As a Mormon, I can say that from my experience, "a lot of them take wives from whichever foreign land they were in too", isn't true. In fact, if someone does it's uncommon enough that it's noteworthy.. but it's not terribly surprising if it does happen. Also, there's women who serve missions too, and have for a while.
With "Part of the plan to grow the religion.", I've never seen that in the church's plan.
Hmmm, maybe my sampling size is biased, but I do know two from the same family who did. Also a lot of religions have implicit plans for growth. For example, not eating swine could be tied to pork being less sanitary back in the day.
oh wow, i didn't know 25% of missionaries were women...
Anyway, I don't have anything against Mormon missionaries. Just missionaries in general.
As a Mormon, I can say that from my experience, "a lot of them take wives from whichever foreign land they were in too", isn't true. In fact, if someone does it's uncommon enough that it's noteworthy.. but it's not terribly surprising if it does happen. Also, there's women who serve missions too, and have for a while.
With "Part of the plan to grow the religion.", I've never seen that in the church's plan.