Senior Sister missionary support

I cannot find much on supporting Senior Sister missionaries who are already in the field and run into financial difficulties due to for example the change in currency exchange. The guidelines say never to send money to a missionary but it does give licence to do so it seems if there are funds available in the ward mission account. If funds are then sent from the ward is it right if family members then contribute to the ward mission fund so the ward can send her their money? Lastly must the sister exhaust all her personal and family resources before help from the ward can be offered?

Kent Stringham

Only the cost of housing is directly take out of the ward missionary account for senior missionaries. While senior missionaries are expected to cover all their costs, there is nothing that says the ward cannot help with the housing costs. All other expenses are to be directly covered by the individual, their family or friends.

The best thing to do is have the ward members help with the housing through donations to the ward missionary fund. This would free up funds to help the sister cover her personal expense for food, transportation and other things that is needed.

Gary_Miller wrote:Only the cost of housing is directly take out of the ward missionary account for senior missionaries. While senior missionaries are expected to cover all their costs, there is nothing that says the ward cannot help with the housing costs. All other expenses are to be directly covered by the individual, their family or friends.

Actually, if you read the last half of HB1, section 4.6.3, you'll see that there is a provision for providing financial assistance to senior sisters. That seems to contradict the first sentence of 4.6.1, but if you take that first sentence at face value, then you'd have to eliminate the last half of section 4.6.3. I've tried to think of a way to reconcile that contradiction, but I can't; my only conclusion is that the first sentence of 4.6.1 neglects to mention the exception that is clearly allowed by 4.6.3.

Furthermore, your statements about housing costs only apply to couples, not to single sisters, so they are not relevant to the current discussion. You can read that in the official letters dated 7 Nov 2011 and 10 Dec 2011.

I agree with Brother brown on this. We are supporting a senior sister in our stake who has no other means of support based on my reading of section 4.6.3. The query I have is whether the senior sister needs to have exhausted all personal and family resources before the church steps in to help with a cheque sent to a missionary.

Kent Stringham

After talking to the missionary department I was able to get the answer to this. Funds from the ward mission account may be used to support Senior SINGLE missionaries as determined by the Bishop as long as they meet the requirements in section 4.6.3.

Kent Stringham

Before I found this posted topic, I called the Missionary Department about handling ward funds for a senior sister missionary from our ward. I was told that unlike young missionaries and couples, the senior sister is responsible for paying all expenses related to her mission and we would deposit extra needed funds as need into her checking account. Yesterday our stake clerk called SL at the request of the stake president and was told that this senior sister missionary would have an amount of $600 automatically withdrawn from our ward account each month. I'm mixed-up again and wonder if anyone has actual experience with this situation.

Do you mean more experience than the Stake Clerk and the Missionary Department?

Single Sisters are treated different than young elders and sisters, they are treated differently than a senior couple serving - They are responsible for it all. Just like what has been said, however, under extenuating circumstances I'm sure that a Stake President can get something done that just needs to be done.

showseason wrote:unlike ... couples, the senior sister is responsible for paying all expenses

I was under the impression that couples pay their own way. Could there have been a confusion between senior couples and senior singles?

sbradshaw wrote:

showseason wrote:unlike ... couples, the senior sister is responsible for paying all expenses

I was under the impression that couples pay their own way. Could there have been a confusion between senior couples and senior singles?

Couples do pay their way except for housing. Housing is only paid up to a set amount and is paid to the home ward. If you have access to the Official Communications Library look at the letter dated 27 May 2011.

housing is a category of things including other items than just the cost of a living space, just as an fyi... again the library will have that data.

The confusion with senior single sister missionaries is I believe, a result of having no written policies with many exceptions. We have phoned various missions and the mission department and the audit department. It seems that at least one mission, the family history mission in Salt lake, has the ability to take money out of a ward account for a single senior sister missionary. The problem is that it does not come out of her individual account but rather out of the general ward mission account. This leaves the ward clerk with the job of figuring out that it is gone and who it is supposed to be allocated to. This is fine if there is only one sister from the ward out but if there are two, as in the case of one of the wards in our stake, then figuring out how much should be allocated to which sister will be more difficult.
Also, someone stated that couples don't pay for housing; this is not correct. Couples must pay for all expenses of their mission however the housing portion will be swept from the ward account in their name and the couple then gets a tax receipt for the donation used to cover it.