Tech Forum

Is there any process for establishing a "do not contact" list? We have many inactive sisters who have requested that we do not contact them. As we now have to include these sisters in our reports we end up with a much lower percentage of Visiting Teaching contacts. I would like to see a way to mark these sisters as having requested us not to contact them and then those so marked are excluded from our monthly contacted report.

cahoyt wrote:Is there any process for establishing a "do not contact" list? We have many inactive sisters who have requested that we do not contact them. As we now have to include these sisters in our reports we end up with a much lower percentage of Visiting Teaching contacts. I would like to see a way to mark these sisters as having requested us not to contact them and then those so marked are excluded from our monthly contacted report.

There is no way to exclude any RS sister from a contact report; if they are not contacted, then they will be reported as not contacted, regardless of whether they want to be contacted or not. That really should always have been the case; there is no change in this regard with LCR as opposed to MLS.

There are a couple of ways that wards handle this:

• Assign a sister to be the visiting teacher who has some way of making some contact, even if it is not a formal visit -- someone who lives in her neighborhood, who might see her out walking or doing yard work, etc., and can say hello. That way at least someone is thinking of ways to stay in touch with the person who doesn't want formal contact. Such a visiting teacher could at least try to be aware if anything happens (death in the family, loss of job, major illness, etc.) in the person's life where there would be an opportunity for compassionate service. That's clearly not always practical, depending on the intensity of the person's desire not to be contacted.
• Assign all those who don't wish to be contacted to a special companionship, perhaps with someone in the RS presidency as the VT. That way everyone in the reporting structure will know that this companionship has this special purpose.

But always remember 3 Nephi 18:32, which says: "unto such shall ye continue to minister."