Among 90,000 Latter-day Saint missionaries, some find family connections

Siblings serve with siblings, parents have children serving together in another mission years later

Published: Sept 25, 2026, 4:36 p.m. MDT

A missionary choir sing during a Christmas Day devotional at the MTC in Provo on Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025. — A missionary choir sings during a Christmas Day devotional at the Provo Missionary Training Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Provo, Utah, on Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025.

With the number of full-time missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints serving worldwide surpassing 90,000 in more than 500 missions, those missionaries and their families are finding that God is in the details of this great work.

One example is Elder Noah Doutt, from Stansbury Park, Utah, and Elder Devan Hoge from Paris, Idaho. They had never met until their seats were assigned next to each other on their flights to the Argentina Resistencia Mission.

As the two missionaries got to know each other, they discovered that their fathers, Nathan Doutt and Ephraim Hoge, served in the Ohio Cincinnati Mission from 1999-2001.

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