Full Time Missionaries - Mismatch

When clicking on "Full Time Missionaries" under organizations, I receive a list of missionaries who have "left" from our ward -- not missionaries "currently serving" from our ward.

We have one Elder on the list whose records are no longer in our ward (he was set apart while in our ward).
We have one Elder NOT on the list whose records are in the ward (he was set apart while in another ward).

It seems like, at a minimum, Full Time Missionaries whose records are in our ward should be displayed on the list of Full Time Missionaries in our ward.

Your expectations seem reasonable. We don't have anyone in either of those situations right now, so I'm unable to verify. Try submitting it as a bug on the Feedback link on LCR.

Missionaries technically have two home wards: the ward that's "sponsoring" them (with a budget account set up, that does not transfer automatically with the records), and the ward their records are in. Possibly the LDS Tools list is reflecting the sponsoring ward instead of the membership records ward? The sponsoring ward can be changed, I think, by the bishops.

sbradshaw wrote:Missionaries technically have two home wards: the ward that's "sponsoring" them (with a budget account set up, that does not transfer automatically with the records), and the ward their records are in.

Just wondering - does either one get reported in the quarterly report?

Not sure – my (YSA student) stake always transfers responsibility for missionaries to the home wards when they leave, so we never have missionaries serving from our stake.

sbradshaw wrote:Not sure – my (YSA student) stake always transfers responsibility for missionaries to the home wards when they leave, so we never have missionaries serving from our stake.

What, no converts? <grin> Back in my YSA days, we'd have a few converts that would go. Since the parents were non-members, there was no "home" ward. If the family didn't support them, we got help from the stake.

russellhltn wrote:

sbradshaw wrote:Not sure – my (YSA student) stake always transfers responsibility for missionaries to the home wards when they leave, so we never have missionaries serving from our stake.

What, no converts? <grin> Back in my YSA days, we'd have a few converts that would go. Since the parents were non-members, there was no "home" ward. If the family didn't support them, we got help from the stake.

True, every once in a while that happens.

russellhltn wrote:

sbradshaw wrote:Missionaries technically have two home wards: the ward that's "sponsoring" them (with a budget account set up, that does not transfer automatically with the records), and the ward their records are in.

Just wondering - does either one get reported in the quarterly report?

The ward with the actual membership record gets the missionary included in the quarterly report.

RichardGamble wrote:It seems like, at a minimum, Full Time Missionaries whose records are in our ward should be displayed on the list of Full Time Missionaries in our ward.

It may be as others suggest, and you can read the policy on a Change in the missionary’s home ward relating to mission finances and the funding ward. It's likely the display for your ward can be corrected by a clerk (maybe your stake clerk) calling the missionary department, even if another ward is the funding ward.

RichardGamble wrote:It seems like, at a minimum, Full Time Missionaries whose records are in our ward should be displayed on the list of Full Time Missionaries in our ward.

There are four units identified with a missionary. They are the Home Unit, Submitting Unit, Funding Unit, and Membership Unit. The Home Unit is where the missionary's parents records are assigned. The Submitting Unit is the unit the missionary's record was in when the application was submitted. The Funding Unit is the unit accepting financial responsibility for the missionary. And the Membership Unit is the unit in which the missionary's record is currently assigned.

The Membership Unit is the unit in which the missionary's name should appear in the "Full Time Missionaries" list.

Without knowing what is on record for each missionary for each unit type described in the OP I have no idea if there is a bug in the program or not.

The ward clerk or bishop can check the Missionary Online Recommendation System to see what missionaries are associated with their unit and what other units are associated with those missionaries.

Once the Membership unit for each of the OP missionaries is known then we can tell if there is a problem or not.

jdlessley wrote:

RichardGamble wrote:It seems like, at a minimum, Full Time Missionaries whose records are in our ward should be displayed on the list of Full Time Missionaries in our ward.

There are four units identified with a missionary. They are the Home Unit, Submitting Unit, Funding Unit, and Membership Unit. The Home Unit is where the missionary's parents records are assigned. The Submitting Unit is the unit the missionary's record was in when the application was submitted. The Funding Unit is the unit accepting financial responsibility for the missionary. And the Membership Unit is the unit in which the missionary's record is currently assigned.

The Membership Unit is the unit in which the missionary's name should appear in the "Full Time Missionaries" list.

Without knowing what is on record for each missionary for each unit type described in the OP I have no idea if there is a bug in the program or not.

The ward clerk or bishop can check the Missionary Online Recommendation System to see what missionaries are associated with their unit and what other units are associated with those missionaries.

Once the Membership unit for each of the OP missionaries is known then we can tell if there is a problem or not.

In my original post, I identified the Membership Unit status for each of the two missionaries in question. Is there anything else that I can provide which would be helpful?

There isn't anything a clerk can do to change the list of full-time missionaries. The information in LCR comes from the Missionary Department. If the list is incorrect, please contact the GSC. They will be able to verify the issue exists and then escalate it to the developers for review.

scgallafent wrote:If the list is incorrect,

The problem is knowing which list it should be. It sounds like it's the submitting unit when it was expected to be the membership unit. But "expected" doesn't make it the "right" list.

RichardGamble wrote:In my original post, I identified the Membership Unit status for each of the two missionaries in question. Is there anything else that I can provide which would be helpful?

Did you grab this information from the Missionary Online Recommendation System? You should see the missionaries in question with an "Other Units" link next to their name.

We have a missionary whose parents moved after she left on her mission. Her name (correctly) does not appear in LUS as one of our full-time missionaries. MORS states that her Membership Unit is the same as her Home Unit, which shows as her parents' new ward.

russellhltn wrote:The problem is knowing which list it should be. It sounds like it's the submitting unit when it was expected to be the membership unit. But "expected" doesn't make it the "right" list.

You should see missionaries whose membership record resides in your ward.

scgallafent wrote:You should see missionaries whose membership record resides in your ward.

Thank you for that clarification. The OP has stated that that's not happening.

I talked to the Global Servive Center (GSC) and the agent looked at the records of the two missionaries. She agreed that there might be an error in the system and forwarded the details to the developers for possible updates to the system.

Had to call the Missionary Department. They looked at the record that should have been in our Ward and made the change in the system. After a couple of days, it appeared in the list of Full Time Missionaries from our Ward.

RichardGamble wrote:They looked at the record that should have been in our Ward and made the change in the system. After a couple of days, it appeared in the list of Full Time Missionaries from our Ward.

Which raises the question - was the data wrong, or did they just work around a problem?

kisaac wrote:It's likely the display for your ward can be corrected by a clerk (maybe your stake clerk) calling the missionary department

it seems like the call by a clerk is the simple solution to reset a wrong code to make the right names appear in your Ward. The process seems far less automatic for moving missionaries than one might expect, probably because of the variables.

I had to call my ward clerk several months after my daughter left on her mission and ask them why the singles ward hadn't sent her records back to her home Ward (our ward, and I didn't ask why our Ward hadn't pulled it already!). We had been the funding Ward all along, as far as I knew, but yet we had no record for her in our Ward or stake....

For others with similar problems: I knew I had seen the solution: It's listed in the directory:

Local Unit Directory > Missionary > Serving missionary
There is a link that says: List Incorrect?

Clicking that link brings up this help box:

You may notice missionaries missing, or who do not belong to your unit in the Serving Missionaries list. This is common if the family has changed units since the missionary was called. You can work with your clerk to help the missionary department correct this. Your clerk can contact the missionary department at 801-240-2222.

This listing in the directory has existed for some time, so it's likely that if LCR 3.0 is displaying incorrectly, this listing in the directory has also been displaying incorrectly, but went unnoticed. The LCR 3.0 list might be more visible, and probably needs a help box like this until the process becomes more automatic.