Membership Audit Issue

I have a member who's name comes up as an audit exception that says "A person should not be sealed to a spouse before being a member of the church for a year." Another exception for the same person says, "The date of the members sealing should not be earlier than the Melchizedek Priesthood ordination date." I have contacted the member and he say's that he received permission from the First Presidency to receive his endowments and be sealed to his wife earlier than his one year anniversary date. Also his membership record does not show his ordination as an Elder, only his Ordination as a Seventy and a High Priest. He doesn't remember his Elder ordination date and can not find his ordination certificates. This came up on two audits in a row that I am aware of. Any ideas on how to address both issue's?

Thanks

pvtmathis wrote:Any ideas on how to address both issue's?

I would make a note of the answers somewhere and then ignore the audit exceptions when they come up each year or more often during the membership audit. I do not think there is any way to record the exceptions and get them cleared in a way that will cause the audit not to flag them each time. It is a limitation of the audit software.

I thought there was a flag somewhere that would prevent that from coming up. I'd contact Local Unit Support to see what they have to say.

In MLS there used to be a flag, but it has been missing for sometime now.

This means that the exception has not properly been recorded on the membership record. You should review section 16.1.10 of Handbook 1. There are instructions there for what to do when an ordinance has not been properly recorded and what to do when First Presidency ratification is needed for an ordinance. Rather than run into this issue on every audit, it would be better to do the research needed and have the recorded updated.

scgallafent wrote:Rather than run into this issue on every audit, it would be better to do the research needed and have the record updated.

The member had to give the temple the letter authorizing the early temple ordinance. How should the clerk take care of that one? MLS message requesting Headquarters update? Or Letter from stake president to First Presidency?

Or in this case would it be better to that he be ordained an elder again (assuming no record is found) and then a letter from stake president to First Presidency to have everything ratified all at once?

To tag onto lajackson's questions - how is it confirmed that there's a First Presidency exception? Is it sufficient to contact LUS and they'll check into it?

I would sort out the elder ordination (performing it again, if necessary) and then have the stake president write the Office of the First Presidency so that they can take care of all of the details at once.

The exception isn't recorded on the membership record (that's why it is showing up on the audit), so local unit support would need to contact the First Presidency to resolve it.

"A person should not be sealed to a spouse before being a member of the Church for a year." Sounds like we just let these be exceptions year after year, right? I assume we can still submit our audit without resolving this exception?

bkroff wrote:"A person should not be sealed to a spouse before being a member of the Church for a year." Sounds like we just let these be exceptions year after year, right? I assume we can still submit our audit without resolving this exception?

I think you have to submit a request for exception to the First Presidency. Once that's been granted, the exception will go away.

bkroff wrote:Sounds like we just let these be exceptions year after year, right? I assume we can still submit our audit without resolving this exception?

Yes, you can submit the audit without resolving the exception, and you will probably need to do so. But unless you want the exception to continue appearing every year, you should also take steps to resolve the exception.

Ordinances received out of sequence or before the appropriate date are not valid. Your stake president should submit a request to the First Presidency to have the ordinance ratified. Instructions are in Handbook 1, 16.1.10.

scgallafent wrote:Ordinances received out of sequence or before the appropriate date are not valid.

That's assuming the date on record is correct. So, there's always the possibility of a clerical error. If these were events were a very long time ago (another thread referred to events from the 50's and 60's), it's possible there was an error transferring the paper records to the computerized system.

russellhltn wrote:. . . it's possible there was an error transferring the paper records to the computerized system.

It is possible. Then again, you would be surprised at the information we found on the paper records as we were trying to convert them to the digital system in the 1970s.