Baptisms, Bikes, And Bridal Registries: Saving Souls And Soulmate Searching

[Everybody Wang Chung]

On my mission, we were told to lock our hearts and hunt for converts. But thanks to Dallas Hoax's encouragement, many missionaries are now treating their missions like Tinder (or Grindr for God). It’s the ultimate backfire for the church. Little did Dallas Hoax know, but he's paved a path for same-sex companions to find true love right under the mission president's nose.

Courting converts and finding your companion — your ‘eternal’ one — on your LDS mission


It is hardly surprising that Latter-day Saint missionaries frequently find a potential “eternal companion” while serving as full-time proselytizers for their faith.

Missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are like a perfect rom-com setup for young people to “meet cute.” For some, they provide better matchmaking opportunities than high schools, colleges, sororities and fraternities, offices or even online dating sites.

Think about it. Throw 18- and 19-year-olds into unfamiliar places in the U.S. and abroad (which they didn’t choose) with strangers of the same faith, speaking the same language, following the same daily routine, and sharing the same religious goals and — voilà — connections, friendships and, eventually, even marriages are apt to follow.

Perhaps, a shy California “elder” (male missionary), with a sly smile every time he makes a sarcastic comment, could be drawn to a “sister” (female missionary) from Mexico, whose style, compassion and drive stand out among the other missionaries in their assigned “zone.” Or maybe a gregarious district leader could find himself thinking about that sister with the impressive problem-solving skills he lacks. The possibilities expand in the mysterious ways people form bonds and find love.

There are, of course, mission rules against sex, dating, touching and even flirting, but there’s no law against looking, relating, talking, observing or simply finding commonality.

No matter the limits, the natural laws of attraction still apply.

Clearly, church President Dallin H. Oak is all for such relationships that start with mutual respect on a mission and lead to temple marriage afterward.

In a recent interview, the 93-year-old church leader said he hoped reducing the minimum age of female missionaries to 18 (as it is for men) would produce more — and younger — marriages after mission service. He went so far as to describe a marriage between two former missionaries who met during their volunteer stints as “perfectly appropriate.”

This marks a change from decades of worries that if young men and women served at the same age, they might be tempted to break the mission prohibition on intimacy.

Although he never received counsel from church leaders about missionaries dating after their missions, Michael Goodman, a professor of religious education at church-owned Brigham Young University and a former mission president, said that missionaries were advised to be cautious about friendly relations going too far during their service.

“Back in the day, ‘lock your heart’ was the Bible of this issue,” Goodman said. “So we were always strongly encouraged to teach our missionaries to be careful.”

But now, in an era of virtual rather than in-person relationships, it seems church leaders might be seeing the benefit of encouraging lasting relationships based on shared mission experiences.

Missions, it turns out, could become the new Mutual, the online dating website often described as the “Tinder for Latter-day Saints.”

Besides, for members from outside the faith’s Jell-O Belt, their missions may be the only time they come into contact with hundreds of other eligible Latter-day Saints they could someday marry in one of the faith’s temples — the ultimate covenant within the religion.

These post-mission matches may not only help reduce the average age of wedlock, Goodman said, but also prevent young adults from becoming spiritually stagnant.

“Part of it is the reality that the age of marriage is continually shifting later, and that is becoming concerning both from a spiritual as well as a relational aspect,” the religion professor said. “I think the sociological changes that have happened have encouraged church leaders to say, ‘We need to address this in a way that hopefully encourages young adults to not camp out, to not stop moving forward in their life, but to actually continue progressing.’”

And moving forward could mean looking back — to their missions — for possible eternal partners. Here are some couples who did just that:

‘I realized how much I liked him’

(Elaina Mora) Jovany and Elaina Mora, photographed in 2023 before they married, serving missions in Mexico.

Elaina Peterson Mora always turned away when she saw the handsome Mexican missionary looking in her direction. His eyes and smile were dazzling, and she was nervous about the feelings that they elicited in her. It was as if cupid’s arrow had hit her heart.

Under any other circumstance, such looks would signal the start of mutual attraction and potential romance, but Elaina was a “sister training leader” in Pachuca, Mexico, and Jovany Mora was an “assistant to the mission president” in the same tiny district (just four elders and two sisters). Elaina was near the end of her 18-month stint as a church evangelizer in 2023 when Jovany was finished with his two years.

At first, the young missionary from American Fork says she found Jovany annoying. He was constantly posting photos of those he baptized on social media, seemingly bragging about his proselytizing prowess. But when they wound up in the same district, she discovered more about the impressive elder from Tijuana.


(Elaina Mora) Elaina and Jovany Mora, photographed in 2023 before they married, serving missions in Mexico.

Jovany was a convert, joining the church in his teens only a few years before becoming a full-time missionary, so his exuberance now made sense to her. They became close friends, working and teaching together. She could see his strengths, his love of people and his work ethic.

After he left his mission, Elaina found herself missing Jovany.

“Suddenly, my friend, the person that I was looking forward to seeing, was gone, and I realized how much I liked him,” she recalled. “It was also kind of good, because then we were able to communicate a little bit more with email.”

After she came home in fall 2023, the two began “dating” long distance — from Utah County to Tijuana — via video chats. The next February, Jovany asked her to be his “girlfriend,” but they didn’t know how realistic it was because of the separation.

In June, she persuaded her dad to take her to his home to see her former mission friend.

“I knew I really liked talking to him, but I just didn’t know if we had chemistry,” Elaina explained. “He was getting ready to finish up his paperwork, his visa stuff, to move to Utah, and I was nervous to have him move his whole life with this idea that we were going to be together. If there wasn’t chemistry, I didn’t want him to come.”


(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Elaina Mora and her husband, Jovany Mora, hold their missionary badges in American Fork on Friday, March 13, 2026.

When father and daughter spent time with Jovany, “it was the best time ever,” Elaina said. “I came home convinced I was going to marry him.”

He moved to Utah in August 2024, they got engaged in October, and by March they were married in the Provo City Center Temple.

Their joint mission will always be part of their story.

“Many nights we spend time talking about our mission experience,” Elaina said. “I fell in love with his culture. So many things there formed who I am. The fact that he understands that context and shares it is even more meaningful.”

Being in a “multicultural marriage,” the 23-year-old wife said, “is so nice.”


(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Elaina Mora and her husband, Jovany Mora, in American Fork on Friday, March 13, 2026. The couple met while serving missions in Mexico.

If she had just met her 24-year-old husband at BYU, Elaina said, she might not have understood his culture.

Meeting on a Mexican mission gave her that gift.

‘That friendship kind of stuck’


(Isabella Shearer) Isabella Shearer and her husband, Cameron Shearer, are all smiles on their wedding day in July 2025.

BYU student Isabella Shearer met Cameron in the parking lot of a Latter-day Saint chapel during their mission in West Virginia.

It was the start of a true friendship.

“We served in the same area for four months, and we were pretty close in the area because we shared members and everything,” Isabella said. “We saw those elders and leaders a lot, and so we just kind of became friends, and that friendship kind of stuck throughout the mission.”

After Isabella returned home in October 2024, she started texting her former missionary pal and then they started dating long distance. After two months, Isabella moved from Arizona to Provo to begin school at BYU, where the couple had their first face-to-face date.

They married in July 2025.


(Isabella Shearer) Future spouses Cameron Shearer, bottom left, and Isabella Shearer, middle, take a photograph with other missionaries in West Virginia.

In earlier years, Isabella had felt that marrying someone from her mission would distract from her service. But soon before she started, Isabella said, she began to have a change of heart.

“I didn’t want to make (marriage) my goal because my goal on the mission was to be a missionary,” she said. “I think that letting the idea of meeting someone coexist with missionary work, but prioritizing missionary work, was important. … You’re focused on being a missionary, but if the opportunity rises, then, at the end of your mission, why not?”

‘See them in person’

(Ganeshji Cherian) Ganeshji Cherian and his wife, Lyndi Cherian, live in New Zealand after meeting over 30 years ago on their missions.

Mission matches have, of course, been around for a long time.

Ganeshji Cherian, a native of Wellington, New Zealand, met his future bride, Lyndi, in 1991 during their mission in Auckland. They served in the same area for quite a while and established a mission-appropriate relationship.

Lyndi, who was from Seattle, moved back to the U.S. after her time in New Zealand.

After three years of no contact, Ganeshji took a trip and met up with Lyndi in Salt Lake City.

“Maybe I’m a little old school, but it’s nice to think that people meet people because they see them in person,” Ganeshji said, “rather than a checklist that they’re filtering out by an online process.”

A few weeks after reconnecting, Lyni and Ganeshji were engaged. Three months later, they married.

Now, after becoming a father with kids, Ganeshji said he worries about how young missionaries are when it comes to making life-altering decisions.

“My children, none of them, went on missions, but I think I appreciate that they know themselves, and they’re a little older as they get into really serious relationships. I think 18 and 19 is really young to make major life choices,” he said. “And, of course … as a missionary, you might be on your best behavior and in a certain kind of a setting, which could be quite artificial.”

‘We met in a place that was full of faith’

(Kami Skolmoski) Kami Skolmoski, left, and Heysell Cruz while serving as mission companions January 2019 in Encinitas, California.

As a child, Kami Skolmoski relished her parents’ love story of meeting on their mission to Cleveland, and secretly hoped that such romantic lightning would strike her as well.

But the Utah missionary did not experience any magic when she was assigned to train her future wife, Heysell Cruz, who was born in El Salvador but moved with her family to Northern California as a child.

They both ended up as companions in the Carlsbad, California, Spanish-speaking mission in 2019.

“We did not like each other at first,” recalls Kami, who now goes by Cruz Skolmoski. “Her first question to me when we met the day she arrived in the mission was: ‘How seriously do you take the whole obedience thing?’”

That was “terrifying to her,” Kami says. “I was an incredibly rigid, strict, obedient missionary. I was really worried that she was going to be lazy, wouldn’t work very hard, and I was going to have my work cut out for me.”

Kami came to realize that, as part of Hispanic culture, Heysell was more “laid back,” she says. “It was part of her nature.”

For the first “transfer” [assigned time together], they were “figuring each other out,” Kami says. “By the second transfer, we started becoming good friends, and then, by the third transfer, we were inseparable best friends.”

Still, no romantic attraction.

During these months, Kami experienced some “mental health challenges,” she says, and Heysell faced some trauma from her childhood. Neither could talk to their families about these issues but could open up to each other.

Kami went home early due to her health, while Heysell lasted another month. They visited each other in their home states and then, in 2020, became roommates at Brigham Young University-Idaho.

“I still was just like ‘I love this person so much because she supported me and cared for me and helped me through something that was so hard,’” Kami says. “I think she felt similarly, but she had known that she was queer for most of her life, and I didn’t. I was not considering it.”

Spending time together in Idaho, though, the women “fell head over heels in love,” Kami says. They started dating and have been together ever since.


(Savannah Hayes) Kami Skolmoski and Heysell Cruz for their wedding ceremony on Aug. 30, 2025.

They married on a Monterey beach in 2025, and now live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area. Kami is an immigration attorney, and Heysell is finishing a degree in audiology.

Kami is glad they met on their mission, where they shared common goals and could help each other through tough times.

“We met in a place that was full of faith and trusting in God,” Kami says. “Having our strong testimonies of the gospel and wanting to bring other people to a knowledge of Christ feels really special, because it is still a big part of who we are and where we came from and the reason we are who we are today.”

‘See how they behave in real life’

(Olivia Allen) Olivia Allen served her mission in Arcadia, California, where she met her now ex-husband.

BYU student Olivia Allen met her former husband during their mission in Arcadia, California. They spent 12 weeks serving in the same ward, or congregation, and 18 weeks in the same area, and eventually became friends.

He asked Olivia on a date on her first day home from her mission.

At the time, Olivia explained, she was open to the possibility of marrying someone from her mission, but after 10 months of dating and seven months of marriage, the two separated.

Olivia attributes the divorce to not knowing her husband as well as she should have.

“I counted the mission as time knowing him, and I feel like that’s actually the opposite. I feel like that’s a hindrance to a relationship instead of a benefit that I counted that time,” the 23-year-old BYU student said. “What people don’t realize is people are acting like the best versions of themselves on their missions. And that was just not a reality of who he was in real life.”

Olivia said a mission can feel fabricated partly because of the strict schedule.

“What I tell people when they’re dating [former] missionaries is give it more time than you think,” she said. “You think you know this person. You served around them. You heard from their companions, but until you actually see how they behave in real-life situations … it’s all about religion. And so I feel like that shouldn’t count toward your dating time.”

‘She was very, very hesitant’

(Laynie Peterson) Joseph Morrissey and his wife, Laynie Peterson, stand in front of a Latter-day Saint temple on their wedding day.

For some former missionaries, the connections and friendships don’t begin until the wearing of name tags ends.

Joseph Morrissey and Laynie Peterson of Kansas City, Missouri, were missionaries in the Baltic states but never served in the same country and so had little interaction until after their service.

“She was very, very hesitant to date me at all because I was from the mission,” Joseph said. “And the way that she wiggled around that and justified it was that … there was a country between us when we served.”

Even so, one of the benefits to their marriage, he said, is that they share a group of mutual friends and have much in common because they served in similar locations.

“Obviously, I like that I married someone from my mission,” Joseph said. “...We went back to the Baltics last May after we graduated, and that was really fun.”

For his part, Joseph sees nothing particularly wrong with finding a spouse while preaching the gospel full time.

“If you keep it professional and you’re not getting into trouble on your mission and then you start dating afterward,” he said, “I don’t really have issues with it.”

In fact, Joseph said, the mission field can be a “huge networking opportunity.”

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2026/03 ... ches-made/

[malkie]

Two love stories from the mission field - one happy, the other not so much. These are occurrences I witnessed as a member who has never served a mission. By the way, I've seen some pretty strange things in the church, especially in Scotland, and particularly when I was branch president and later in the district presidency. In some cases they were things that I really didn't want to know about and that were outside my pre-baptism experience.

I don't know if the FP have considered that, once hearts are officially unlocked to almost any extent, cupid's arrow may strike in unexpected places with unintended results.

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"L" was a successful sister missionary, obedient to the rules as they were at the time. "C" was her DL (District Leader). When "C" and "L" realized they were becoming more attracted to each other than was appropriate, "C" asked the Mission President to move him, and explained the reason.

"L" finished her mission honourably, and went home to wait for "C", who didn't go home, but instead was released by his Mission President and went to "L"'s country. When they got married a couple of months later, my (now ex-)wife & I were invited to the wedding. Unfortunately, "C"'s parents were unable to attend the wedding. When the photographer called for a group photo of Bride & Groom with groom's parents, "C" hesitated for a moment, then shouted: "malkie, malkie's wife - we need you." The photo looked a bit strange, because we were only about 3 years older than our "son" and his new wife.

======================

"W" served in my stake, and while not exactly disobedient to the rules, was, shall we say, a bit of a live wire. "A", a young married guy in a ward she'd been in for a while, was always friendly with all of the missionaries, not just "W" and comp. He and his wife often invited them for dinner, and he was called on for things like running out of gas, keys locked in the car, rides for "gators".

One evening, "W" called "A" and his wife, and asked them to come to the missionary apartment - she had a problem, needed a blessing, and the DLs were already in for the night. "W" asked her companion and "A"'s wife to go into another room as she had something confidential she needed to discuss with a priesthood holder before the blessing. She confessed to "A" that she had fallen in love with a member of the stake, and needed a comfort blessing to help her overcome her feelings. "A" gave the blessing, and (you can see where this is going, right?) "W" told "A" that he was the guy she was in love with. "A" and wife left - "A", reportedly, shocked to the toes of his little cotton socks.

A couple of days later, while "W" and her companion were on splits with local members, "W" and the member she was with bought a bottle of booze and got absolutely hammered. Her companion called the Mission President, and "W" came within an hairsbreadth of being sent home. Apparently her dad called the Mission President and threatened him, though I never heard any details.