Difficulty in obtaining membership records

[LiverpoolOne-p40]

I was baptised and confirmedon the 3rd May 2008. I have now spent since September 2008 telephoning, Biriming England, Germany and Salt Lake City trying to obtain my membership number. I have spoken to my ward clerk, bishop and stake president and we have all made calls to SLC but still no membership number. This evening I ended up telephoning the office of the First Presidency to try and get help. Can anyone please help. I am getting nowhere fast and all I want to do is get my parents baptised at the temple but cannot without a membership number.


Peter

[lajackson]

. . . trying to obtain my membership number. I have spoken to my ward clerk, bishop and stake president and we have all made calls to SLC but still no membership number.

Go back to your clerk and priesthood leaders. Ask them to contact the mission and find out why your membership record was never created. If the mission has lost the information (it appears that they have lost it), ask them to create a new membership record for you. This will be very easy if you have a copy of your baptism and confirmation certificate. (Did you get one of those?)

I trust that it does not take very long to create a membership record in your area of the world. Under normal circumstances. [grin]

[lajackson]

. . . trying to obtain my membership number. I have spoken to my ward clerk, bishop and stake president and we have all made calls to SLC but still no membership number.

Go back to your clerk and priesthood leaders. Ask them to contact the mission and find out why your membership record was never created. It will help if you have a copy of your baptism and confirmation certificate. (Did you receive one of those?)

If the mission has lost your baptism information (it appears that they have lost it), they should be able to create a new membership record with input from your bishop.

I trust that it does not take too long to create a membership record in your part of the world. Under normal circumstances. [grin]

[aebrown]

I was baptised and confirmedon the 3rd May 2008. I have now spent since September 2008 telephoning, Biriming England, Germany and Salt Lake City trying to obtain my membership number. I have spoken to my ward clerk, bishop and stake president and we have all made calls to SLC but still no membership number. This evening I ended up telephoning the office of the First Presidency to try and get help. Can anyone please help. I am getting nowhere fast and all I want to do is get my parents baptised at the temple but cannot without a membership number.

The first thing I would do is go back to the beginning and try to get answers to some basic questions:

1. Who created the paperwork for your convert baptism? It should have been the mission.
2. Contact the mission and ask them if they have a copy of the paperwork. Do they have a record of the paperwork being submitted?
3. The above questions should help determine if a membership record was actually created. If a record has ever been created, your ward clerk should be able to request your membership record by using your full name and birthdate.
4. If the record has not been created, but the mission still has the paperwork, they can resubmit the request to create a membership record.

If you try some of these things and still have troubles, report back with what you tried and what you were able to find out, and some of the experienced clerks on the forum may have additional suggestions.

[russellhltn]

To add to what others have said:

The membership number is assigned only when the needed information reaches Church Headquarters.

Normally for convert baptisms (anyone over Age 8), it's the Mission's job to fill out and submit the paperwork.

I think the thing to do is to track down the paperwork. Hopefully the missionary gave the ward a copy. (I'm assuming you are still in your original ward/branch.) If that's the case, the ward should be able to create your membership by manually entering the information. It's not the usual order of things, but since the Mission has taken so long, I don't think it's improper. Alternatively, you can work with the Mission Office as to why this hasn't been done.

In the event that paperwork has been lost have the Bishop/Branch President consult his Church Handbook of Instructions. It will outline the steps that need to be taken.

[MorettiDP]

The contact to mission offices is a good thing to do. In our region of Brazil, many missionaries lost or don't have money to send to mission offices the informations to create membership records. Month by month we have a case like this...