Electronic Missionary Meals Calendar

Hi all,

Has anyone successfully introduced an electronic calendar for tracking missionary meal appointments? Our Bishop asked me to look into a shared Google Calendar but that would limit participation to those with Gmail accounts. An LDS.org calendar would be ideal but I do not know how to allow access to the missionaries in our ward (who do not have a dedicated Ward account to give permissions to edit). There are Pros and Cons to both the Gmail or the LDS.org calendar. Certainly the LDS.org calendar us preferable but having the missionaries be able to edit their own meal calendar is a key requirement. Thanks

Could you use a Google Spreadsheet with 7 columns and 5 rows? The sharing settings could be set such that anyone with the link can edit (without having to have a Google account).

markstahler, I’m a little late to your post, but you could try MissionaryDinnerCalendar.com
Quite a few wards and branches use it to schedule and track missionary dinner appointments.

jds580s wrote:markstahler, I’m a little late to your post, but you could try MissionaryDinnerCalendar.com
Quite a few wards and branches use it to schedule and track missionary dinner appointments.

Hi Justin, I actually found your website and we did try and give this a go in our unit but unfortunately we found that the website URL was blocked on our missionaries personal devices. I do not know who manages the missionaries whitelist/blacklist so we are still using a paper calendar for the time being.

With missionaries no longer able to visit homes because of Covid-19, we are dropping off meals. Would be great to get an online sign up that is not blocked by missionary devices.

ChristianSoldier wrote:With missionaries no longer able to visit homes because of Covid-19, we are dropping off meals. Would be great to get an online sign up that is not blocked by missionary devices.

Unfortunately the path forward we have chosen is for someone to send the Missionaries screenshots of the website. Far from ideal but the best we have come up with.

Anybody know where we can make a request to try and whitelist this URL?

Our ward is also struggling with this, especially during COVID.

If anyone in LDS Tech is monitoring this, can you please let us know if there is a way to set up a shared calendar using the ward missionaries area email accessible on their phones? Google calendars seems to be blocked as an app available for download and URLs to Google calendars are blacklisted.

I'm told by the Elders that in their last area the WML had figured out a way to book appointments into their calendar. If I get any info on this, will post.

We have this need as well. It would make it easier for us to feed the Missionaries if we could quickly coordinate the schedule of Missionary meals. Any update on this?

Same as above.

This seems like an easy fix and one that should be looked at.

The developers work at the direction of church leaders. A department, such as the missionary department, would have to want this to happen.

Skimming the Handbook, I can't see where "Missionary Meals" are an official part of the church program.

As such, I think it unlikely we will see a calendar solution come from SLC.

The handbook also doesn't require the members to maintain electronic communication, but we have the Gospel Living app (great job by the way) .

For the great majority of wards & branches that do feed their missionaries, would it be possible to add a community calendar that could be used to coordinate feeding the missionaries?

JamesWebb wrote:For the great majority of wards & branches that do feed their missionaries, would it be possible to add a community calendar that could be used to coordinate feeding the missionaries?

I doubt a calendar would be added to the Gospel Living app since there is a calendar already available on the main church site. - Just my opinion based on past information regarding duplicating current app features. I know that calendar does not fill the need in feeding missionaries and so we are left to other local solutions.

I just started using the online Calendar for this purpose. I have them scheduled under the Ward Mission calendar. This is great for Ward members but the Missionaries are telling me they don't have access and the receive transfer every six weeks, so I have been trying to relay the information to them by text message or email.