When news of the assignment arrived in a Jan. 29 letter from the denomination, her friends and relatives were as shocked as she, but none of her eight children had the nerve to tell her not to go, she teased. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known as the Mormons, fields some 60,000 missionaries throughout the world each year. Most are college-age men who give two years to proselytizing. About 7 percent are seniors. Women serve 18-month assignments.
Volunteers raise their own funds to support their missions.
Mrs. Lynes left Aiken Thursday with a brand new passport, her first. She spent the final days leading up to her Provo training saying goodbye to friends and relatives. At the center, she will spend about two months learning Russian. I won't be real good, but I will learn a lot more when I get there,'' said Mrs. Lynes, who studied Latin for a year in high school. It was there, in the central Ural Mountains, that the last czar, Nicholas Romanoff, and his family were killed by communist revolutionaries.