Is it OK for a missionary to return to the mission field after his mission to find someone to marry?

Question

Dear Gramps,

I want to help my friend ask one question. If one Mormon missionary return his served place after he finished his mission, then married a girl from there, is it OK or not? Is there any policy to prove it is very bad thing if he does this? Thanks,

Angel

Answer

Dear Angel,

During a mission the missionary is enjoined to be very circumspect about his relations with the opposite sex. Mormon missionaries are to always be with their companions–never alone. They are not to touch a person of the opposite sex except to shake hands. And they are to keep their thoughts pure and clean.

Nevertheless, in young people of the age of most missionaries, attractions for a person of the opposite sex may sometimes manifest themselves.

After the mission is over the missionary is no longer restricted by the missionary rules of deportment. If those attractions that were generated in the mission field persist, or if a returned missionary were to develop an attraction for someone that he had met in the mission field, there is absolutely nothing wrong with his pursuing a romantic interest.

Marriage is a very sacred institution, and is essential for the fulfilment of God’s plan and for the highest degree of happiness to which we can attain in mortality. So one of the goals of returned missionaries is to find a companion for his life’s work, to be sealed together in marriage in one of the Lord’s holy temples for time and for all eternity, and then to produce and care for a happy, united family.

Gramps