Quarterly Report Prospective elders advanced to the Melchizedek Priesthood

[lajackson]

A prospective elder was advanced to the Melchizedek Priesthood by ordination on June 26. The stake did not record the ordination before July 1. The stake is asking why this ward never had any prospective elders advanced to the Melchizedek Priesthood on their quarterly reports for 2016.

I am going to propose the following answer to the stake president, but I wanted to run it by the Forum first for a sanity check.

The 2nd quarter report showed zero prospective elders advanced because, although the ordination took place near the end of the quarter, it had not been recorded by the end of the quarter and so it was not provided to the report by headquarters.

The 3rd quarter report showed zero prospective elders advanced because the ordination took place during the 2nd quarter, even though it was reported during the 3rd quarter, and because headquarters does no go back to change their portion of the report after the snapshot is taken at the end of a quarter.

Is this analysis correct?

And if so, I will suggest to the stake that they make extra special efforts to record Melchizedek Priesthood ordinations very promptly (and immediately, if needed) when ordinations take place during the last few days of the quarter. This is problematic, of course, when the ordination takes place but is not reported to the stake clerk until the following stake presidency meeting, which is normally up to a week away.

[jdlessley]

Your analysis is correct. I suspect the stake presidency is not aware of this reporting (and recording) issue.

[lajackson]

Your analysis is correct. I suspect the stake presidency is not aware of this reporting (and recording) issue.

Nope. They will be now, because they are discovering that this is not the only one in the stake.

I can see where headquarters might not be keen to go back and change the previous quarterly report if someone got ordained at the end of the quarter but the ordination was not recorded until a few days later.

I wonder if this might cause stake general priesthood meeting to be moved from the last Sunday in March each year. Or maybe the stake clerk now will sit in on all the ordinations with his laptop and hit enter as the amen is spoken. [smile]

[drepouille]

On a related matter, we had a convert baptism performed in Nov 2016 that was not recorded by the mission until Jan 2017. It took me that long to hound the missionaries into getting the paperwork to the mission office. I finally had to call the mission office and ask them to investigate. Similar to Brother Jackson, the baptism does not appear in our 4Q report.

[russellhltn]

the baptism does not appear in our 4Q report.

With any luck, it won't appear on the mission's reports either. That would teach them.