Adding children whose membership is in another ward

Is it possible to add the name of a Young Single Adult, whose membership is their YSA ward, to their home Ward Directory?

This member lives with their parents who would like their name listed on the home Ward List. But since their membership is in the YSA Ward, I can't find a way to add names I don't have membership records for to our Ward list.

Any suggestions?

The mechanics of this is straightforward. But policy needs to be consulted first. I'd consult the Handbook and the Bishop.

My feeling is if they are a member of the YSA ward and attending the YSA ward, then having them listed in the home ward they are not attending nor holding a calling in the home ward is questionable.

thenderson700 wrote:Is it possible to add the name of a Young Single Adult, whose membership is their YSA ward, to their home Ward Directory?

This member lives with their parents who would like their name listed on the home Ward List. But since their membership is in the YSA Ward, I can't find a way to add names I don't have membership records for to our Ward list.

Any suggestions?

There is no such thing as a "home ward" . If the member wants to attend the singles ward then that is where their record should be. There is no way to have the record listed in two wards.

The the YSA just want records in the parents' ward for the fun of it, or does the YSA actually attend both wards with some frequency? If so, then maybe there's reason to show on some lists for the other ward? I'd agree in this situation that both bishops and the stake president should discuss this.

I'd say a somewhat similar situation is children of divorced parents who might be in Mom's ward half the time and Dad's ward half the time...it can be helpful for leaders in both wards to be aware of the person on membership records, even though the record can only be in one ward and only one bishop is the ecclesiastical leader. I don't know what various wards have done in this situation.

Years ago when it might take a couple of months to move records, if we had YSA who were home from college for 2-3 months during the summer, we just added them manually to the DOS membership app so we could keep track of who was around for the summer. We didn't bother requesting records unless they were getting endowed, renewing a temple recommend, going on a mission, or getting married. russellhilton seemed to indicate doing this is fairly straightforward now, although Gary_Miller said there's no way to do this. I haven't personally experimented with this in the current software, but I could see reason for doing it.

mevans wrote:Years ago when it might take a couple of months to move records, if we had YSA who were home from college for 2-3 months during the summer, we just added them manually to the DOS membership app so we could keep track of who was around for the summer. We didn't bother requesting records unless they were getting endowed, renewing a temple recommend, going on a mission, or getting married.

Last I checked, the "3 month" policy on moving records was still in effect. If someone is only going to be around for 3 months or less, then don't move the records. However, I can see making an exception for the situations you've described.

mevans wrote:russellhilton seemed to indicate doing this is fairly straightforward now, although Gary_Miller said there's no way to do this. I haven't personally experimented with this in the current software, but I could see reason for doing it.

There's no technical impediment to creating an Out of Unit Membership record -- that is fairly straightforward to do in MLS. When you do that, although the membership record clearly resides only in one ward at a time, a second ward can have such people appear on ward lists, including class rolls.

There certainly could be questions about whether this is an appropriate action, but technically this is easy to do.

russellhltn wrote:Last I checked, the "3 month" policy on moving records was still in effect. If someone is only going to be around for 3 months or less, then don't move the records. However, I can see making an exception for the situations you've described.

The 3-month guideline is still in place (see HB 1, 13.6.4), but there are exceptions.

Isn't there supposed to be a couple assigned to 'Shepard' YSA in each ward, regardless of where they are currently attending, this might be a very good reason to list them in both places. We need to remember that our YSA are leaving the church in waves and waves, in this case, I urge a liberal view (following priesthood-key-holder direction) but my advice would be to list them in as many places as necessary to avoid needing to 'Rescue' them later in life.

JohnShaw wrote:Isn't there supposed to be a couple assigned to 'Shepard' YSA in each ward, regardless of where they are currently attending, this might be a very good reason to list them in both places.

Young Single Adult Advisors do take a role in working with members in their ward or stake. But a YSA member (or anyone, for that matter) has only one bishop, who hold keys, who is able to best oversee the work of progress with that member in their living the gospel.

A YSA is a member of either a YSA ward or a conventional ward. The membership record belongs in that ward. The other ward has no responsibility for them (other than normal gospel kindnesses).

I understand the situation of a child with separated parents and visitation rules. What I am trying to understand is why two wards would want to both keep track the same adult member. Is this a case of the member splitting time between the two wards and not being fully engaged with either one?

aebrown wrote:There certainly could be questions about whether this is an appropriate action, but technically this is easy to do.

Agreed. This needs to be run by the leadership. I read the OP as a case of "I want" by the member.

I think one part of membership records is misunderstood for the young adults. What happens when student wards are "disbanded"?

My son's, records were in a student ward that was disbanded for the summer. During the summer my son needed eclesiastical endorsement for the church university where he lives, but he had no bishop that he knew of. No acting bishop there had met him even though he attended church. His records were transferred to our ward and my son lived with us for a few weeks, so our bishop could fill out the forms. Unfortuantely, our bishop didn't know how to use the church university system and the digital "paperwork" wasn't properly submitted. This caused my son to miss two semesters of school while his records were passed back and forth.