Tech Forum

We have several excommunicated members in our Ward that are working through the repentance process. In order to be able to assign them Home Teachers that can minister to them we create temporary membership records in MLS. These temp records do not show up in the HT'ing assignments in the enhanced LCR on lds.org. Is this a bug/feature or am I missing a config. setting somewhere? I am trying to complete as much as I can on-line, but with this gap, I still have to spend time at Clerk's Office to print complete HT'ing assignments.

Non-member records created in MLS do not get transmitted. So they won't shown in the on-line HT/VT system. You'll have to look and see if there's a way to create the records in LCR.

I don't think it's possible to create temporary or nonmember records in Leader and Clerk Resources.

I wonder if they're excommunicated if you can create an out-of-unit record?

mevans wrote:I wonder if they're excommunicated if you can create an out-of-unit record?

You can try, but I have a feeling the MRN will come back as invalid.

What you're trying to do will not be supported. LCR will not support the creation of non-member records and we will be phasing this capability out of MLS. This is a conscious decision, partly related to privacy issues.

scgallafent wrote:What you're trying to do will not be supported. LCR will not support the creation of non-member records and we will be phasing this capability out of MLS. This is a conscious decision, partly related to privacy issues.

I gotta say, I have mixed feelings about that. Given Alma 6:3, I've always been uncomfortable about giving an outward appearance of "being numbered with the saints" when they are not. So that part of me is happy.

But the "policy" part of me is curious about what that means for excommunicated spouses. Back when the directory started displaying spouses from the marriage record, we were told it was to protect privacy. If this signals a change, then what happens in that case? If the non-member spouse disappears, there's going to be a lot of unhappy sisters who now appear on the directory as if they are single. But if those spouses remain, then it would appear we have a different policy for married excommunicated members than for single ones.

scgallafent wrote:What you're trying to do will not be supported. LCR will not support the creation of non-member records and we will be phasing this capability out of MLS. This is a conscious decision, partly related to privacy issues.

Aside from the issue of excommunicated members, note that it is currently possible in MLS to assign callings to nonmembers. In our ward we have a nonmember (spouse of a member) who is very active in the scouting program and has held several callings over the years. Indeed, Handbook 2, section 19.1.1 specifically states that nonmembers may be called to serve in certain callings. This "conscious decision" to eliminate nonmember records doesn't seem to be consistent with the Handbook. Or is there some other way to record these Handbook-authorized callings for nonmembers in LCR that I'm missing?

Not being able to record a non-member spouse would make it more difficult to minister to the family. At the very least, it helps you remember the spouse's name. The same can go with non-member children who are over 8 who may attend church, but need to be added after age 8. As also has been mentioned, there are callings that non-members can hold.

I agree that adding non-member records opens a can of worms, so it needs to be thought out well. Just getting rid of them seems to miss the point of why they existed.

Wouldn't creating temporary records for excommunicated members just confuse the counting of HT? Are visits to excommunicated members counted in the quarterly reports? I would have assumed that not.

It is good that they have home teachers, but is it really necessary to make things so formally. One can assign someone to visit them, even though they are not in the official list.