Short-term Missions

I ran accross a reference to "Short Term Missions" in an Deseret News article last week. The article was from 1943. On the same page (a photocopoy) were portions of other articles: "Bishop on Short Mission" and "Bishop Drowned on Short-term Mision." when considered with the reference to a short-term missions in the article I wanted in the first place, that makes three on a single page. So being the curious sort I am I had to ask "what was a short term mission?"

When I was a youth, a short term mission was a two week long stay with the full time missionaries. It was for 17-18 year olds to give them a taste of missionary life. We also called them Two Week Missions. To be honest, I at the time I thought "Why would anyone volunteer for that?" Ah, the self centeredness of youth.

The three examples above are clearly different. In two cases the person was a Bishop, and in the third the Elder was definately in his 60's. They appear to be for six months. and at least these were all in the United States. I did find references to LeGrand Richards serving a short-term mission to the Eastern States in 1926 (at age 40) for six months.

Anyone know anything else about this?