Child blessed in another unit and there is no paperwork. What do I do?

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jaredwool
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Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2011 10:08 pm

Child blessed in another unit and there is no paperwork. What do I do?

#1

Post by jaredwool »

[INDENT]I'm in a married student ward and have had several families bless their new children in their home wards where their parents live. Several of them have come to me months later and say they never got any paperwork from that clerk. They contacted the clerk in the other unit and confirmed that the paper work was never completed. What is the proper procedure for me to create a child record? Do I contact the clerks in the other wards and have them complete the paperwork according to the manual print the certificate, have the other bishop sign it and send it back to me even though it occured months ago? Or do we need to perform the ordinance again in this ward? [/INDENT]
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aebrown
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Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Draper, Utah

#2

Post by aebrown »

jaredwool wrote:I'm in a married student ward and have had several families bless their new children in their home wards where their parents live. Several of them have come to me months later and say they never got any paperwork from that clerk. They contacted the clerk in the other unit and confirmed that the paper work was never completed. What is the proper procedure for me to create a child record? Do I contact the clerks in the other wards and have them complete the paperwork according to the manual print the certificate, have the other bishop sign it and send it back to me even though it occured months ago? Or do we need to perform the ordinance again in this ward?

The correct procedure is not for the other ward to simply print the certificate, but for the other ward to actually create the record, specifying the home ward unit number and record number for the head of household. See "Blessing a child from another ward in the MLS Software Manual, page 11. If that is done properly, then the newly created record will appear in your ward. So the first option should be to contact the ward where the ordinance was performed and kindly request that they follow through. That would include them preparing a certificate, the bishop who presided over the ordinance signing it, and then sending it to you.

However, if those other wards do not follow through, it seems reasonable for you to create the record in your ward. A child blessing is not a saving ordinance, so there is no need to perform the ordinance again. A child blessing doesn't get recorded on the actual membership record anyway, and so a record of it will not move with the record from ward to ward.

You can create a new record in MLS by going to Membership > New Child of Record and create the record. Under the Ordinances tab, you can add the blessing ordinance if desired. If the parents don't want a blessing certificate, you can skip this step. But if they do, you can record the blessing and then print the certificate, listing your ward and stake. The important information is who performed the ordinance. The certificate doesn't actually say that the ordinance was performed in that ward and stake, so your bishop can sign it.

The most important thing is to make sure that the child becomes a child of record. Recording the blessing and printing the certificate is secondary and rather unimportant in an eternal sense, although you should certainly be sensitive and respectful to the desires of the parents to get a certificate.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
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