Temple Recommend Interview Dscussion

[Anonymous]

I think young people are accepting of the intrusion as well, Ann. I think that even if they are put off or shocked by the questions, they feel like they have to answer because they want a temple recommend or they want to go on a mission or whatever and if they don’t answer (or answer in the wrong way) they don’t get what they want. And even though the TR questions are standard and the instructions not to go off script are explicit, we all know going off script happens (with some alarming frequency, actually).

When my son was doing his stuff to go on his mission I looked and asked around for the mission interview questions. Turns out there aren’t any, and the instruction is rather vague – and gives lots of leeway. I am fortunate to have a bishop and SP who think that if the TR questions are a good standard of worthiness, then they should work for missionaries too and they didn’t really stray from them. I think I may be in the minority.

[Anonymous]

I got to looking. There’s a whole section in handbook 1 that deals with interviews for potential missionaries, it’s a few pages long. 4.5 Ensuring Worthies and Ability to Serve. While there’s no specified list of questions to ask the section certainly suggests to me that the qualifications to serve a mission are much more stringent than they are for obtaining a TR.

Here’s one small section:

4.5.1 Interviews wrote:

The bishop and stake president conduct thorough, searching interviews with each missionary candidate. If the bishop and stake president have concerns about whether a person is able or worthy to serve a mission, they counsel together and discuss the concerns with the individual and his or her parents. This will help avoid the negative feelings that can result if a recommendation is returned or a missionary is sent home for failure to meet these standards.

The missionary interview also attempts to assess physical, mental, and emotional well being.

I could see how a BP or SP would feel the need to ask several probing questions to make sure a missionary candidate meets all the additional requirements. Maybe this is how additional questions have bled into the TR interview process. A BP or SP conducts a few missionary interviews then forgets that TR interviews shouldn’t be as probing. The lines between the two interview types blurred. As always, just guessing.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

I got to looking. There’s a whole section in handbook 1 that deals with interviews for potential missionaries, it’s a few pages long. 4.5 Ensuring Worthies and Ability to Serve. While there’s no specified list of questions to ask the section certainly suggests to me that the qualifications to serve a mission are much more stringent than they are for obtaining a TR.

Here’s one small section:

4.5.1 Interviews wrote:

The bishop and stake president conduct thorough, searching interviews with each missionary candidate. If the bishop and stake president have concerns about whether a person is able or worthy to serve a mission, they counsel together and discuss the concerns with the individual and his or her parents. This will help avoid the negative feelings that can result if a recommendation is returned or a missionary is sent home for failure to meet these standards.

The missionary interview also attempts to assess physical, mental, and emotional well being.

I could see how a BP or SP would feel the need to ask several probing questions to make sure a missionary candidate meets all the additional requirements. Maybe this is how additional questions have bled into the TR interview process. A BP or SP conducts a few missionary interviews then forgets that TR interviews shouldn’t be as probing. The lines between the two interview types blurred. As always, just guessing.

I do agree that it is a bad when a missionary comes home early. So I would hope they have this as a bit of a gate, but it seems like it is focused mainly on sins as opposed to having a balance of social skills and emotionally resilient in the person.

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