Last year we were read a letter from the First Presidency in sacrament meeting, that we were no longer going to have files kept at the Temple, we must do the work we have reserved ourselves and collect the cards after they are recorded and whatever we can not personally do in a reasonable period of time, we must release to be done by others. It specifically said we are not allowed to stop patrons at the Temple and ask them to do our work. I'm pretty sure all Temples and Family History Consultants were given a copy of this notice. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karen Tippets" <sahara346@gmail.com> To: lds-ward-consultant@rootsweb.com Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 6:07:32 AM Subject: Re: [LDS-WC] New system at the temple Well, there is the fact that as far as I know, there are no temples that serve only 1 stake. Possibly: Helping others in your personal stake may help build a sense of unity within the stake, as you serve other stake members, as well as their deceased ancestors. (Don't know for sure what the motiviation is, because they're not doing it in our Temple District.) If there was any other way to do this within the stake, I'm not sure how to go about it, because no stake uses only one building, and it would require some serious pre-planning even within a ward building to be able to pick up the appropriate number of name cards on Sunday for attendance later in the week. What we are doing in the Winter Quarters Temple district: if we are doing an endowment session, we can turn in two additional names for others to do that day. (It means one has to get there early so that others can get the name turned in for the session we're on, or they'll return them if there were not enough patrons to do them. And yes, we do have some very small sessions occasionally. I do remember one that I was on that either everyone had their own name, or they were doing a name for a friend...because we ended up using no Temple file names, though.) It's useful when you have a single or widowed person who needs help with getting the opposite gender in their family done. It means that a person has to be actively doing some of their own Temple work...otherwise they can put names into Temple file and wait for them to go through the line up. It is, of course, easier for people who live close enough to the Temple to get there frequently to get more help on names they choose to keep for their own rather submission to Temple file. Our Temple does accept any number of baptism/confirmation, initiatory/sealings that you choose to turn in--but I suspect that is because they can get far more of any of those done in a single Temple visit, so that no one person would likely dominate the session with their own personal work. (Although we HAVE had people come in with a tall stack of sealings to do and expect to participate personally in each and every one, despite the fact that it would mean that some one else would have less opportunity to participate.) It seems that no matter which way they choose to do things, someone will not like it. I've noticed that Temple-submitted names are getting done much quicker in our area now that they're sending them to one's personal Temple district, but I'm sure that where there's a lot more name submission in larger districts, that may not be the case. (Certainly we get names in initiatory from ALL OVER the world, challenging our linguistic abilities to say a name, much less approximate the correct pronounciation...and yes we can always spell it. I just happen to personally feel that if I can approximate the pronounciation of a name for someone, it may make them feel more like they're not just "a name on the list." And yes, I do know that sometimes those on the Temple submitted names are there with us, no matter what the ordinance happens to be.) Karen On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 5:56 AM, Dave and Margaret <