Endowed members without recommends

We have a couple that are listed as not having a current recommend, when in fact they do. They recieved their current recommends in Europe before they came home from their missions. I am searching for a way to correct that record.

gregg wrote:We have a couple that are listed as not having a current recommend, when in fact they do. They recieved their current recommends in Europe before they came home from their missions. I am searching for a way to correct that record.

I assume your stake uses bar coded recommends. So you need to determine if the couple has bar coded recommends. If so, it may well be that the recommend was not activated in Europe. In that case, all you need to do is to activate the recommend (if you are at the ward level, you'll have to ask your stake clerk to help you with that). If they don't have bar coded recommends (some places in Europe may not have switched over yet), then they need to be issued new bar coded recommends.

I have a similar situation in my ward. One member was issued a bar coded recommend which he has used at the temple. However, the ward MLS reports it as expired. We have not been able to resolve this. Thoughts.

macsense wrote:I have a similar situation in my ward. One member was issued a bar coded recommend which he has used at the temple. However, the ward MLS reports it as expired. We have not been able to resolve this. Thoughts.

Check the expiration date, then get with the stake clerk. He can ask a member of the stake presidency to go online and see the real status of the recommend.

Then follow up with the help desk if the ward MLS does not update to match the TES.

Here's another thought based on my understanding. Actual records don't transfer across regions. Copies are created and sent to regional offices. It may therefore be the case that the recommend was activated in Europe but associated with a copy of the members' records. When they came back to the USA, this detail may have been overlooked.

If that is the case, the simplest fix would be to just have the stake clerk reactivate the recommend again here, thereby adding the information to the copy of their records in this region.

crislapi wrote:Here's another thought based on my understanding. Actual records don't transfer across regions. Copies are created and sent to regional offices. It may therefore be the case that the recommend was activated in Europe but associated with a copy of the members' records. When they came back to the USA, this detail may have been overlooked.

If that is the case, the simplest fix would be to just have the stake clerk reactivate the recommend again here, thereby adding the information to the copy of their records in this region.

The scenario spoke of a couple that "came home from their missions." That seems to imply that their records would have remained in their home ward (as is the case for all full-time missionaries, as far as I know). So it should just be a simple case of activation.

I know for certain that recommends can be activated in Europe that are then reflected on the membership records in the home ward -- in our stake we often see recommends being activated in various missions throughout the world for missionaries serving from our stake.

Good point. But then again, if they were on missions in Europe, then their records remained here in their home ward. There is no way the stake in Europe could activate the recommends. You can only activate recommends for those whose records reside in your stake. As usual, Alan has hit it on the head. It's a case of activation. They couldn't activate it in Europe so you have to activate them here.

As an after thought, that's an interesting problem. How do missionaries get their recommends activated now? The mission president can obviously still issue them, but they have no way of activating them...

Alan_Brown wrote:The scenario spoke of a couple that "came home from their missions." That seems to imply that their records would have remained in their home ward (as is the case for all full-time missionaries, as far as I know). So it should just be a simple case of activation.

I know for certain that recommends can be activated in Europe that are then reflected on the membership records in the home ward -- in our stake we often see recommends being activated in various missions throughout the world for missionaries serving from our stake.

Good point. If they were on missions in Europe, then their records remained here in their home ward. There is therefore no way the stake (or mission, I suppose) in Europe could activate the recommends. You can only activate recommends for those whose records reside in your stake. As usual, Alan has hit it on the head. It's a case of activation. They couldn't activate it in Europe so you have to activate them here.

As an after thought, that's an interesting problem. How do missionaries get their recommends activated now? The mission president can obviously still issue them, but they have no way of activating them. I wonder if the ones you've seen activated all over the world were activated by the temples - which can activate any recommend I believe (not limited to those in their district).

crislapi wrote:Good point. If they were on missions in Europe, then their records remained here in their home ward. There is therefore no way the stake (or mission, I suppose) in Europe could activate the recommends. You can only activate recommends for those whose records reside in your stake. As usual, Alan has hit it on the head. It's a case of activation. They couldn't activate it in Europe so you have to activate them here.

As an after thought, that's an interesting problem. How do missionaries get their recommends activated now? The mission president can obviously still issue them, but they have no way of activating them. I wonder if the ones you've seen activated all over the world were activated by the temples - which can activate any recommend I believe (not limited to those in their district).

Well, I don't know exactly how it happens, but recommends do indeed get activated by missions in Europe (and elsewhere) even though the membership records remain in our stake. Typically it's near the end of the mission, and we just see an activation come through on our stake Activation Report, and the stake/mission column lists the name of the mission. It's not the name of a temple -- some of the missions that I recall don't even have a temple inside the mission.

All I can guess is that missions have been given the authority (and ability) to activate recommends for missionaries serving in their mission, even though the missionaries' records remain in their home wards.

gregg wrote:We have a couple that are listed as not having a current recommend, when in fact they do. They recieved their current recommends in Europe before they came home from their missions. I am searching for a way to correct that record.

Keep in mind also that, at least for the younger missionaries, mission presidents issue recommends with an issue date so that they will expire within 60-90 days. This may have happened to this couple, as well.

Otherwise, as has been mentioned, the stake clerk or a member of the presidency can activate the recommend if it is still valid.

As Alan said, a mission can also activate a recommend. Our returning missionaries from around the world have been coming home with activated recommends. MLS shows that they were activated by the mission.