SALT LAKE CITY — In response to historically low marriage rates among young single adults, the Church announced a bold new program this week: the immediate distribution of “Missionary Goggles” to every YSA member in North America.
Originally developed in the field by affection-starved elders in Peru, missionary goggles simulate the exact psychological conditions that caused missionaries to become emotionally compromised by anyone of the opposite gender with a pulse.
“We realized the issue wasn’t a lack of worthy options,” said Elder Brent H. Casperson of the FamilySearch Department. “It was that modern dating culture has trained members to overlook perfectly below-average people who have a good personality.”
The goggles work by gently distorting reality, boosting hotness ratings by 3 to 5 points on average and activating repressed hope. Within minutes, wearers report feeling a sudden attraction to people they had previously dismissed as “nice but too into board games.”
To showcase the true power of the technology, officials pointed to the now-legendary case of Elder Rickers, a missionary serving in Miami who briefly believed he was in love with a woman he met while tracting, only to later discover she was, in fact, a transgender woman named Carlos. “It was a confusing time,” Rickers later admitted. “But the Spirit, and the Family Proclamation, ultimately prevailed.”
Church leaders say that’s exactly the level of perceptual shift they’re aiming for.
“Frankly, it was either reinstitute polygamy or try this,” said Elder Casperson. “We can’t change who you date (currently). But we can make you think everyone in your ward is a solid 8.”
