Members in Geographic Wards, who attend specialty wards

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martyriker
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Members in Geographic Wards, who attend specialty wards

#1

Post by martyriker »

I think it would be great if leadership (bBishops/BPs) could receive a regular (quarterly?) report from the church of all the members that are known that live in the geographic boundaries but are assigned/attend other wards. For example, I live where language wards overlap my geographic ward.

If there is a catastrophic emergency, I feel some responsibility to make sure these local members are ok, given that their priesthood leaders are more remote than my ward's leaders.

Any feedback? I'm writing from the perspective of a Bishop in an earthquake fault zone.

FYI - I just learned by accident that a Stake Presidency of a neighboring Stake, and a Branch President of a neighboring Stake specialty/language branch both live in my Ward/Stake.
Gary_Miller
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Re: Members in Geographic Wards, who attend specialty wards

#2

Post by Gary_Miller »

Why not just form some type of correlation where you can work together when there are emergency type problems.
martyriker
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Re: Members in Geographic Wards, who attend specialty wards

#3

Post by martyriker »

How would I know with whom to coorelate? Very often language unit members cross stake bondaries, and unit leaders don't know they even exist. So we won't be able to provide local assistance in the event of an earthquake or other major disaster.
russellhltn
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Re: Members in Geographic Wards, who attend specialty wards

#4

Post by russellhltn »

I think if you play with maps.lds.org, you'll find the units. When you ask it for the wards, it will list the specialty wards that cover that location along with the geographic ones.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
Gary_Miller
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Re: Members in Geographic Wards, who attend specialty wards

#5

Post by Gary_Miller »

martyriker wrote:How would I know with whom to coorelate? Very often language unit members cross stake bondaries, and unit leaders don't know they even exist. So we won't be able to provide local assistance in the event of an earthquake or other major disaster.
Like russell say just look in the Maps. All you need to do is do a building finder search, use your own address, you will find ever stake and ward in which your area of town serves.
martyriker
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Re: Members in Geographic Wards, who attend specialty wards

#6

Post by martyriker »

I found the functionality that lists the wards that apply a particular area of my unit. OK. That is helpful to help me know who to contact to ask them if they can supply the contact information for people in their units that live in the geographical boundaries of my unit.
In my case, when I loaded all the boundary options, I got reference for:
My own ward
My stake's Spanish,Vietnamese and YSA units
Neighboring stake's Tongan YSA ward.

But that didn't account for the neighboring stake's Chinese unit, or another Chinese group in a neighboring stake's ward. Nor did it tell me about a neighboring stake's 2nd Councilor to the Stake President who lives in my ward, or a neighboring stake's Chinese unit's Branch President who also lives in my ward.

I guess that was the root of my question - I was surprised to find these exceptions in my unit and wondered how I could discover more of them, if there are any.
russellhltn
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Re: Members in Geographic Wards, who attend specialty wards

#7

Post by russellhltn »

martyriker wrote:But that didn't account for the neighboring stake's Chinese unit, or another Chinese group in a neighboring stake's ward.
Odds are their borders did not include the point you selected. I believe you can go into the CDOL and look up the borders of nearby units.

martyriker wrote:Nor did it tell me about a neighboring stake's 2nd Councilor to the Stake President who lives in my ward, or a neighboring stake's Chinese unit's Branch President who also lives in my ward.

I guess that was the root of my question - I was surprised to find these exceptions in my unit and wondered how I could discover more of them, if there are any.
I don't believe the church provides any way to do that. My best suggestion is to press the stake president to take the issue up with the Area Authority to work out a plan to deal with your concern. This forum is primarily user-to-user support. We don't have access to that kind of information ourselves. Nor are we in a position to advocate for a change that requires a policy change. The best we can do is point out what you do have access to.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
martyriker
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Joined: Tue Jun 14, 2011 12:34 am
Location: United States, Texas, Round Rock East

Re: Members in Geographic Wards, who attend specialty wards

#8

Post by martyriker »

Thanks for the suggestions.
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aebrown
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Re: Members in Geographic Wards, who attend specialty wards

#9

Post by aebrown »

martyriker wrote:But that didn't account for the neighboring stake's Chinese unit, or another Chinese group in a neighboring stake's ward. Nor did it tell me about a neighboring stake's 2nd Councilor to the Stake President who lives in my ward, or a neighboring stake's Chinese unit's Branch President who also lives in my ward.
For someone to attend a ward is not assigned to the place they live (as you've noted, several wards can be assigned, such as YSA, language, or other specialty wards) requires approval from the bishops and stake presidents involved as well as the Office of the First Presidency (see HB 1, section 13.6). In either of these cases, your stake president should be very familiar with these members attending outside wards, since he (or his predecessor) would have been involved in approving these exceptional cases.

So although there may not be a technological answer to the question as to which members residing in your ward attend units not assigned to your geographical area, a simple question to your stake presidency should answer that part of your question. I use the word should, since I've actually never heard of a single case where a stake president follows the handbook in this regard and gets approval from the First Presidency, even though I know of several cases where members do attend wards not assigned to their location.
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