This is something similar to my ward member's situation, except it's her grandmother, and we haven't been able to locate the person who cleared the grandmother's name for temple work. Whoever it is, probably is related to one of her husbands, but is NOT doing the work. It's been cleared for a year now, and nothing has been done, and we've tried several things--including writing to the Church Membership Office to try to identify JSBerry (whoever it is) to see if they'll release the name for Katherine to do her grandmother's work. Katherine will be going to get her own endowment done in a month and a half, and would love to seal her mother to her grandmother & grandfather--but that will have to be on hold until we can come up with another way around the situation. I know there was talk of having areas that are relatively close to a temple (US, Canada, maybe Britain) be able to keep a name cleared for only a couple years without progress being made on it and then opening it up again. I hope they do that. If JSBerry, whoever it is, has passed away, then Katherine's grandparents will sit in limbo for who knows how long--til the millenium? While she'd like to have her grandfather done as well, it would mean so much to her to do her grandmother's work. Whoever it is, they're not closely enough related to have been known to her growing up, or now. Karen In a message dated 4/13/2009 9:10:58 A.M. Central Daylight Time, jncrandell@broadweave.net writes: Carrie wrote: Okay, so what happens when you enter an earlier death date to get the name reserved and the distant relative sees the incorrect date and puts a dispute on the name? Won't that dispute need to be removed before the name can be done?? I don't know if the dispute would have to be removed, but the way to prevent that would be to print the FOR immediately upon entering the data. Once the FOR is printed, the work can be performed, regardless of what happens in the file after that. The problem with this is that the cousin can do exactly the same thing with a duplicate entry. In reality, there really is no way in NFS to have an exclusive reservation to perform the ordinances for a particular person. Even if the name has been reserved, someone can come along, add a duplicate entry, clear the work, perform the work, and merge the entry into the one that was cleared earlier. The entire system is based on honesty and following the rules. Anyone who does not respect and follow the guidelines is not prevented from doing what they choose. However, I'm sure the Lord will hold us accountable for our obedience and kindness to others. In my opinion, if someone is trying to "steal" the work from someone else--for whatever reason--I question their worthiness to attend the temple. That may sound harsh, but I consider it dishonest to take someone else's research and obtain the blessing of doing the work where the other person made the sacrifice of time and effort. Gay's situation is a friend who wants to do her mother's work. The woman has every right to share that sacred experience with her mother, and the cousin is totally out of line trying to "steal" that blessing from the daughter. I have also had situations where I have put in a great deal of research, submitted the names, and part way through completing the work, someone has taken my entries, submitted them again--including the dates of work I had finished--and then completed what was left before I had the chance to finish. I'm sure in TempleReady they just "lied" and said it was not the same as the previous entry, even though everything was exactly the same. Both of these circumstances are evidence of selfishness, dishonesty, and disobedience. We need to teach our members not only what the rules are, but to respect the rules, respect others, and be obedient. I doubt it's possible to "steal" blessings. The Lord knows our hearts. I have been in touch with Gay off the list, and I know she is working within the rules to help her friend. Since there is almost a year before the work will actually be done, perhaps we could all join them in prayer that the cousin's heart will be softened. Just some thoughts, Jill Crandell Please send the one word message SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE to LDS-WARD-CONSULTANT-L-REQUEST@ROOTSWEB.COM ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LDS-WARD-CONSULTANT-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message **************Why pay full price? Check out this month's deals on the new AOL Shopping. (http://shopping.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntinstor00000001)