Child blessing/baptism stewardship?

tolmanator · #1

So we have a recent family that started coming back to church. They have an 8 year old son that was supposedly blessed as a baby but the blessing was never recorded. The grandfather did the blessing back in 2004ish and we're trying to pin down a date for it to be recorded.

So the missionaries have found this inactive family and taught and helped reactivate them. They've been teaching the 8 year old son and he has a baptism scheduled. Our question is: does the stewardship fall under the missionaries to schedule and follow through with the baptismal interviews and baptism, or should he be treated as a child of record baptism? (assuming we pin down the dates of his previous blessing).

Any direction would be helpful. Thanks!

russellhltn · #2

The blessing is frequently the trigger for creating the record, but isn't necessary to create a "child of record". All that is necessary is the permission of the parents.

However, the MLS manual indicates that you can only create a child of record for someone who is less than 8 years old.

tolmanator · #3

Ok so what about the baptismal stewardship? The Elders or the Ward? Trying to figure out who does the interviews and if it is done along with the normal stake baptisms or do the Elders need to schedule a convert baptism?

rbeede · #4

Ward is responsible. Bishop does the baptism interview since at least 1 parent is a member unless the child turns 9 before being baptized. It is not a convert baptism unless the child turns 9 before the baptism.

See http://tech.lds.org/wiki/Recording_ordi ... d_children for other guidelines.

rbeede · #5

Also Child blessings are not saving ordinances and are not recorded on official Church records. Since the baptism is happening soon I wouldn't bother with creating a child of record either. Just create the membership record after the confirmation.

#6

rbeede wrote:Also Child blessings are not saving ordinances and are not recorded on official Church records.

I agree not to stress the family about "pinning down" the missing blessing date...