Helping leaders with callings recommendations so ward and stake auxiliary leaders' recommendations are not rejected

The following is prepared to assist priesthood and auxiliary leaders in making recommendations for callings, including instances where inspiration is received but recommendations are declined.

Doctrinal foundations of callings:

• This is the Lord’s true church, He will reveal His will to us (D&C 1:30, 112:10, AofF 1:5)
• Revelation, and thus final decisions, flow through priesthood keys (D&C 28:7, 35:25)
• Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies (Thomas S. Monson, April Conference 1996)
• The Lord sometimes withholds communication so leaders learn to develop judgment and become like God; the Lord then stands behind those decisions (see Moses 1:25)

How do we reconcile ‘competing revelation’ when a recommendation is rejected?

• Right person, wrong time
• As in marriage, there’s no “one-and-only”
• Natural to feel right about those we like or who are dependable
• Additional information was needed before asking in prayer
• Feeling an urgency to decide quickly

Key factors in approving callings: peace of heart, a settled feeling among all in the bishopric or presidency, worthiness, availability, personal and family circumstances

Other factors that may affect approvals: dependability, length of service in current calling, willingness to serve, talent, teachable, respect for authority, enthusiasm for work

Three Approaches to Making Recommendations

Directed by priesthood leader

Your priesthood leader selects the candidates for you

• Pro: No rejection rate, no frustration from rejection
• Con: No participation in the revelatory experience, may not prefer candidates chosen

Select from a narrow group

Your priesthood leader gives you a group of 4-5 names to choose from

• Pro: Some revelatory experience, low rejection rate, low frustration
• Con: Limited flexibility, may not prefer any of the candidates offered for consideration

Choose from general membership

You choose from the entire stake or ward membership

• Pro: A sweet, revelatory experience
• Con: Sometimes high frustration from number of rejections due to above factors

-- September 2016

Update on Duraye at the end of September 2016

21 September 2016

Dear family,

We are happy to report that things continue to go well for Duraye in many respects, including she now has a job…started this week at a company that helps people invest in high-end homes or something like that. I haven’t investigated it personally, but she likes it because it has both a base plus commission.

She also has had a wonderful experience attending the Arcadia Ward where leaders and members have reached out to her very warmly. Amazingly, there were already some connections of friends in that ward. In fact, the bishop was a counselor in the bishopric of Jeffrey and Olivia’s student ward at ASU a couple of years ago and loved them dearly. That has helped open the door for Duraye to become very well acquainted with Bishop and Sister Horsley.

The ward has already provided her with a generous supply of food from the storehouse and $334 in assistance to offset two bills that were due this week.

All of you have so generous in helping Duraye get into her new apartment in Scottsdale and to get a “fresh start” to life. She’s very, very grateful to the family and recognizes this is no small sacrifice. Little by little she’s getting on her feet again and has hope with the family’s generous support.

In addition to your financial support, having so many family members help her move and set up her apartment (in 2 hours flat!) earlier this month was thrilling. She was touched by such an outpouring! Please continue to reach out to her with emails and phone calls. Needless to say, her life is a bit lonely with both daughters now in Utah, her favorite pet dog Pearl having to stay in Mesa due to the no-pet rule we didn’t originally know about and just being on her own in a new place. So your outreach with calls, texts and emails are welcomed. 

What will really help is if family members in the Valley can remember to invite her to holiday or family gathering. Please feel free to forward this to your children in the Valley. We so appreciate them remembering and connecting with Duraye as often as possible. More often than not, she may decline your invitations, but just having invitations to decline will touch her deeply.

As for the finances, here’s a brief rundown so far:

In addition to the original up-front payment of $2,150 to get her set up in the apartment, we spent another $778 in costs for utilities, moving expenses and a variety of bills (like her cell phone) that were past due and very much needed.

In all, we’ve spent $2,928.58. Fortunately, the family generously donated $3,034.00 leaving a $183.42 surplus. THANK YOU!!

While Duraye has a job, she really won’t see a paycheck for a week or two. So we’ll need to continue to provide some support, as we originally agreed. Fortunately, her bishop is working with us and using some fast offerings to supplement our efforts to keep her afloat.

In the meantime, here’s what we need for our second installment.

Her rent is $950 per month. Because the landlord failed to have the apartment ready for move-in, as promised, we were able to negotiate a reduction of $176 off the October rental payment. So with this reduction plus the $183 surplus, we won’t need as much from the family this month…

$950 monthly rental

- 176 negotiated one-time reduction

- 183 surplus from original family installment

$591 for rent in October

However, we expect we’ll have a few expenses that may need to get covered before she finally starts pulling a paycheck. So we recommend that we contribute about $700 total in October.

May we ask that we all send $100 each before Oct 1? For those who originally committed to send $50 per month, please send only $50.

As all expenses are coming out of our personal funds, please send funds by check to:

Vivienne Lewis

1121 SW 10th Drive

Gresham, OR 97080

Or, if you prefer, you can send payments via PayPal.

Thank you so much for your kindness in being so prompt and again for your generous support. We trust this is making a difference in our sister’s life. Above all, she knows that we truly and deeply love her; no matter the past, she is loved by all of us!

Thank you for ongoing support and love,

Crismon & Vivienne

503-914-8689 M

P.S. We leave tomorrow, Thursday, 9/22, for Virginia where we will visit Dallin and Janelle’s family (he’s now a professor at Southern Virginia University) for a few days, returning on Tuesday, 9/27. But we’ll be available by email, text or phone, if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you!

Update on Duraye's status after first week in her new apartment

9 September 2016

Dear Myreel, Corwin, Wick, Delon and Durelle…

I owe you an update on Duraye. Overall things are going well, I feel. Here’s a brief report…

APARTMENT:  Thanks again to everyone helping so eagerly (and with so many helping hands), she was so appreciative and commented later how it all brought such happy memories of being with family. Sadly, there are still some obstacles…refrigerator just arrived today, but because there’s no 3-prong outlet where the fridge goes the fridge is temporarily plugged into the wall in the living room. Even though an adapter is fine, the landlord is sending in a handyman to install a 3-prong outlet so it’s done right. That should be the last of the handyman jobs, but because it has been 8 days to get everything done that should have been done before she moved in, we are negotiating with the landlord (94-year-old man in CA who only speaks Spanish; crazy, huh? :) to get a week of rent (about $250) knocked off the October rental payment. We’ll see…

EMPLOYMENT: She may have a job interview on Monday. I’ve tried to get her to widen her scope as far as jobs. While she feels she needs to earn $40-$50K per year, I showed her that her living expenses only require $25K or more per year…that there are many jobs that can support that income level. Going to that level of job, though, is a real downer for her personally, as it would be for any of us, and she understandably worries that going there will impact her ability to get a higher-paying job later. She makes a good point. But she very much wants and is looking for employment. She goes to a nearby Panera Bread to use wifi as she doesn’t have it in her apartment. I suggested she get acquainted with her neighbors and befriend one enough to trust her with their wifi password as she’s picking up everyone’s wifi in the complex, but of course secured. Also, she apparently has connected with Randy Daems re: resume help and I’ve passed along some thoughts from both Wick and Myreel.

CHURCH: I visited with the bishop again, after his return from watching grandchildren in MN. He said he was waiting for her membership record to arrive. I had to explain again that he won’t see a membership record, but the timing is important the Church rally around her with HT and VT, opportunities to serve, and even welfare assistance. I explained she has four key bills totaling $475 that need payment by 9/20-ish and asked if he could please meet with her soon enough to possibly assist with those. That doesn’t count food. I asked if he’d also consider a food order. Also Duraye is moving forward on food assistance (food stamps). I tried to stress with him that what she needs most right now is a friend…a single woman with whom she can “hang out.” After your wonderful experience helping her to connect with several in her home ward during the block meetings early last Sunday, Myreel and Delon, there was a pot luck (singles?) that evening. It would have been perfect for Duraye to attend and get acquainted. She told me later, “I was so tired” but then confided she didn’t have anyone to go with. So a friend is crucial right now. I hope I can get a little more enthusiasm out of the bishop, but I’m on the brink of becoming annoying already. We’ll see what happens this Sunday. I was able to get the name of the ward RS president, Mary Lou Alredge (I think :) So far, no one from the Church has reached out to Duraye this week.

PERSONALLY: She admits to being lonely, but at the same time is on the phone a lot with me and others working on getting the apartment, food stamps, resume rework, job searches, etc. worked out so she’s staying somewhat busy. I find interesting that in some ways she’s confident and on top of everything and then other times admits to being “overwhelmed” by it all. I invited her to have over-the-phone scripture study with Vivienne and I each night (we don’t get to it until 10 or 10:30 pm before retiring), but I suggested it would be a good way so she doesn’t feel too lonely. I tried to explain that it’s not about trying to “convert” her but to break up the boredom and loneliness…just to interact with someone each night. So far she hasn’t taken us up on it, but we’ll continue to text her each night to let her know she’s invited.

Our thanks to all of you. We are very close to recovering all the “first wave” of Duraye’s moving and living costs so far ($2,840); all but three of the nine of us have sent checks, which is greatly appreciated. You were all so generous. Thank you!

FYI…Stayner insisted on contributing something, but I’ve tried to discourage him because he has some huge medical bills hanging over him. He did mention, though, that most will be covered by insurance. Of course, 20% or even 5% of his doctor bills will still be astronomical.

I was going to send out an email asking you to forward to your families, encouraging everyone to reach out to her. I even hinted to her that she may start getting contacted by family. She’s OK with it, but on second thought this is a marathon, not a sprint. A “blitz” of well wishes from the family would be nice but short-lived. She’s really quite busy right now trying to get her arms around her new place and life. Too many well-wishes may just hobble her from getting some things done. For instance, Madelyn is with her today before she leaves for Utah. So instead I recommend our small group reaches out to her as often as you feel comfortable to see how she’s doing and if there’s anything we can do (as a family, not individuals) to help. Maybe around holiday time would be a better time for the family to remember her…and hopefully we can encourage some families in the Valley to reach out to her to join them for their family gatherings, as Myreel suggested. A wonderful suggestion!

I hope this is helpful. I’ll stay in touch.

Love,

Crismon & Vivienne

Letter to Duraye's new bishp

8 September 2016

Bishop Horsley,

Thank you for taking my call today. 

I don’t want to dump too much on you. We appreciate so much any help your ward can give in making our sister, Duraye Lewis, feel welcomed in your ward. Our greatest hope, of course, is that your efforts and the family support will help her find her way back into the Church and the joy of living the gospel.

As I mentioned earlier, not only is she not a member of the Church, but she has a DUI on her record (she has an Interlock on her car), has had a hard time keeping a job and, for the first time in years, is on her own…and so quite lonely. We hope your ward can help fill the vacuum to a certain extent before she drifts back into old habits and/or old friends. 

I don’t say that to place pressure on you, but just want you to feel a bit of the urgency we are feeling as a family inasmuch as she has allowed us, for the first time in a long time, to help her get on her own and make somewhat of a “fresh start.”

As I mentioned, she was raised in an extremely active LDS family (all 12 of us…now 10 living...were all born and raised in Arizona). Sadly, she got sideways with the Church, has struggled with addictions, has been mostly less-active after her divorce and excommunication at least 20 years ago, but has stayed in touch with the family.. Just recently she has begun to make some positive turns (such as allowing us to move her into her own apartment last weekend) and we’re anxious to work closely with you in helping those baby steps continue.

It was a joy to discover that we may have a number of established connections within your ward, especially Paul Gilbert and family.

Besides helping Duraye find a friend to help go with her to ward and stake activities and assigning home and/or visiting teachers, we would like to ask if, after meeting with her, you would consider helping her with welfare assistance. The other 9 children in our family…all active members, two are stake presidents…are working together to get her established in her new apartment in your ward ($2.8K so far and counting :) Because she’s unemployed, she’s pretty much penniless. She is actively looking for employment and we’re doing all that we can to help her with her resume and networking with friends. We hope your ward or stake can also help in this effort.

There are two reasons we hope you will consider helping her with welfare assistance, even though we recognize she’s not a member of the Church:

1) She’s pretty much destitute with ongoing bills (needed so she can look for work)…and the family resources are starting to get strained, though we’ve committed to support her apartment cost for up to a year @ $950 per month plus utilities; but even more importantly...

2) to put her in a position to be accountable to you or someone on your ward council. In other words, you’re so much closer to her geographically and contact-wise than any family member (her closest siblings live in the distant Arizona communities of Thatcher, Ajo and Kingman). We feel if she’s on your “welfare rolls” she’s not as likely to fall through the cracks (since you won’t have her on any membership rolls) and hopefully you can put her to work on a regular basis cleaning the chapel or working on Indexing…or something...so she receives assistance with dignity but is also accountable to someone for her service “payments."

So far the family has paid…$2,841 to get her into a home as per the following:

$2,150 for 2 payments @ $950 + $250 cleaning deposit

$100 for credit checks on Duraye and a sibling

$250 for utilities

$146 for cell phone bill

$195 for fuel, groceries, incidentals

Some of her current bills that need payment by Sept 20 or so are:

$300 car rental (through a friend, who buys-sells cars)

$34 car insurance (through the same friend)

$89 Interlock device mandated by the courts

$50 court fee

We’re hoping that the ward would consider helping with these four bills, if possible, but we’re committed as a family do whatever we can to help. We’ve encouraged her to seek government food assistance (food stamps), but maybe she would qualify to receive a storehouse order, too.

Please know we feel badly that we’re placing her on your “doorstep,” so to speak, but we have all seen the blessing a ward family can be in the lives of those, who are working their way back. Our prayers are that she will find employment soon, so as not to be a financial burden on the family or the church, yet appreciate the family and church’s efforts to help and thus soften her heart enough to desire re-baptism and the blessings of Heaven again.

We appreciate so much your willingness to consider this approach from our family. I’ll be happy to visit more when it’s good for you.

Gratefully,

Crismon & Vivienne Lewis

Gresham, OR

503-667-5843 H

503-914-8689 M

P.S. I give you permission to forward this email (or excerpts) to other ward leaders, as you see fit to help share the “load", asking only that this be kept confidential as much as possible. As you well know, people respond better when they don’t think they’re a “project."

Plan for family members to contribute to Duraye's move

1 September 2016

Dear family,

You were so kind to respond to our last email about wanting to help our sister Duraye. We are so gratified to see such an outpouring from all of you, even those who are struggling financially. Everyone wanted to help her even though she has burned some bridges with some in the family over the years.

Your commitment to contribute to a fund to help Duraye get on her own has given Vivienne and I the encouragement to move forward.

We are pleased to report significant progress. Each step of the way we have worked with Myreel, Corwin, and especially Delon and Durelle, who have always been the closest to Duraye.

Here is our quick report on the three objectives spelled out in our original email on August 19:

1. EXPRESS OUR LOVE AND SUPPORT FOR HER: As I reported to you on August 20, Duraye was deeply touched that the family had come together and made a financial commitment to help her move out of her apartment and into an apartment, in hopes of making a fresh start in many ways. With that encouragement and support, she began looking aggressively for an apartment.

2. LOCATE A MODEST APARTMENT IN A DECENT, SECURE AREA FOR RENT UNDER $1,000 PER MONTH: Duraye located a 2BR, 1Ba apartment in a small complex near downtown Scottsdale that she felt comfortable with. The rent is $950 per month. We have since co-signed the lease, turned on the electricity and, in fact, she moves in this Saturday, Sept 4, thanks to “muscle help” from cousins Nelson, Alvin Jace and Buddy.

Duraye’s new address is:

6906 E. 4th Street, #5

Scottsdale, AZ 85206

602-348-2373 M

It all came together very quickly and it’s especially nice so many family members are gathering in the Valley this same weekend to attend the BYU-UofA football game in Glendale. They’ll all be there to help her make the transition and celebrate her new start.

3. HELP HER CONNECT WITH THE CHURCH: We have identified that she will be living in the Arcadia Ward boundaries in the Scottsdale Camelback Stake. I have spoken personally to her bishop, Bishop William Horsley, and hopefully they’ll wrap their arms around her and help her make changes in her life that will bring her true joy again.

THE FAMILY COMMITMENT

Unfortunately, Duraye is pretty much penniless (with some debt) and unemployed, which means family support was essential to move forward.

Our hope was that we could help her with a combined commitment of $1,000 or so per month for three months. You responded accordingly, for which we are most grateful. Several offered to send more, if needed, recognizing that there are many unexpected, up-front costs with getting into a new place.

We personally co-signed a one-year lease on the apartment and have personally funded all additional costs.

The up-front housing costs came in at $2,608. She also has a $145 cell phone bill/debt that needs to be paid to retain her service so she can continue to look for employment, so the grand total of up-front costs is $2,753.

See below for the details on how this amount was reached. Fortunately, the landlords didn’t require a first-and-last monthly payment, but they did hit us with a $950 refundable security deposit, which caused the up-front costs to rocket to the $2,753.

This will take her through September. On October 1, there will be another $950 monthly rental fee drawn from our personal checking account each month. Our hope is Duraye will land a job soon so she can begin reimbursing us for her rent. You’ll remember that we all committed to providing the housing support for at least three months.

Fortunately, the only utilities cost is electricity (water, sewer, trash are part of the rental). So besides the rental and electricity each month, her out-of-pocket will be her living expenses, including car, auto insurance, gasoline, phone, food and other obligations (including debt payments) which total $600-$800 per month.

Our hope is that she can get a job soon and the Church will provide some assistance to help tie her over until she gets a job.

YOUR CONTRIBUTION

Thank you again for making a commitment to help. We had hoped it would be closer to $50 or $100 per family, but warned that we may need a “double payment" up front, which is what happened.

There are nine of us participating in this. If we divided the first-month cost of $2,753 by 9 = about $306 each.

All we ask is that you make the “double payment” contribution that you committed to. If you can pay more, that’s great. But do not feel obligated to do so. Several families offered to pay more, if needed.

If, by chance, we receive more funds than needed immediately, all surplus will be applied to future monthly contributions. We will notify you no later than Sept. 20 what is needed for October.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR CONTRIBUTION

As we mentioned, we have made all payments so far from our personal funds. So contributions are to come to us directly.

Here are options for making your payment:

• Send a check in the mail:

Please make out the check to Vivienne and mail to:

Vivienne Lewis

1121 SW 10th Dr.

Gresham, OR  97080

• Bill-pay from your bank

Have it sent as per above.

• Paypal: 

Send to lewis.reliv@gmail.com

You can set up your paypal account with a credit card, or have it linked to your bank account. If you pay with a credit card, you will be charged 2.9% + 30 cents. There is no transaction fee for payments made from your bank account.

• Google Wallet:

Send to: cvlewis@gmail.com

Similar to Paypal. It is easy to download the app on your mobile device or go to Google Wallet on your computer. You cannot use a credit card, but you can set it up with your bank account or debit card. 

Thank you so much for coming together as a family in trying to help our sister. Our hope is that our united and combined generous response will touch her heart in a new way that will ultimately lead to her drawing closer to the Lord and to us.

If you have any questions, please contact us: 503-667-5843 H, 503-914-8689 Crismon cell, 503-927-0647 Vivienne cell.

Love,

Crismon & Vivienne

DETAIL OF FIRST-MONTH, UP-FRONT COSTS:

$2,150 for 1-month rent $950, a refundable $950 security deposit and a non-refundable $250 cleaning deposit

$100 rental application fee (for credit approval @ $50 for both Crismon and Duraye)

$23 for processing and shipping of cashiers’ check to landlord

$250 refundable Arizona Public Service start-up fee; first bill due in October

$85 for moving expenses (U-Haul rental, mileage, fees, and gas) - thank you Nelson & team!

Total moving costs: $2,608

Also urgent $145 for cell phone due 9/7

GRAND TOTAL: $2,753