 It was not until 1878, for example, that the Southern Methodist General Conference formally recognized the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society.Lochie Rankin of Tennessee went to China as their first missionary, and she was the first unmarried woman to be sent abroad as a missionary by the Southern Methodists.Martha Watts was the second unmarried woman to be sent abroad by the Board of Foreign Missions; after arriving in Brazil in 1881, she established four schools.