Viewing Home Teachers as well as Families taught

Would it be possible for any members to see both the families they are assigned to home teach, as well as being able to see who has been assigned as their Home Teachers. Often you don't remember the names of your home teachers, and it would be great if the directory could provide that information.

Only if the Priesthood Department decides to do so.

Based on some conversations that we saw when Home and Visiting Teaching were added to Leader and Clerk Resources, I don't expect that members will be able to see this information anytime soon, if ever. I believe there was a comment from someone at the church about "Return and Report." My take on it is that they want you to interact with your leaders, not a computer (even though for me, it's all usually email with my leaders, both to get my list and report the results; occasionally they hand out printed paper slips in priesthood).

I agree it would be nice-to-have information, but at least for the time being, the church leadership has a different plan.

I think a "My HT Families" / "My VT Sisters" filter link in the sidebar (like the convenient-but-not-necessary "My Household" link) would help to keep those we're responsible for close to our minds and encourage communication with them.

cboling wrote:I think a "My HT Families" / "My VT Sisters" filter link in the sidebar (like the convenient-but-not-necessary "My Household" link) would help to keep those we're responsible for close to our minds and encourage communication with them.

You can use the "Feedback" link found at the bottom of most pages on lds.org to request the feature. It may not get you the feature, but the information you submit is reviewed.

I agree with Joelongson. I would be beneficial to have the families you home teach and those that home teach your family in the ward directory. Could you please share where such a request could be made if not here?

roundyfamily wrote:Could you please share where such a request could be made if not here?

The answer is in the post just before yours:

mevans wrote:You can use the "Feedback" link found at the bottom of most pages on lds.org to request the feature. It may not get you the feature, but the information you submit is reviewed.

I've thought that this would be a good thing to have also. Since I am new to the ward and I am not yet familiar with all of the name and faces of the members it would help to have this feature. Also, many of the members do not have their images uploaded. Perhaps for privacy or technology fears. Would it be possible to uploads private images of them that only you could see and not the whole ward/stake etc. could see? This would help me familiarize myself with names and faces. It would be nice to be able to set reminders, notices, notes, appointments, visiting status, type of visit or contact, help or other needs that the family needs, also.

I've tried to submit these ideas and others that I've had on other site pages/locations but the feedback form does not seems to be working. A few weeks ago, I submitted my first feedback through it and it worked just find and received an email confirmation and response but now after filling out the feedback form and pressing the submit button, no reaction happens. It just remands on the form page. No feedback submission is possible at this time.

vonrix wrote:Also, many of the members do not have their images uploaded. Perhaps for privacy or technology fears. Would it be possible to uploads private images of them that only you could see and not the whole ward/stake etc. could see? This would help me familiarize myself with names and faces.

Members can upload their own pictures, but few tend to do that. Even when they do, leaders need to approve the images, which is also a problem. You could talk to your bishopric about getting member photos posted. Perhaps they can call a photographer or other calling who would facilitate this. I'm an assistant clerk and have done a lot of work for getting photos posted of ward members. This could be a whole topic unto itself.

vonrix wrote:It would be nice to be able to set reminders, notices, notes, appointments, visiting status, type of visit or contact, help or other needs that the family needs, also.

I doubt we'll see tools like this. The church has been eliminating tools, not creating new ones. There are numerous apps for you to set personal reminders, take notes, etc., so it's probably best if you find something you appreciate that helps you do your calling as a home/visiting teacher. Also, the church doesn't officially keep notes on members. The membership record has very limited information and any annotations to a member's record (which are rare) are authorized by the First Presidency and can only be seen by the bishopric. There may also be confidential notes regarding a member that are only visible to the bishop and stake president. I believe those have to do with disciplinary actions (I don't really know, as I'm not in one of those callings, but I've heard they exist).

vonrix wrote:I've tried to submit these ideas and others that I've had on other site pages/locations but the feedback form does not seems to be working. A few weeks ago, I submitted my first feedback through it and it worked just find and received an email confirmation and response but now after filling out the feedback form and pressing the submit button, no reaction happens. It just remands on the form page. No feedback submission is possible at this time.

Is that still the case? Sometimes I've seen problems, but they usually get fixed in a few days.

vonrix wrote:Would it be possible to uploads private images of them that only you could see and not the whole ward/stake etc. could see?

There's an "Edit" button next to your profile picture on the LDS.org Directory that allows you (or a clerk / bishopric member on your behalf) to set a privacy setting so the photo only shows for leaders. However, permission is still needed for photos to be uploaded, even if the photos will only be visible to leaders.

There's useful "return and report," and then there's entangling people in trivialities. The more people you have to go through to get something done, the less likely that it will ever happen.

If I want to know who home teaches me, or if I misplaced my assignment slip (and my ward has high turnover, therefore new HT assignments are frequent), 1) I don't WANT to put another thing on a quorum/group leader's to-do list, 2) they may not have any spare capacity at the moment at all (a *majority* of households in my ward have one or more adults in graduate or professional school!), and 3) if they do have the spare capacity, they could be spending it on better ministries than shuffling paper for me (compare Acts 6:2).

Yes, the structures and procedures of the Church should provide frequent contact between the leader and the led. But we could be wiser about what kinds of contact we promote. Not making personally relevant HT information available for self-service seems like hierarchy merely for hierarchy's sake, and when it interferes with establishing contact between the teacher and the teachee I don't think an additional leadership contact on a trivial subject is good compensation for it.

Personally, I would not have a problem asking a quorum/group counselor/assistant for an update on a home teaching assignment. That's part of their job description.

From earlier in the thread:

mevans wrote:You can use the "Feedback" link found at the bottom of most pages on lds.org to request the feature. It may not get you the feature, but the information you submit is reviewed.

and, regarding who makes the decisions regarding what features are available in the tools:

russellhltn wrote:Only if the Priesthood Department decides to do so.

I'm having difficulty phrasing this in a way that sounds as diplomatic as it should be phrased, but in addition to the 'Feedback' link, each of us does have a direct communication link to the Top Supervisor over the Priesthood Department.