membership audit - unfixable issue

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bfromm
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Re: membership audit - unfixable issue

#21

Post by bfromm »

I thought it would be helpful to report that in the LCR 4.2 release (preparing for beta), we changed the message for this issue so that it is more descriptive: "This member was sealed to their spouse before being a member of the Church for a year. Please have the bishop work with the stake president to send a letter to the First Presidency requesting ratification of the sealing." The new message should let you know that something can and needs to be done. Once the ordinance is ratified, the audit exception will go away and the issue won't show up in future audits. I should also report that we got rid of a few other errors that couldn't be resolved by the ward. We want to keep you focused on things you can actually resolve!
russellhltn
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Re: membership audit - unfixable issue

#22

Post by russellhltn »

bfromm wrote:I thought it would be helpful to report that in the LCR 4.2 release (preparing for beta), we changed the message for this issue so that it is more descriptive: "This member was sealed to their spouse before being a member of the Church for a year. Please have the bishop work with the stake president to send a letter to the First Presidency requesting ratification of the sealing."
Contrarian mode: Since the sealing is handled by the temple, the date of the sealing shouldn't be an issue, but shouldn't the ward check with the member first to see if there's a possibility that the baptismal date is wrong?

Depending on the details, the ward may not have much in the way to tools to validate or verify information, but it seems like they should give it a shot before going though the ratification.
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bfromm
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Re: membership audit - unfixable issue

#23

Post by bfromm »

russellhltn wrote:Contrarian mode: Since the sealing is handled by the temple, the date of the sealing shouldn't be an issue, but shouldn't the ward check with the member first to see if there's a possibility that the baptismal date is wrong?
Depending on the details, the ward may not have much in the way to tools to validate or verify information, but it seems like they should give it a shot before going though the ratification.
That is certainly something the ward could/should do before submitting the ratification request.
russellhltn
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Re: membership audit - unfixable issue

#24

Post by russellhltn »

bfromm wrote:That is certainly something the ward could/should do before submitting the ratification request.
But the reported message is "Please have the bishop work with the stake president to send a letter to the First Presidency requesting ratification of the sealing."

It seems like it should say something like, "After verifying that the baptismal date is correct ... "
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bfromm
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Re: membership audit - unfixable issue

#25

Post by bfromm »

russellhltn wrote:It seems like it should say something like, "After verifying that the baptismal date is correct ... "
While that may be a helpful task to complete, we are not going to mix that into this message. The Handbook instructs clerks to give each member a copy of their individual ordinance summary each year so they can verify their ordinances and other information. This information was also added to LDS Tools so members could review it at any time. We are hopeful that an incorrect baptismal date will be caught by either the yearly review of records or individual review in LDS Tools.
russellhltn
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Re: membership audit - unfixable issue

#26

Post by russellhltn »

bfromm wrote:We are hopeful that an incorrect baptismal date will be caught by either the yearly review of records or individual review in LDS Tools.
It might be interesting to randomly ask adult converts (since they are the only ones that might be in this particular situation) if they remember their baptismal date. I have a feeling your faith may be stronger than can be supported by research. <grin>

OTOH, if the IOS was to print the day of the week along with the date, it might uncover some errors.
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johnshaw
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Re: membership audit - unfixable issue

#27

Post by johnshaw »

davesudweeks wrote:
At the very least, I would suggest the Stake Auditors receive training on what to do to clear audit exceptions so they can provide advise. I'm sure someone will suggest that this is a role of the Stake Clerk and I agree, but in actual practice, Stake Clerks "normally" provide little or no training or assistance to the ward. I speak from many, many years of ward clerk experience in multiple areas (several in the US, including Utah, and overseas as well) - but hopefully my experience has been atypical. On the plus side, it has helped me become more skilled as I have had to rely on my own resourcefulness to figure out problems (even though it has taken me away from my family more than I would have liked).
YES YES YES

With as little training as there is, it almost seems... and I think that clerks get this unconsciously a good deal of the time - that Record keeping isn't really all that important, or that clerk work isn't all that important. I've met so many clerks that feel like the big thing is move-in and move-out of records (recording callings of course) and the donations batches, outside that... they couldn't be bothered.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense
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