New way to do temple recommends for living ordinances

Apparently the church is changing how temple recommends are done for living ordinances. Our bishop doesn't know what to do, and neither does the temple, and our child is stuck in the middle of this. Is the new process documented somewhere that's not top secret? I'm an assistant clerk and am able to see there's a link in LCR to "Start a New Endowment, Sealing, or Marriage," but I get Access Denied if I try it. Maybe I need to get the bishop to sign in and see if we can figure it out. I'm wondering if anyone out there has been through the new system, or if it's even functioning yet?

mevans wrote: Fri Sep 26, 2025 2:07 pm I'm an assistant clerk and am able to see there's a link in LCR to "Start a New Endowment, Sealing, or Marriage," but I get Access Denied if I try it.

A long shot, but have you tried using Incognito mode? Otherwise, I'd call support before they close for the weekend.

russellhltn wrote: Fri Sep 26, 2025 2:19 pm

mevans wrote: Fri Sep 26, 2025 2:07 pm I'm an assistant clerk and am able to see there's a link in LCR to "Start a New Endowment, Sealing, or Marriage," but I get Access Denied if I try it.

A long shot, but have you tried using Incognito mode? Otherwise, I'd call support before they close for the weekend.

I am in icognito mode...it's just habit now to try to make things work on the church site. I suspect I don't have permissions; maybe a full ward clerk does, or maybe it's a bishop-only thing.

I was at the temple yesterday and thought to inquire about this. It sounds like it's a program rolled out by temple district. Apparently it went live for us earlier this week. I guess our child had perfect timing to be caught in between the notification of the transition and the new system being available. I guess when going in for an interview, the bishop didn't yet have any way to issue a living ordinance recommend, but maybe he does as of a few days ago. We'll see how the new system works. There's no more paper for a living ordinance; it's all on the computer.

I'm a stake clerk and a bishop in my stake and my stake president can see new stuff, but I cannot see anything related to it. Really weird.

I just found this if it helps:

Ordinance Preparation System: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/too ... n?lang=eng

Members and leaders are now more involved in the process.

Nice find. Note:

The Ordinance Preparation online system allows bishops, branch presidents, stake presidents, and mission presidents to complete and track these tasks in Leader and Clerk Resources (LCR).

No mention of clerks or executive secretaries.

I sent a support request to ask if this was permanent as my ability activate a recommend for my Stake President helps keep tight schedules flowing and such and received the following:

For now this is considered permanent. Only the 3 stake presidency members can see the tool. 1 note about it are all they can do is monitor progress of what the ward is doing and mark that the Stake President did complete the his interview unless an application to the First Presidency is required then the Stake President can complete one more step. Not sure why access was arranged this way, but it is mostly only their for them to monitor if they want and check the box when the stake temple recommend interview is completed. Nothing else gets filled out though I understand that even that you probably do for your Stake President most of the time. If you want it to be different then all you can do for now is send feedback through LCR and hope they make such a change.

It wasn't that long ago that regular temple recommends had to be printed. Since bishops didn't typically have printers, it made sense to allow the clerk to print those out.

With the proliferation of Wi-Fi, personal devices, and basic computer knowledge, there's nothing preventing the stake president from doing it himself since the task is little more than checking the box.

You are absolutely correct. But there is also nothing preventing the stake president from doing pretty much everything else clerks and secretaries do for him. There are some things only he can do from a ministering standpoint, and there are other things that I can try to do for him from an administering standpoint. When he has hours of back to back interviews, him coming out of the door and giving me a thumbs up and I can check the box for him is much easier than him needing to log in, navigate to the page, find the person, find the box and check it (don't get distracted by the 30 texts that came in!!) and not delay the next interview. Or remember do enter it at the end of the interview session.

Again, I completely see the view that he can do it himself. That doesn't mean that I can't see my presidents exhausting schedule and wish I could do "little more than checking the box" on his behalf to make that day a little easier. I can fill out sensitive membership council information on his behalf, it just feels odd I can't check a box that says "interview complete" on his behalf too

barkeraj wrote: Sun Oct 05, 2025 1:05 pm.....That doesn't mean that I can't see my presidents exhausting schedule and wish I could do "little more than checking the box" on his behalf to make that day a little easier......

Agreed. Anything administrative a clerk/secretary can do, frees up the leader to do more ministering. And I wouldn't put too much credence into anything "authoritative" that the Support team says. My expectation is that they are just sharing either what they are told or just what they can see, without necessarily any deeper awareness about potential changes or enhancements. So even though I think it's really nice that they gave a pretty good response, I'd still imagine they're on the "outside" of any decision-making awareness. And it's possible that stake clerks were accidentally missed and actually should have been included in the access list, so Feedback might help give it a jolt.

I'm in a stake presidency meeting where we were discussing outgoing missionaries and had one we needed to look up where they were for going to the temple. My president didn't know if the member had been done at the ward level yet, and it is great that it is visible digitally... and I said wish I could look for him. I had to turn my laptop around with an incognito window and have him login so I could look it up for him to not slow down the meeting.

Just more info for those who may be watching for where a clerk can help a president administer.

My understanding is that the new tool is more involved than just the checkbox for regular recommends – it's more of a guided workflow that the bishop is intended to have up and work through with the member during the preparation interview(s).