When I started dating the girl who would become my wife she already had decided to serve a mission. This put some extra pressure on me to be a stellar boyfriend.

After all, if a date didn't go well or the chemistry was off one night, there was always a stack of incomplete mission papers awaiting her when she returned.

Long story short, she decided to stay home and marry me. I was, needless to say, thrilled, but I couldn't help but feel a little guilty for keeping a potential kingdom-builder home from a mission.

So, in an admittedly bizarre attempt at Mormon penance, I helped prepare her roommate for a mission. I figured I owed the field a sister missionary.



Within weeks she had received a call to Brazil, and according to her latest letters she is teaching up a storm.

Of course I'm (mostly) kidding about the whole penance thing, but I'm glad Annie's friend chose to serve. I happen to respect and admire sister missionaries very much, and believe they play a crucial role in the church's proselyting efforts.

(I'll pause here to let male RMs everywhere roll their eyes and groan. Done? OK, let's move on.)

It's no secret that there is a cultural perception among some in our church that sisters are just on missions because they couldn't get married and they provide no real benefit to the missionary program. I had heard that joke my whole life, but never realized people actually believed that until I got to BYU.

In fact, last year there were some guys in my singles ward who actively discouraged girls from turning in their mission papers. They insisted that if a girl were pretty enough to find a man, she had no business taking herself off the market for 18 months. After all, they reasoned, sister missionaries are usually lazy, whiny and ineffective proselyters.

I shudder to think that this sexist attitude has prevented any young women from serving missions. It is, essentially, a distortion of what the general authorities have said.

President Ezra Taft Benson said: "As a single sister, where marriage is not in your immediate future, have you prayed about serving a full-time mission and sought counsel from your parents and your bishop? Our single sisters are serving marvelous missions throughout the world."

Like so many other controversial issues in the church, it seems from this quote that it comes down to personal revelation. The brethren have counseled single young women to avoid serving missions IF they are in relationships with men who they want to marry. Beyond that, they are free to choose missions if they are so inspired, and the rest of us are expected to encourage them. Doing otherwise because of some personal bias is not only immature, it's in violation of prophetic counsel.

Since I got to BYU, I've wondered what prompts so many guys to take such a firm anti-sister stance.

At first I thought they had become prejudiced after serving in a Mormon missionary district with an unpleasant or unproductive sister. But any reasonably observant person would have learned after two years in the field that negative qualities like those are not gender-specific.

At least part of it probably comes down to insecurity. Singles wards are filled with guys competing for the attention of the most attractive girls; the last thing they want is to compete with the prospect of a full-time mission. Because they feel threatened by the idea of a mission, they become opposed to it. This may be selfish and immature, but it's still a reason.

And, of course, sexism plays a role. Whether it was learned before the mission or during it -- an old roommate said that when he watched general conference at the mission home, his mission president would mute the TV during the sisters' talks so that he could share his insights -- many guys believe that because missionary work is primarily a priesthood responsibility, women should take no part in it.

With any luck, my little sister will receive her mission call this week, and I couldn't be more excited for her. She will learn things about herself and about the gospel that would be difficult to learn without a black name tag. She'll grow spiritually, mature emotionally and expand her cultural perspective.

But, more importantly, she will reach people the elders in her mission never would be able to reach.

And when all is said and done, that's why missions need sisters.