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Mormon missionaries who don't need to learn a new language for the country in which they will be serving can count on spending a bit more time anyway in a Missionary Training Center.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced Friday that, starting in March, missionaries assigned to teach in their native tongues will undergo three weeks of instruction at an MTC, instead of the current two.

That's how long those stints were before October 2012, when the Utah-based faith lowered the minimum missionary ages, triggering a wave of new applicants and a need to make space in MTCs for the influx of young women and men.

For missionaries speaking their native language, this cut their time at an MTC from three weeks to two. Those learning new languages stay longer. 

"This was simply an issue of capacity," Brent H. Nielson, an LDS general authority and executive director of the faith's Missionary Department, said in a news release. "Three weeks is the optimal amount of time for these elders and sisters to spend in an MTC setting. It gives them an opportunity to understand how to be an effective, successful missionary."

MTCs — there are 15 throughout the world — are boot camps, of sorts, for new Mormon missionaries. There, they receive religious instruction and language training.

The flagship MTC, near LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University in Provo, is undergoing an expansion. When completed in 2017, it will have room for 3,500 missionaries, up from the current capacity of 2,800.

David Noyce