Release of reserved names

LegacyUser

Diane Kay Rogers said: This is regarding the new announcement of releasing names after two years in a person's reserved list. Please know that I love the idea of releasing names after two years BUT I have a huge request. Please release them to the temple rather than just releasing them to Family Tree. Or release them in such a way that they will be picked up by the temple if no one finds them within a few months. I am VERY concerned about the names who may have been submitted by those who are deceased, or who no longer care. If those names are released back to Family Tree they may be picked up by someone else, but likely may NOT be picked up by someone else for quite a long time. Or they could be reserved by someone else who will sit on them, then released after two years and then reserved again by someone who will sit on them and then released again. This could go on for a number of years. How will that person feel on the other side to have been found, waiting for work to be done, only to be released back and perhaps not be found again for a long time or reserved and released over and over again.

To me this is like the United Order. We take what we need and release the rest for everyone else to do.

Again, please consider my thought to release them to the temple. I have such a feeling for those on the other side. Too often we think of this as a "name" to take to the temple. They are people and want their work done. There are so many left to be found. Believe me, my gift is finding descendants.

LegacyUser

Ron Tanner said: We will be monitoring those that are released to insure they are not forgotten.

LegacyUser

Diane Kay Rogers said: HUGE thank you! I am just very passionate about those on the other side and ensuring their ordinances are completed. In my work and calling my theme is "No Empty Chairs."

LegacyUser

Diane M. Anderson said: I agree with the comments of Sister Rogers. However, I would strongly encourage that the names be released to the temple file instead of family tree. Please consider this, especially from the viewpoint of those that are still waiting for their ordinances.

LegacyUser

Diane Kay Rogers said: I have another question. If a person tries to take a card to the temple of a person who has been released, will the computer still record that ordinance or will it reject it?
Also, is there a time frame?

AndersonMargaretJean1

I would like to present another side of this coin.

I am a convert to the church. I joined in 1980 and then served a mission. The closest temple was a 6 hour drive away and that is where I was endowed in 1982 and married in 1985.

As an only member in my family, I very much looked forward to someday doing the temple work for the 4 generations of my direct blood line.

ie.

1. myself (done in 1982 prior to serving a mission)
2. my parents (2 people)
3. my grandparents (4 people)
4. my great grandparents (8 people)

1. Excluding myself, that makes a total 14 people who I dreamed of one day doing temple work for - just 14 people.

Children arrived, we moved a lot meaning temples were often very distant from us (12 hours or more), life got busy, I did not know how to print the cards for my ancestors so when I did go to the temple, I picked up the names of others. Technology changed and changed again and again. During this time I had active periods of searching for the names of my ancestors. Then 22 years ago, I gave birth to a beautiful multiply disabled child whose needs surpass anything I could have imagined and my life has been lived pretty much in crisis mode ever since.

Long story short, with the exception of my mother, who passed in 2014 just 2 months shy of her 94th birthday, I was not able to get to the temple work of those remaining 13 closest people who mean so much to me, before someone else, a complete stranger to me, did their work, in spite of my having reserved their names.

I very much appreciate having others doing the work for my more distant ancestors, but with all of the millions of people who have lived on this earth, surely those 14 people who are nearest and dearest to me could have been saved, for me to do this sacred work for them. Many of them had not been deceased that long. My family tends to have their children late in life which extends the time between generations. One of my grandmothers lived to her 100th year.

So the story behind those ordinances that have been reserved, but not yet done, may be a story like mine, of a daughter, granddaughter, great grand daughter who very much wants to do the work for her family, while life is rushing by at a pace that makes it very difficult.

It has broken my heart to learn that while I have been meeting the needs of the living, those 13 family members who are my closest direct ancestors, have had their sacred temple work done by strangers.

Thank you for considering my perspective.

Sincerely,

Margaret Anderson