Relief Society Counselors in Latest MLS

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
lajackson
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#11

Post by lajackson »

Greggo wrote:My guess is that the people who put together the standard callings in MLS got it wrong.
This would be a correct guess, according to the latest Church Handbook of Instructions.

If MLS 3.1 requires the identification of a counselor by function, rather than as 1st or 2nd Counselor, in order to get them onto the List of Officers Sustained in the proper order, this is a bug in MLS that should be reported.
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terrysackett
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#12

Post by terrysackett »

Thank you for the clarification. I think that I worded key points of my inquiry in a way that did not make clear the reason I was asking these things.

By "notification", I remember when we received a memo that the position of Teacher Improvement Coordinator was being eliminated (even though it is still listed on the LUWS), for one example. I also know that the wards in my stake have several Relief Society callings that are not amongst the standardized callings in MLS 3. Furthermore, MLS 3.0 also used the calling of "den mother" which was discontinued by BSA in 1981, and it does not have any assistant den leaders, even though BSA and the Church require two-deep leadership. Finally, I was aware of the point that you brought up in your response about the alteration of the title of HFPE, and I had that in mind as well. Those experiences caused me to question the infallibility of MLS, and I merely wondered if there would be some confirmation of the change. However, I have now been duly chastised, and I will not question MLS again.

I also now know better than to ask if changes will be made to the format of the LUWS to reflect the change of the counselors' titles, but I will of course comply within my sphere of control and make the necessary alterations to the white board in the bishop's office, all of my minutes and agenda forms, etc.
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terrysackett
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#13

Post by terrysackett »

jbh001 wrote:I guess, technically, one could say that memo went out at least as far back as 1998 when the most recent version of CHI book 2 was released (see page 197 of CHI book 2). Thus one could also take the view that MLS 3.0 finally caught up with or clarified that "memo".

But to be fair, not all church materials have yet been updated accordingly.
http://www.lds.org/pa/display/0,17884,8004-1,00.html#13

I probably need to get a more recent copy of the 1998 edition of the CHI, Book 2, because mine says:

"The ward Relief Society president assigns one of her counselors responsibility for education."

and

"The ward Relief Society president assigns one of her counselors responsibility for education."

(Emphasis added.)

However, I can't find where it refers to these positions by these names.
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terrysackett
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#14

Post by terrysackett »

topsgtret wrote:My wife is the Stake Relief Society President and fielded this question enough to contact the General Relief Society office and was told the Relief Society follows the pattern of the priesthood and use 1st and 2nd Counselor. This is also found under Serving in the Church, Relief Society, FAQ.
Relief Society Meetings
  • What do we call the counselor who is responsible for additional Relief Society meetings?
    We encourage you to follow the pattern of the priesthood and call the counselors “first counselor” and “second counselor.” The Relief Society president can assess the work of Relief Society and delegate assignments and responsibilities to each counselor as needed.
Hopefully the MLS team will honor the wishes of the General Presidency.

The feeling I got is that MLS is the absolute authority, and policy and revelation need to be adjusted to conform to it.
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terrysackett
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#15

Post by terrysackett »

I'm going to be really messed up when the elders quorum president's counselors become the redeeming the dead counselor, the perfecting the saints counselor, and/or the proclaiming the gospel counselor!
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Mikerowaved
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#16

Post by Mikerowaved »

Folks, lets not beat up the MLS team too badly here. Every change must go through the normal "hoops" of development, testing, and approval (in ALL the various languages), and simply put, takes time. I'm sure they had MLS 3.1 well into the later stages of development when they found out they needed to return to the traditional titles for the RS presidency. We needn't criticize them because these new policies are not immediately available in MLS. I'm sure they are working on it and will address this in a not-so-distant update.
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lajackson
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#17

Post by lajackson »

SR Ward Clerk wrote:The feeling I got is that MLS is the absolute authority, and policy and revelation need to be adjusted to conform to it.

No, no, no. [Insert favorite smiley here.]

The MLS team works as hard as they can to get things right, but they do not always have the experience of someone who has lived and breathed the Church Handbook of Instructions for 35 years and read every letter or policy statement that originated from Church Headquarters.

They do the best they can according to the knowledge they have, and they do a pretty good job of it, in my opinion, considering the constraints under which they have to work.

But, while MLS is not "scripture", there is some "conforming" that has to be done because, quite frankly, these computers do exactly as they were programmed to do and, since programmers are still mortal and imperfect (last I checked), there will be a glitch or two that will still need to be resolved.

But that "conforming" is a computer thing, not a revelatory thing. I think you can still count on most revelations being announced by the First Presidency, and not in MLS release notes.

And the rest is just administrative stuff which, admittedly, makes for fun conversation from time to time. [grin]
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aebrown
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#18

Post by aebrown »

Alan_Brown wrote:MLS 3.0 introduced a whole set of standard callings, and for RS the standardized counselor callings are called "Relief Society Education Counselor" and "Relief Society Home, Family, Personal Enrichment Counselor".
...
There was indeed a notification to the wards of the titles of the counselors -- with MLS 3.0 came plenty of notice that wards were to use standard calling names.
lajackson wrote:But, while MLS is not "scripture", there is some "conforming" that has to be done because, quite frankly, these computers do exactly as they were programmed to do and, since programmers are still mortal and imperfect (last I checked), there will be a glitch or two that will still need to be resolved.
I just want to clarify that in my post that I link to above, when I said there was notification of the change to the titles of counselors, I was referring only to what they were in MLS.

I did not mean to imply that this was an official change for the Officers Sustained Form, or how such counselors are sustained in meetings or set apart, or anything like that. Lajackson is entirely correct that there has been no change on the official titles, and such a change would indeed come through channels other than an MLS software update.
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childsdj
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#19

Post by childsdj »

This is being worked on to accommodate changes announced during the last General Relief Society meetings. It will be in one of the next releases of MLS. There will also be a slight change to the Primary class names in MLS in one of the next releases as announced by the Primary.
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#20

Post by greggo »

DJC wrote:This is being worked on to accommodate changes announced during the last General Relief Society meetings. It will be in one of the next releases of MLS. There will also be a slight change to the Primary class names in MLS in one of the next releases as announced by the Primary.

What about changes to YM/Scout leader positions, or have these already been updated?
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