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I can’t give details behind this question, but… Has anyone known of a stake president allowing records to be moved to a new stake if a family hasn’t moved to the new stake area?
Who gives the approval?
The outgoing SP or the incoming SP?
Or can a bishop just pull the records in on his own?
If records cannot be moved, what support can be offered to a family who will no longer attend their home ward/stake and who wish to worship elsewhere?
I heard of cases where an inactive family with children who were in college had the records moved to where the children were going to school. (That is a complicated sentence.) I don’t believe anyone had to give approval because the address changed.
Another example maybe where the stake boundaries changed & records moved.
From your post it sounds like the records of the entire family moved to a different stake without a request, notification, approval or boundary
change. Is that right?
By the handbook moving records to a new ward/stake when the individual doesn’t actually live there has to be approved by the FP. I have known of cases within a stake where such approval has been granted and I believe that’s contingent on the SP recommending (or not recommending) it. I think it’s much trickier between stakes and is generally not done, although it could work the same as it does within a stake as long as both SPs agree. In my own stake, as a new SP our SP approved a couple such moves without FP approval, then got the boom lowered on him. He doesn’t do it at all now. I do know one of those cases where the individual lives in another stake but comes to my ward and her records are here. They didn’t make him change the ones he’d approved.
I think if your SP or SPs are playing by the rules, and most of them tend to be more strict obedience types, what you describe is not possible without FP approval.
My own opinion on the subject is that it’s a silly policy and it only matters if the moving individual wants a TR. They can’t otherwise prevent you from going wherever you want, but you won’t have a calling, won’t pray or speak, etc. – some of us consider that a bonus.
Quite a few years ago we sought permission to attend a different ward within the same stake. Our SP said “no” officially but that if we could work something out unofficially then that would be ok. I suspect that this would be the case you would also face here. Barring some fairly extreme circumstances, you could attend the desired ward and stake as long term visitors but you would not have your records there.
There’s some info relevant to this thread here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7183viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7183” class=”bbcode_url”> From Handbook 1:
CHI 1, Section 13.6 wrote:
Membership Records…
Membership records are to be kept in the ward where the member lives. Exceptions, which should be few, require the consent of the bishops and stake president(s) involved and the approval of the Office of the First Presidency. To request an exception, the stake president(s) sends a letter to the Office of the First Presidency for approval.
…
Q: Who gives the approval?A: The SP and BP of the ward that they belong to and the SP and BP of ward they’d like to attend. After those four people are all on board they submit a request to the Office of the First Presidency.
I can’t imagine an actual member of the FP gets involved, but someone from the Office of the First Presidency does have to approve for the records to be transferred officially.
If they’re not concerned with the records they can simply start attending elsewhere, but as others have pointed out, they’ll have limited privileges in their adopted ward.
I have some experience with this. My “LDS Home” is outside of the Stake, in a Ward that is more working class (which is the type of people I get along with best). I try to go there every month but there are often time that I miss for one reason or another. Out of all the places I go, the LDS Ward doesn’t really miss me as I am pretty much a ghost there. It has it’s advantages, I can go as a consumer instead of being in management with a calling. It’s a bad way of looking at it, but in my current state I cannot handle any more. With all of that said, this rule should be more flexible, especially for those who have had unfair trauma like myself. I would never dream of asking to have my records moved, but it makes a lot of sense in my case. I’ve been physically and verbal abused in my Ward and I was threatened with Bishop’s Court (wrongfully) at another local Ward. Sometimes you need a fresh start. The house can be in order and still solve problems that impact the needs of the people.
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