Tech Forum

We recently had a new family move into the ward and they have a missionary currently in the field. All of their records are in the ward and they have started making payments for their missionary. When we go to enter the donations he hasn't showed up as a missionary and we are unable to add him. MLS doesn't even give us the option of adding a missionary. We have been putting the money in the ward mission fund until we can figure things out and transfer it back. Any help on what to do would be appreciated.

Transferring the missionary is not automatic when the family moves. You need to follow the outline given in Transferring missionary funding to another ward.

The current bishop needs to have a conversation with the old bishop, in which the current bishop agrees to take on the financial responsibility for the missionary. Then, they coordinate a date (can be in the past) when the responsibility transfers. Once that's done, someone (can be a clerk) can send an MLS message to Local Unit Support letting them know the name of the missionary, the date of the transfer, and that both bishops have agreed. The Missionary Department will take it from there, creating the missionary's local Ward Missionary account, and crediting/debiting the appropriate accounts to reflect the date of the transfer.

allenjpl wrote:The current bishop needs to have a conversation with the old bishop, in which the current bishop agrees to take on the financial responsibility for the missionary.

That needs to happen if the old bishop is trying to push the obligation out of his ward. I don't think it's necessary when the new bishop is the one initiating the change.

Note that you'll probably want to back date the transfer to use the funds that the family has already donated. (And "repay" the former ward.)

russellhltn wrote:

allenjpl wrote:The current bishop needs to have a conversation with the old bishop, in which the current bishop agrees to take on the financial responsibility for the missionary.

That needs to happen if the old bishop is trying to push the obligation out of his ward. I don't think it's necessary when the new bishop is the one initiating the change.

I don't know whether it's absolutely necessary or not but it's definitely a good idea to coordinate with the old ward to make sure that the effective transfer date is correct and leaves the previous ward at a 0 balance in the missionary's account.

Thank you!