Opening the mission call.
When your LDS missionary's call is ready, the Church sends them an email and a text message, with their login for the Missionary Portal (opens the Church's page in a new tab). They open the call when they're ready, so plan the opening with them.
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How the call arrives.
After the call is issued, your missionary gets an email and a text message with their login for the Missionary Portal.
When the Church moved calls online in 2018, it said the email tells them the call is ready to open, and that they can open it on a phone, tablet or computer once they're ready, "with family and friends nearby". It also said the call letter can be printed and downloaded to keep. That's from the Church's announcement (opens the Church's page in a new tab).
The call packet and the Missionary Portal hold the instructions for what comes next, including the MTC and the list of what to bring.
Planning the opening.
The Church's pages this guide follows set no rule for when or where a call is opened. Ask your missionary how they would like to do it, and who they want there.
Pick a time the people they most want can come, and send everyone the time.
Family far away.
A video call lets grandparents, a brother or sister away at school, or a friend who moved watch the call being read. Send the link with the time, and test it before everyone arrives.
Ask someone in the room to hold the phone or laptop facing your missionary, so the people watching can see them as they read.
For anyone who can't watch live, a short video of the reading can be sent after.
When the call is read.
Let your missionary read it aloud. The call includes their assignment, which usually gives where they'll serve and for how long, and the call letter gives the date their MTC training begins.
A map on the wall, with everyone's guess written down before the reading, gives the room something to do while they wait, and something to look at after.
Ask for everyone's email address.
Many of the people who will want your missionary's weekly email are at the opening, or watching from far away. With them all in one place, it's a good time to ask each of them for an email address.
A sign-up sheet by the door works. So does our QR code flyer: people scan it with their phone, enter their email, and they're on the list.
In the weeks after.
The handbook asks newly called missionaries to respond promptly to the instructions that come with the call. It also asks them and their family to study the conditions where they will serve.
It encourages them to receive the temple endowment as soon as possible.
The list of what to bring is in the Missionary Portal. Our missionary packing list can sit beside it.
If they need a visa, the Church emails visa instructions when it's time to start.
Before they leave come a talk in sacrament meeting and the setting apart. Read the farewell talk and the family gathering, then set apart, then the home MTC.
Where this comes from.
This guide follows the Church's own pages, checked in November 2026. If anything here has changed, follow the Church's page. The ideas for the opening are ours.
- Missionary Portal Online Tool (opens the Church's page in a new tab)
- Newsroom, 2018: Latter-day Saint Missionary Assignments Go Online (opens the Church's page in a new tab)
- Missionary FAQ: Young Teaching Missionaries (opens the Church's page in a new tab)
- General Handbook, 24: Missionary Recommendations and Service (24.2, 24.5) (opens the Church's page in a new tab)
- Provo MTC: At-Home MTC Training FAQ (opens the Church's page in a new tab)
One list for everyone who wants their letters.
Our flyer and social post carry your missionary's name and a QR code. Friends and family scan it, enter their email, and they're on the list. Then one email to the list reaches everyone on it.
See the QR code flyer