Ministering Reporting

I got this from our ward's EQ Secretary:
"We noticed a little glitch in the ministering reporting when a brethren is paired with a sister. Whenever we mark a brother having had an interview, it also marks that the Sister has also been interviewed for the RS section. We noticed last night that Brother ----- had not been interview but had been marked. It was because his wife, Sister -------- had been marked on the RS side and it also marked the Brother on the EQ side. We tested this on some other couples and it did the same. We didn't know if this was known by the clerks, the Stake or been identified by the Church yet."

That is working correctly. The question being answered is "was the companionship interviewed?"

From question 21at https://www.lds.org/ministering/ministering-faq: "Elders quorum and Relief Society presidencies keep a record of the interviews they hold with ministering brothers and sisters. Leaders indicate the month interviews are held and who participated in them. They report a companionship as interviewed if at least one member of the companionship is interviewed during the quarter." (Emphasis mine)

Additionally, see Handbook 2, 9.5.4, (especially second paragraph) and Handbook 2, 7.4.4, (especially second paragraph).

Note the handbook addresses that both companions should preferably be interviewed together whether the interview is with the RS or with the EQ.

The EQ Secretary got back to me with a bit of clarification on this.

He says:
"The problem is that, as example, Brother and Sister Smith visit two sisters and Brother Smith and Peter Jones visit 5 different families. If Sister Smith is interviewed, then the Smith/Jones companionship is also marked as interviewed, even though she may have no knowledge of the 5 families they visited. This only works if the same companionship's visit the same people. Is my thinking correct here?"

The secretary has tested others like this and they all turned out the same.

OK. I have looked at your data and I see what is going on. The problem is that the Relief Society is entering the data incorrectly.

Brother Smith and Sister Smith are in a companionship and assigned to visit two sisters. Brother Smith and Brother Jones are in a separate companionship and are assigned to visit five families (not related to the two sisters).

When the Relief Society interviewed Sister Smith, they marked that they had visited with both Brother Smith and Sister Smith, but they didn't actually visit with Brother Smith. If you look at the Relief Society ministering assignments, you will see that both Brother and Sister Smith are marked as having been interviewed.

Because the Relief Society reported that Brother has been interviewed, that affects all companionships that he participates in. The answer to "has someone in the Smith/Jones companionship been interviewed" is yes because the Relief Society reported that Brother Smith has been interviewed.

If you remove the check mark indicating the Brother Smith has been interviewed, your issue will be resolved. It would probably be good to ask the Relief Society to only mark the sister if she is the one they interview.

Is a change being discussed? It seems to me that either the RS shouldn't be allowed to mark Brother Smith as interviewed, or at least that check mark shouldn't flow to EQ companionships. While there's a certain amount of appeal to having both EQ and RS ministering as a unified function, it seems like it would cause more problems then it solves.

There isn't a change being discussed that I am aware of. There are legitimate cases where the Relief Society would interview Brother and Sister Smith together and you would want the record to flow to the companionship that was created in the elders quorum. Blocking the Relief Society from recording an interview would have prevented the issue here, but it would also make things more difficult for units where the Relief Society and elders quorum are working together to interview mixed companionships.

There are other cases where the Relief Society only marked one member of a companionship as having been interviewed, so they understand the general concept. I'm not sure why they marked both members of this companionship as interviewed when they selectively marked interviews in other companionships.

scgallafent wrote:There are other cases where the Relief Society only marked one member of a companionship as having been interviewed, so they understand the general concept. I'm not sure why they marked both members of this companionship as interviewed when they selectively marked interviews in other companionships.

Quite possibly, in those cases the RS only interviewed the sister. But for this particular companionship, they interviewed with both of them.

scgallafent wrote:There isn't a change being discussed that I am aware of. There are legitimate cases where the Relief Society would interview Brother and Sister Smith together and you would want the record to flow to the companionship that was created in the elders quorum. Blocking the Relief Society from recording an interview would have prevented the issue here, but it would also make things more difficult for units where the Relief Society and elders quorum are working together to interview mixed companionships.

Yes, I see where "A married couple assigned to minister together can meet with elders quorum leaders, Relief Society leaders, or both."

However, when the RS interviewed Brother Smith, it shouldn't have flowed to his other companionship in the EQ. Likewise, if EQ interviews Sister Smith, it shouldn't flow to another companionship she might have in RS. If the answer is that RS shouldn't have recorded their interview with Brother Smith, then they shouldn't have been able to check that box. I'm of the belief that it's easier to teach computers than people. More so when we're dealing with volunteers with significant turnover. I'd think some kind of change is warranted.

Since a married couple may meet with just the elders quorum or Relief Society, both organizations need to be able to record an interview with either member of the companionship. Blocking the Relief Society from recording an interview with Brother Smith forces them to ask the elders quorum to record the interview for the brother in the companionship if they have taken on the responsibility of holding a ministering interview with Brother Smith.

russellhltn wrote:If the answer is that RS shouldn't have recorded their interview with Brother Smith...

I based my response on this statement in the follow-up message:

If Sister Smith is interviewed, then the Smith/Jones companionship is also marked as interviewed, even though she may have no knowledge of the 5 families they visited.

It doesn't sound to me like the Relief Society interviewed the husband in the companionship.

The original design supposes that in a ministering interview with Sister Smith, there will be a discussion about all of her companionships. As a result, the interview is associated with the member, not the companionship. I know a guy and I'll see what he thinks. As always, feedback gets it logged in the appropriate place.

I do know that the business rules were developed well above the developers, so that is also where a recommendation for a change to those rules would need to go to consider a change.

scgallafent wrote:I based my response on this statement in the follow-up message:

If Sister Smith is interviewed, then the Smith/Jones companionship is also marked as interviewed, even though she may have no knowledge of the 5 families they visited.

It doesn't sound to me like the Relief Society interviewed the husband in the companionship.

Ok, I missed that. But based on your response, had they interviewed both, we'd still have a problem.

scgallafent wrote:The original design supposes that in a ministering interview with Sister Smith, there will be a discussion about all of her companionships.

Normally, I'd say that's a valid assumption. (But you know what they say about "assume".) But maybe not so good in the case of cross EQ/RS interviewing. Perhaps a pop-up asking about the other assignment would be appropriate.

However.... re-reading the Handbook "A married couple assigned to minister together can meet with elders quorum leaders, Relief Society leaders, or both." I'm not seeing anything that suggests that it's acceptable for the RS to interview an all-elder companionship. So, it seems like flagging the Brother Smith/Brother Jones companionship based on a RS interview is a bit iffy from a policy standpoint. It most certainly wouldn't be allowed if Brother Smith wasn't also in a companionship with his wife.

This should make for a fun conversation.

I've been asked to call partnerships for the quarterly interviews. Why is there no action report available for this activity? What I perceive as necessary to adequately perform interviews is a report that would include the following columns, Ministering Bros., their phone #s, assigned families, Interview date, Interview time. This report would be used to create interviews for quorum leadership.

The ministering assignments report contains ministering brothers with their phone number and email address and all of their assigned families. LCR does not store the interview date and time, so that isn't available to be printed on a report.

Our Relief Society Ministering Report function for reporting the Ministering Interviews completed in the Previous Quarter (i.e. October-December 2018) is not allowing me to enter the Ministering Interviews, for that time period, for the "Current Assignments". Note that the Relief Society also has Proposed Assignments to be implemented later in January 2019. Any suggestions?

There was a problem with the Previous Quarter selection not rendering the page as discussed in the Past Quarter no loading thread. That function is now working. You may want to try again.

new and trying to enter ministering interviews (after the ward clerk (IT support) has gone quiet. How do I get to the actual page where I "click" the interviews as being done? We did this in training....but flying solo...

trinarae wrote:new and trying to enter ministering interviews (after the ward clerk (IT support) has gone quiet. How do I get to the actual page where I "click" the interviews as being done? We did this in training....but flying solo...

Here are two ways:
In the LDS Tools app on your mobile device, go to the Reports section, then to either the Ministering Brothers or Ministering Sisters section. Here you can tap the checkbox/circle for the interview completed. **Note: This only works for the current quarter.

Online in Leader and Clerk Resources (LCR.lds.org), go to the Ministering menu, select your organizations Current Assignments. Here you can click in the circles next to the names that are interviewed. For the Previous Quarter, select the drop-down menu that says "Current Quarter" and select "Previous Quarter".

I need to sort the Relief Society Ministering report alphabetically. How can I do this?

chfrancom wrote:I need to sort the Relief Society Ministering report alphabetically. How can I do this?

Click on the title of the column (Name) to sort or reverse sort the list. I don't think there are any other sort options in the ministering report, but perhaps someone else with different experience will chime in.

nmecantwin73 wrote:

trinarae wrote:new and trying to enter ministering interviews (after the ward clerk (IT support) has gone quiet. How do I get to the actual page where I "click" the interviews as being done? We did this in training....but flying solo...

Here are two ways:
In the LDS Tools app on your mobile device, go to the Reports section, then to either the Ministering Brothers or Ministering Sisters section. Here you can tap the checkbox/circle for the interview completed. **Note: This only works for the current quarter.

Online in Leader and Clerk Resources (LCR.lds.org), go to the Ministering menu, select your organizations Current Assignments. Here you can click in the circles next to the names that are interviewed. For the Previous Quarter, select the drop-down menu that says "Current Quarter" and select "Previous Quarter".

Is a Stake Clerk able to select prior quarters on the assignments? We would like to see a summarized report showing % of interviews completed for Ministering Brothers & Ministering Sisters, by unit, for multiple quarters. Does that functionality exist. I cannot find this reporting on LCR.

Companionship data is only maintained for the previous and current quarter, so you will not be able to do that using the ministering reports. You can get the interview percentage for prior quarters from the quarterly report.

Do we have to submit a report of completed ministering interviews? If so, how is that done? Or do we just need to record which interviews were done?

If you record the interviews in the software, the data will be transferred to the quarterly report automatically.

What if I interview someone who didn’t do any ministering for the quarter? Do I mark the box to the left of the name to show they were interviewed? I just want it show that the sister or companionship was interviewed, even though no circles will be checked for any of the months that quarter.

The circle should be checked for the month or months you interview a member of a companionship. For reporting purposes we are tracking interviews, not ministering visits or other efforts by those assigned to minister.

I’m the stake clerk and a RS Presidency counselor asked me this question. She has interviewed everyone in her district this month so those companionships will be marked as being interviewed for the quarter. Now they are planning on redoing companionships this month. Since there will be new companionships will they all need to be interviewed again for credit this quarter? Or since the individual sisters were marked as interviewed in Oct, will it carry over and whatever new companionship they end up in will it automatically show as being interviewed for the quarter?

That's a great question I hadn't considered, Looking at the ministering interviews, although they are reported by companionship, they are marked individually and not by companionship. So I expect when you re-do companionships, the interview status transfers along with the member, and isn't "lost".

If you hit at least one member of every companionship with interviews in October (100%!!), and then re-do companionships in November, you could end up with a companionship where neither companion was interviewed in October (now less than 100%). But that's helpful in alerting the Presidency that this needs to be done, which is nice.

Also, I went to our most-recent Quarterly Report and clicked on the numbers for the ministering interviews. Here's the blurb that is shown at the top of that page, it doesn't answer your specific question but is informative:

This is a view of ministering assignments as they existed at the end of the previous quarter. The status of interviews can be modified and will be used to populate the Quarterly Report. If additional interviews are recorded after the clerk submits the Quarterly Report, please let him know so he can resubmit the report.

We have ministering interviews that were not recorded correctly before the Quarterly Report was submitted. The statement above suggests the report can be re-submitted. What is the process for re-submitting the Quarterly Report?

bjenks wrote: Thu Feb 17, 2022 4:43 pm We have ministering interviews that were not recorded correctly before the Quarterly Report was submitted. The statement above suggests the report can be re-submitted. What is the process for re-submitting the Quarterly Report?

Just record the interviews, and then let the ward clerk know. He should be aware of how to resubmit the quarterly report. If he doesn't, have him just log into LCR and look at it, it will talk him through resubmitting it.