Tech Forum

Hi everyone,

I believe there was a recent update to the LDS Tools app that shows the ward membership list as households instead of individuals. The problem we are having in our ward is that non-member spouses are now showing up in the directory. We have some of these non-member spouses that do not want to be listed in the LDS Tools app. Is there a way to remove them from the app without removing the marriage from the member's record?

Thanks,
camhutch

You have to call Local Unit Support.

camhutch wrote: I believe there was a recent update to the LDS Tools app that shows the ward membership list as households instead of individuals. The problem we are having in our ward is that non-member spouses are now showing up in the directory. We have some of these non-member spouses that do not want to be listed in the LDS Tools app. Is there a way to remove them from the app without removing the marriage from the member's record?

LDS Tools is just reflecting a general issue that also obtains in the lds.org website directory. See this thread.

I don't think the suggestion in that thread about calling Local Unit Support was ever explained fully by the church employee who proposed it, so I do not understand exactly what the affect on the underlying marriage record would be -- either in the online display for leaders on lds.org or within MLS. If you do call, you might press for a definitive answer about that.

The suggestion was:

Additionally, members can work through their Ward Clerks to have the marriage record suppressed. The Clerk can contact MLS support (801-240-3500) for help doing this.

Note that the proposed ad hoc remedy was not that the directory display would be "suppressed," but rather "to have the marriage record suppressed."

camhutch wrote:I believe there was a recent update to the LDS Tools app that shows the ward membership list as households instead of individuals.

The problem of non-member spouses showing up is real, but I do not believe this is new to LDS Tools. At the top right of the directory screen, there is a "Group by" button where the user may select either a household or an individual display of the directory. Sometimes this setting gets changed during downloads/upgrades, etc.

If you had this set for individual display and households are now showing, this may be the reason this problem might appear to be new to you.

But yes, the workaround to remove display of the non-member spouse for the present is not a simple one and requires help from Salt Lake.

lajackson wrote:The problem of non-member spouses showing up is real, but I do not believe this is new to LDS Tools. At the top right of the directory screen, there is a "Group by" button where the user may select either a household or an individual display of the directory. Sometimes this setting gets changed during downloads/upgrades, etc.

If you had this set for individual display and households are now showing, this may be the reason this problem might appear to be new to you.

But yes, the workaround to remove display of the non-member spouse for the present is not a simple one and requires help from Salt Lake.

I believe you may be describing the user interface in the iPhone version of LDS Tools, and I am guessing that camhutch is describing the Android version. The Android app did get a welcome upgrade that enabled the household view with a drill-down to individuals, similar to the logic of the website directory. There is also screen under "Settings" to toggle the "Default Directory List" to an individual or household view.

All should understand that the well-founded complaint about non-member spouses appearing in the list really does not originate with any version of LDS Tools, but with the web services that feed all these apps as well as the lds.org website directory. That is the process that harvests the non-member spouse name from the otherwise-confidential marriage record. And I am still not convinced that the ad hoc workaround -- asking Local Unit Support "to have the marriage record suppressed" -- is a benign solution.

Probably on the same line as this discussion, but slightly different. I noticed that a member in the ward that separated from his wife and moved into the ward, wife stayed in home ward in another stake, is also showing up in Directory like she is a member of the ward and they are living in the same household. When I first saw it I wondered what was going on but noted in online MLS that there was no record in the stake for the wife even though Directory was showing her name just like his at the household.

chris_hazeldine wrote:Probably on the same line as this discussion, but slightly different. I noticed that a member in the ward that separated from his wife and moved into the ward, wife stayed in home ward in another stake, is also showing up in Directory like she is a member of the ward and they are living in the same household. When I first saw it I wondered what was going on but noted in online MLS that there was no record in the stake for the wife even though Directory was showing her name just like his at the household.

In the case of two members, it seems like that should automatically be suppressed, but apparently not. You'll have to call LUS to get that done.