Visiting Teaching

[williamkeithdenning]

if a sister missionary is serving and her records are at her home ward, how should she be counted as visit taught?
Thanks
Keith Denning

[russellhltn]

Good question. (I assume you're talking from the perspective of the home ward. The ward she is serving in doesn't count her.) I can't find anything in Handbook 2: 9.5. I know for attendance that missionaries who are away serving are considered as attending their meetings, but I don't recall any such thing for HT/VT.

I'd look at the various screens and print-outs from MLS to see if they contain any directions.

[aebrown]

Although it doesn't give a definitive answer, you might want to review the earlier discussion on this topic at Full-time missionaries on Quarterly Report.

[russellhltn]

Refresh my memory. Can writing letters still be counted? I seem to recall that something changed in that area.

If writing letters is allowed, I see no reason to not "visit" her and count it as normal.

Since the role of the stats to measure how well the member's needs are met (as opposed to "grading" the ward or it's teachers), speaking personally, I'd be inclined to encourage someone to write a letter/email (since that's the best that can be done) and count them as visited.

Same for HT - assuming the missionary is their own family. (Which is not the usual case.)

I gotta say, that was one thing I miss about MIS - it knew when someone was on a full-time mission and adjusted things accordingly. MLS seems to lack that feature. It would be nice if it returns as functions move to LCR.... (hint, hint).

Although, I gotta say, for most wards this is an exercise in "penny-wise, pound-foolish". The difference is negligible compared to where leaders would like the numbers to be.

[lajackson]

if a sister missionary is serving and her records are at her home ward, how should she be counted as visit taught?

I know of no specific instruction with regard to full time missionaries, other than that they are automatically counted as full-tithe payers.

Based on that, the practice here, with the blessing of our stake president, is that they are also completely active and are visit and home taught and attend all of their meetings.

(Sacrament meeting is reported differently and we do not count them because they are not physically present here, of course.)

Our stake president and bishops see no reason to penalize a ward on their report because they have a full-time missionary serving. That is the principle that is used in this stake.

But I don't think you will find it written anywhere.

[khirschm]

Under the new system, the number of women to be visit taught is set on the first of every month. The total percent of sisters visited is calculated from this number regardless of what sisters move out of the ward during the month. I have not been able to get the total number of sisters listed to be visit taught to agree with the number of sisters I have assigned to visit teach + those who are unassigned. I am surmising that the difference is the number of sister missionaries serving from our ward. I expect these sister missionaries to be on the ward rolls as their records are in our ward, but these sister missionaries cannot be assigned to be visit taught yet they are included in the total number of sisters to visit. Is there any way to change this and allow sister missionaries to be assigned to be visit taught or could there be something else making our numbers not consistent?