meetings. While I admit that I don’t know more than what my niece told me, the clear implication is that he doesn’t trust the youth to use these devices responsibly in church… that he expects them to be texting or using Facebook all the time.

Well, we did have to specifically tell the youth to turn off their cell phones and quit texting each other during a youth conference fireside. We couched it in terms of common courtesy, but if there had been a jammer available, we would have turned it on. [grin]

mkmurray wrote:It is possible that there is a certain stereotype invoked with men in nice business clothes holding fancy electronic gadgets. It could be that we don't want to give potential investigators or passer-byers the impression that young missionaries are really wealthy, busy business men. Perhaps it's a stretch of an argument, but it has just as much merit (or rather lack of evidence) as your assertion does.

This. If missionaries are usually carrying fancy electronic gadgets, they become attractive targets for theft. American missionaries probably have that reputation already to some extent -- enough of them carry cameras everywhere they go, and cameras are still a luxury in some places. The one time I got robbed on the mission, they were thorough enough to take my watch. I'm glad I didn't have my camera or a phone on me that night.

It has been mentioned in here about missionaries having "Fancy Phones". I would just like to point out that I am not pushing for phones which are really fancy rather ones which are just a little less basic. Having been looking through a lot of phone specs on the Motorola website and seeing even phones aimed at the budget and entry level markets which support JavaME. Traditionally 80% of phones produced supported JavaME though I expect that to have changed due to the rise of Android and iPhone. Even some of the most basic phones would meet the minimum requirements to support JavaME and so I suspect the reason that these phones don't might be some licensing cost i.e. it is not felt cost effective to licence use of JavaME on a phone which is so cheap. I suppose such costs remain an issue even if moore's law has meant that virtually every phone produced today would meet the minimum requirements.

Carl Jokl wrote:I am not pushing for phones which are really fancy rather ones which are just a little less basic.

Oddly enough, the reason missionaries have a phone is to use it simply as, well, a phone. They use it to contact their district/zone leaders and the mission home. They use it to contact investigators, and to contact members to help with the work.

Most mission presidents instruct missionaries to use their cell phones for no other purpose than to replace the phone that used to be in the apartment.

With that in mind, I imagine that the Church then goes with the low bidder.

It just seems a shame to me that we have a whole community set up to further projects which benefit the the Church generally and in particular there has been a big interest in mobile devices. These technologies are deemed to be a benefit to the general membership but not for missionaries. It feels like missionaries are being excluded and left behind.

I suspect that this is the way it is just going to be for the time being so I might as well accept it. I have asked now and if the answer is no the answer is no and I still have plenty of work to do.

I think when the church rolls out a mobile-friendly version of LUWS, that may change. Then there will clearly be an advantage to having a little more advanced phone, such as up to date access to the ward directory.

I am not sure if this will be applicable to ward infomation or not but it might be.

I am trying to design parts of the Gospel Library application such that it could be recycled for other purposes. I note how Yanceware got used in some instances so that Clerks and such could carry around ward information on mobile platforms.

Once I am satisfied that the compact binary format I designed for the JavaME is working properly I will put the details on the Wiki. The document rendering system I am writing for rendering the scriptures is generic enough to render other kinds of documents or content. There are always possibilities.

I was thinking more recently that it was during my mission that the decision was made to allow missionaries to be able to have access to email. I know many of the mission presidents at the time were not keen on this. The concern was letting missionaries have access to email would distract from the missionary work. I think at the time due to mission presidents being slow or resistant to giving missionaries access the general authorities had to push to say "We mean it, they can use it." I got permission to use email but I could see the mission president wasn't happy about it.

After 8 years of missionaries having access to email it can't have gone too badly because it was never withdraw again in spite of all the concerns. It also wasn't even something I saw coming. On that basis, you never know how what might change in the future.

Carl Jokl wrote:After 8 years of missionaries having access to email it can't have gone too badly because it was never withdraw again in spite of all the concerns.

In general, yes. Not all missionaries have access to e-mail, though.

From time to time and for various reasons, access is withdrawn from some who do have access to it, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently.

Perhaps eventually, as you suggest, the missionaries may gain mobile access to the ward directory and calendar.

These things move slowly. We wore hats for a long time after they were out of fashion.

Speaking of missionaries and the use of technology, I noticed a new Community project pop up on the Wiki a few months back called the Digital Area Book:

https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/Dig ... ok_Project

I had forgotten about it until now. If there is any clue as to where the Church is considering taking the Work, the introductory paragraph of this project is it:

The Digital Area Book is an electronic portal to help enable members and missionaries to collaborate in real-time about the people they are focused on in ward councils and missionary correlation meetings. It will include electronic records of contacts and teaching records, with an emphasis on Preach My Gospel. After logging into this tool, missionaries will be enabled to securely use email to contact investigators, members, and mission leaders, and to share key action items and calendars with members. Members can similarly log in and see a dashboard view, customized to their calling. For example, ward mission leaders will be able to see real-time Progress Records, as well as notifications on which investigators and new converts most need assistance. This project will eventually support multiple form factors, including mobile devices, netbooks, and desktops. This project is being piloted in Japan, with a goal of initial deployment in mid-2010.

now that sounds sweet!!

Even if the Church were to go to a more robust phone, there would have to be a way to keep off extraneous content, and a way to get new content desired for missionaries wirelessly. And even then it may be desired to keep things at a minimum.

The missionary basic library now includes about six books besides the Scriptures and Preach My Gospel, and those can be found via ldscatalog.com. Most missionaries also get the Liahona or the Ensign, and in a few areas the Church News.

That is small enough of a library and basic enough for what the missionaries are doing, teaching the basics of the gospel to non-members or less-active members. The pamphlets they give out have more unfamiliar terms printed in red and a glossary at the end to help the person it is given to to help with defining those terms, other terms are also defined in Preach My Gospel, especially where it comes to the Restoration. What has been done is make the materials more basic, and thus the gospel more 'user friendly' so to speak, for those they teach, and focuses the missionaries' efforts directly on the first principles of the gospel and the restorarion along with some other necessary basics.

My feeling is the missionaries, with those materials, have what they need for their purpose, and a simple phone without the bells and whistles is more an aid to their work, much more than that and it might be a distraction. I went out 25 years ago, and I could do it again today doing exactly the same things save for the differences with Preach My Gospel, and a basic cellphone instead of a landline, and be right at home, even without a smartphone with all the content on it.

RussellHltn wrote:I think when the church rolls out a mobile-friendly version of LUWS, that may change. Then there will clearly be an advantage to having a little more advanced phone, such as up to date access to the ward directory.

Access to the ward directory probably won't be an argument for giving more technology to the missionaries. Not anytime soon anyway.

Missionaries are officially members of their home units - that's where their membership records reside. The new Ward Directory application would only get them access to the lists of their home ward and stake. There is no system that would allow the directory app to know which unit the missionary is serving in, and I don't know of any plans to develop such a system.

jdcr256 wrote:There is no system that would allow the directory app to know which unit the missionary is serving in, and I don't know of any plans to develop such a system.

It would require coordination, but the units could add them as out-of-unit members. The problem is keeping it up to date.

RussellHltn wrote:It would require coordination, but the units could add them as out-of-unit members. The problem is keeping it up to date.

Perhaps this is information the mission office for each mission could submit via their software, and have it trickle changes to each ward website from CHQ.

mkmurray wrote:Perhaps this is information the mission office for each mission could submit via their software, and have it trickle changes to each ward website from CHQ.

It would be a project. But I also think the point that until this better supports the missionaries, they're not likely to be allowed better phones is valid.

JamesAnderson wrote:My feeling is the missionaries, with those materials, have what they need for their purpose, and a simple phone without the bells and whistles is more an aid to their work, much more than that and it might be a distraction. I went out 25 years ago, and I could do it again today doing exactly the same things save for the differences with Preach My Gospel, and a basic cellphone instead of a landline, and be right at home, even without a smartphone with all the content on it.

This is my thinking as well. On my mission, I got permission from my mission president to read a few extra books on preparation days that were outside the missionary library (e.g. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Discourses of Brigham Young, etc.). They were neat, but the real knowledge I gained always seemed to come from the scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon. Having lots of resources is neat, but I think that especially for missionaries, the more they focus on the scriptures, the more effective they will be. Having too many extra resources might be a distraction (no need to worry about whatever else some missionaries might do with the phones). I see it as a good, better, best situation. The phone's would be good, but really focusing on the scriptures and the spirit will always be the best.

As an avowed fan of the old missionary flip charts, I thought it was a good point that they might be able to use audio/video clips. However, I don't know that using it off a phone would be the most effective teaching technique (might seem a little silly, especially if the screen is small and the speaker phone is poor quality). Carrying a dvd would likely serve just as well.

Here's a few thoughts that I had about your post

Carl Jokl wrote:I would expect the phones to be to be on some kind of a contract.

I was serving in Scotland in 2003 when they finally gave missionaries mobiles there. We used it all the time. It was a million times more convenient than just having a landline. In fact, in my last area, we submitted our weekly numbers to our Zone Leaders by text, rather than having to read them off over the phone. It sped up the procedure for our Zone Leaders.

Of course it was on a contract, but not a typical contract. Getting a single contract for 90 phones is a lot different than your typical "family plan."

Carl Jokl wrote:the Church/Missions are specifically getting the mobile providers to give them the most cut down and basic phones available instead of the more powerful one which would have normally been provided for free.

Just because a phone would've been provided free with a typical contract for a single phone does not mean that the same would have been provided free on the most economical corporate plan. I'm fairly certain that the mission works with the service provider to find the most economical plan, and that is the primary concern. Yes, a missionary could make great use of the latest Android phone, but they certainly don't need it to do their work.

Carl Jokl wrote:Owning a PDA was against mission rules.

I got a PDA for Christmas from my parents during the last Christmas during my mission. My mission president had no problem with me using it. I put the scriptures and hymnal and whatnot on it, and I had a spreadsheet on there (Pocket Microsoft Office came standard on WinMo devices at the time) in which I recorded all our numbers. I could update that information on the fly while we were travelling between appointments, rather than having to write it down, or remember it all day and record it that night.

My mission president made the decision to allow that. Your mission president made the decision not to allow it. It's not a general Church rule.

The technology is about to catch up when it comes to the 'basic' phones. One US provider is offering an Android phone for $10 right now, with very inexpensive data plans as well.

We'll see more of that in the future, I had heard of such low-cost phones about nine months ago and what I thought would be vaporware has actually begun to pan out. However, at the Church level for Church-related usage in the examples given above, I don't see it becoming commonplace for a few years yet. By then a lot of things will be much better, managing what apps, etc., are allowed on these when used by missionaries, etc., is one of the things that would need to be resolved first.

All I wish to comment on is that the suggestion that any policy leading to restrictive use of technology is based on mistrust towards missionaries is NOT true.

Most missionaries would use technology wisely and appropriately even if it had the capability of allowing them to, say, view material they shouldn't. Even with that being the case, why offer an avenue of temptation, however small?

It's not about mistrust but about taking away opportunities for temptation, however small. To do so is based on love and not mistrust. It saves the missionaries from having to even think to themselves: "am I going to use this appropriately or not?"