This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

This is my temporary LDS missionary companion Danilo Prego and me at a beach in San Jose de Carrasco, Uruguay, on New Year's Day, 1974. It's about 99 degrees.

Although we're both servants of the Lord, can you identify which of us is not attired in a manner "consistent with your sacred calling and that will clearly identify you as missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"?

Very good. You're right, it's me. I am indeed wearing a pair of unapproved (back then anyway) sunglasses. Aviators. The rims are gold.

Some might argue that wearing the banned sunglasses is all they needed to recognize me as a disobedient missionary, but that's only because they can't see The Rolling Stones "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out" logo on the back of my shirt.

I would in turn argue that wearing sunglasses merely put me ahead of my mission time. According to a recent update by the LDS Church, sunglasses are now acceptable missionary attire. The shirt is probably still inappropriate, though.

Don't believe me about the glasses? See for yourself at http://www.lds.org/callings/missionary/dress-grooming.

According to the official missionary dress code, sunglasses are now permitted "to provide protection from the sun." Maybe the sun wasn't as strong back in the day. Judging from the picture, it wasn't exactly overcast.

More likely, church leaders worried less about missionary eyeballs being poached than they did about the local population mistaking us for CIA agents.

Another new addition to the missionary dress codes are hats. There was a time when missionaries were required to wear fedoras, back when looking like a dork was the mark of a servant of the Lord.

Up until the late '60s, elders insisted that the gospel would be easier to spread if they didn't have to do it looking like Joe Friday. The church eventually relented and did away with fedoras about 20 years after they went out of style in the rest of the world.

But hats are back now — the difference being that they're optional. They can't be just any old hat. No cowboy hats, baseball hats, newsboy hats, or Viking helmets.

Ironically, fedoras are back on the permissible list. Style, even to the church, is a fickle thing.

There are other dress code differences from my time. I didn't know that missionaries were forbidden to bleach or dye their hair. Nobody in my mission worried about the color of our hair. We stressed more about going home bald.

Ties. You might as well try going on a mission with facial tats as going on one without a necktie. These ties are supposed to be free of logos and subdued in color.

I had a Donald Duck necktie in my mission, but no one said too much about it. The big no-no back then were clip-ons. There was a risk that they might fall off.

I remember a district leader trying to get this point across when he snatched a clip-on tie off the neck of a new, rather large elder.

"See how easy it is to lose your dignity, Elder?" he said. "That's why the Lord won't let us wear clip-ons."

Maybe the district leader changed his mind when the new elder grabbed his and swung him off his feet and around the room until his face turned purple. The rest of us never found out because we were laughing too hard.

There are always people like me willing to push things too far. Such reminders are probably why I don't wear shorts and flip flops to church. That would be almost as bad as women missionaries wearing pants.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley