Update on sacrament meeting attendance results after new guidelines allowing up to 100 persons

28 December 2020

Good morning wonderful Stake Leaders,

I thought I would update you on members’ response to the new guidelines allowing attendance of up to 100 at sacrament services.

Having visited in-person all of the units in our stake, I estimate that most wards are typically drawing 50-60 members, including the YSA branch. I suspect most units are able to open up attendance to any who want to attend and not have to “assign” who can attend as we did before when limited to 50 and then 25 persons.

You may find interesting that the Estacada Ward continues to assign: A-M one Sunday and N-Z the next. Because of that they chose to have two special (Come and See) sacrament meetings on Dec 20 and 27.

Attendance was 75 on Dec 20 and 81 yesterday, Dec 27. They’re opening the curtain into the cultural hall, though so far they’re able to accommodate everyone with social distancing in the chapel and overflow.

I suppose there could be a variety of reasons why they’re drawing such numbers, not the least of which may be the “refiner’s fire” they endured earlier in the year.

I’m deeply impressed by the faith of the members of our stake and how well the bishoprics are taking every precaution to make our sacrament services a safe haven for members who yearn to worship at church.

President Lewis

Can wards and branches start holding in-person interviews and council meetigns?

10 December 2020

Bishops and Branch Presidents…

One of you asked if the new flexibility we have with meeting attendance also means we can now conduct interviews or even ward council meetings in person?

Originally (around summer) the word from the Area Presidency was to keep those types of meetings virtual only. As you can see by the attached Sept. 11 document from the First Presidency, that those types of meetings are to be “virtual or safely in person.” So both options are there.

Our Area Seventy has confirmed that this decision now resides at the stake and ward level.

We therefore leave it to bishoprics and branch presidencies to counsel together in making this decision for your ward or branch. However, we remind you that Covid cases and deaths are surging and we’ve been urged by the First Presidency to exercise an abundance of caution in all that we do.

A good rule of thumb is to simply ask those who would attend a meeting or interview as to whether they feel comfortable in meeting in person. We recommend that you always provide the virtual option. We don’t want anyone to feel obligated either by leaders or peers to do anything they think might jeopardize their health.

Another good rule of thumb is to ask yourself: “Is there a valid reason that this meeting should be face-to-face or can we accomplish the same thing virtually?” A setting apart would be considered one of those valid reasons.

So..just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

If you choose to hold in-person meetings and interviews, remember that indoor safety guidelines are still required, including wearing face coverings and social distancing.

We hope this is helpful. Thank you for prayerfully counseling together on this matter for your ward or branch. We support your decision.

Stake Presidency

Making assignments for a Christmas toy collection project

7 December 2020

Bishops,

My apologies for another Urgent message, but we’ve received from our Area Seventy and Multi-Stake Communications Directors a unique opportunity to use our surplus budget funds.  Unfortunately, the deadline is THIS WEEK.

As you may have heard, Church headquarters has recently established a strong relationship with the Salvation Army (SA) for Humanitarian assistance. We’ve now been asked to assist the Salvation Army locally with their Rescue Christmas project—providing as many 3,000 unwrapped toys for children ages 7-12 in the Portland Metro area. We are told because of the major reduction in donations to the SA this year (no bell ringing as in the past) many of these children will have no Christmas without our help.

Our Area Seventy has decided the Church will step up and provide the 3,000 gifts (unwrapped toys) requested by our friends in the Salvation Army.

As you can see below, each stake in the Portland Coordinating Council has been assigned to provide an allotment of toys:

We now ask you to accept an assignment to full our stake’s allotment to provide at least 225 toys (it’s OK if we go over). The chart above identifies the number of toys needed by gender and age.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT

We are dividing our stake allotment among the 6 wards in our stake:

Damascus - 34 toys for Boys ages 7-8

Estacada - 34 toys for Boys ages 9-10

Powell Valley - 41 toys for Boys ages 11-12

Sandy River - 34 toys for Girls ages 7-8

Tickle Creek - 41 toys for Girls ages 9-10

Walters Hill - 41 toys for Girls 11-12

All of the toys in our stake are to be delivered to Chuck Allen, our Stake Communications Director, who will collect by this Saturday, Dec. 12, all 225+ UNWRAPPED toys and arrange for the Salvation Army to pick them up on Monday, Dec. 14.

DEADLINE

• All toys are to be delivered to Brother Allen preferably by this Saturday, Dec 12.

• If any toys will be delivered later than this Saturday, please notify Brother Allen so he can arrange to receive them before the Salvation Army picks up the toys at his home on Monday, Dec. 14.

WHERE TO DELIVER 

Please arrange for all toy deliveries to go to:

Chuck Allen

1447 SW 19th Court

Gresham, OR 97080

503-705-6108

allenfamily25@comcast.net

WHO TO MAKE PURCHASES

We encourage you to consider assigning this immediately to your ward Relief Society presidency, if not burdensome to them, or to another dependable member of your Ward Council, who can make the time to shop in person or online. 

Or you may want to assign half of your allotment to the elders quorum and half to the Relief Society. We think mothers may have a better feel as to appropriate toys for gender and age.

HOW TO PAY FOR THIS PROJECT

With this short notice, the two ways for you to fund this project are:

1. Contact ward members, who regularly offer funds to help needy families during the holidays, and invite them to contribute to your ward Other account;

2. You are authorized to use budget funds; each ward has surplus budget funds due to the lack of activities during the pandemic.

The bishop should establish the budget amount for this project based on available funds.

HOW TO PURCHASE THE TOYS

Again, with this short notice, we suggest the following two ways to purchase the toys and deliver them to Brother Allen’s home:

1. Go to store(s) and buy the toys, take them directly to Brother Allen’s home and then seek reimbursement from the ward (remember the toys are to be UNWRAPPED);

2. Shop online, having the toys shipped directly to Brother Allen’s home.

While there are still some good deals online, like this link for a good price on footballs, you’ll notice they are backordered and Amazon cannot promise delivery by Dec 12. Store shopping may be the safest option.

IMMEDIATE ACTION

Most importantly, please communicate immediately with Brother Allen ASAP on:

1. Who is your ward’s point person (with contact info) for this project;

2. When you plan to fulfill your assignment so he can schedule the Salvation Army for pick up by this coming Monday;

3. Whether or not you can label each toy—all toys are to be UNWRAPPED and labeled with gender and age group (i.e. Girl 9-10—or if you need Brother Allen to label the toys for you.

Thank you so much for accepting this last-minute assignment and for making sure it happens on time.

With heartfelt gratitude for your quick response…and for sharing in the Christmas joy for children.

President Lewis and the Stake Presidency

P.S. Please confirm receipt of this assignment and that you have a plan in place to meet the above deadline.

In response to a high councilor, whose feelings had been hurt, by my mishandling of an assignment

3 December 2020

Dear (Name),

I’m the culprit here. I owe you an apology for the miserable handling of this assignment. I had no intention of causing hurt feelings. Please forgive for me for the offense I have caused.

Maybe some background on how this came about would be helpful.

A year ago I was approached by a sister in our stake, who had been seriously betrayed by her priesthood leader husband. He did not commit adultery, but had hidden for more than 20 years in their marriage some deep-seated addictions that only came to light when he was arrested and she had to get him out of jail. Besides being horribly embarrassed by the incident, her years of trust in a husband, who had deceived many members and priesthood leaders (including myself) over the years, had been shattered. 

Many wives would eventually forgive and try to forget. But it sent this sister on a tireless crusade to understand how pornography can re-wire a man’s brain and pull off such a deception for decades.

After more than a year of searching and learning, she felt compelled to come to me last fall to raise awareness of how prevalent pornography addiction is among priesthood holders, including leaders, and how it affects them. She also was concerned about how many priesthood leaders respond to these types of confessions. I, too, was guilty of failing to detect her husband’s addictions and frankly the bishop and I had handled the confession and discipline very poorly unwittingly hurting the wife deeply. 

After meeting with her the first time, I wanted to repent by learning more. So I set up an almost-weekly schedule of hour-long meetings for two months or more with this sister and her ward Relief Society president and asked her to just teach me all that she has learned about this pernicious addiction and how priesthood leaders should handle it when it comes to light.

After our meetings, I felt a desire to begin a spouse support class feeling that if the pornography addiction (or levels of addiction) was as prevalent as she suggested (I thought maybe 25% among men in our stake; she said 75%) that the women of our stake would “speak” with their feet. Hence, the desire to have a women-only meeting so sisters would have confidence that they could share with complete privacy and not fear priesthood leaders were on a “witch hunt” looking for men who are addicted. My only concern is not to “discover” those who are addicted but to make sure the wife, who has suffered the most in this type of marriage, gets help…that she knows we love and care for her and that she gets the “tools” she needs to keep her life and marriage together, if possible.

That’s why I asked that you not attend the class, even though you would have oversight.

As you know, our first attempt at starting this class fell apart with the onset of the pandemic precisely at the same time of the fist class (March 12). Later this year, in my monthly Stewardship Interview with the Stake RS president, the subject came up again—it was on the minds of both Sister Richards and myself. So we began discussing it, along with Bro Hawkins who attends my monthly SI’s with Sister Richards. Frankly, I simply forgot that we had put the original class under your umbrella of responsibilities before. So I naturally just pushed forward with the Stake RS, inasmuch as the impetus for the class in the first place had initiated with me and it was easy for me to work through the RS directly since I have direct responsibility for the State RS. 

Sister Richards and her counselors recommended Sister Newell to be the specialist to give direction to the class. That’s how her name came before the HC. Once approved, Brother Hawkins went ahead with the call (before the oversight was re-assigned to you). Dave met with both Matt and Beth to discuss at length the calling. So she has been called, but I asked that she not be sustained in the stake until we have a date, time and place for the first class so it could be announced at the same time of her sustaining…so sisters would put the two together—Sis Newell’s call and the beginning of the class. Once she is sustained, you will be asked to set her apart.

I hope you could tell how embarrassed I was when you spoke up in HC when Beth’s name was presented. I hadn’t realized or remembered until that moment that I failed to discuss this with those (you) who have Addiction Recovery Program oversight. Please know it was totally inadvertent. So when I realized what I had done, as you’ll recall, I suggested we discuss this in presidency, which is what we did and ultimately we changed direction and brought the oversight back to you.

However, because of how the initiative came about (my meetings over months with the two sisters in our stake) and how strongly I feel that we work through the RS to make sure that sisters feel comfortable in attending and sharing (and that this is not a witch hunt), it was natural and important to me that we keep this under the guidance of the Stake RS presidency. So I am asking that you take a different adviser role. That you not feel a responsibility to direct this initiative, but to be an “assistant,” ready to help however and whenever the stake RS needs you. If the class fails, you will not be blamed or chastised.

I hope you can see this is not too unique. It’s not uncommon for a high councilor like yourself, assigned to a very competent and seasoned EQ president, to recognize that his (HC) role is not to step in and be a mentor, but to some extent stay out of the way and take on a more supportive role.

I hope this background helps soothe the hard feelings I’ve caused because of my poor memory and weak management style. If you have any other questions, I welcome hearing from you. Please know how grateful I am that you spoke up so feelings don’t fester, as you suggested. I want you to be happy and feel needed in your service. Please know how much I appreciate your dutiful and faithful service on the High Council.

With love and gratitude for your diligence,

Crismon

Heightened emphasis on sacrament meeting safety

1 December 2020

TO: Bishoprics and Branch Presidencies

Brethren,

As we enter this new phase of potentially increased in-person sacrament meeting attendance (up to 100, if they choose to come), please give an even higher priority to safety.

Such as:

1. Read the attached introductory statement at the beginning of every in-person sacrament meeting. Soon you may begin to see members attend who have not attended before. They may not have heard this message. Please don't forget this.
   
   
2. Give safety guidance to speakers when you assign them to speak or pray at the pulpit. Use the instructions for Testimony meeting in the attached document when assigning those to speak or pray. We continue to see members set their mask on or to the side of the pulpit. And many are failing to use hand sanitizer before and after speaking at the pulpit. Bishopric members conducting the meeting, please teach by example.
   
   
3. Give extra caution to safety when administering the sacrament. If you choose to have priesthood holders wear gloves (it's not necessary as long as they sanitize well), make sure they are instructed how to use them, i.e. not touch their face, not set them down, not put them under the arm when putting them on, etc.
   
   
4. Prepare for more members to partake of the sacrament in the chapel. While attendance may not increase immediately, due to the recent surge in cases, please coordinate with the other units in your building to make sure you have plenty of water trays. Where we're using water trays for passing both the bread and water plus for disposing of used cups, you may need extra water trays soon. It appears on the  Church's online store that water trays are on back order. 
   
   As a back up to water trays for capturing used cups (please do not ask members to hold on to their cups and dispose of them later), small baskets that the passer can carry in his free hand are readily available at craft stores.

Also, with the added flexibility, it means there's now capacity for...

• Speakers and those who pray to attend in person. If they're willing, we encourage in-person attendance as it is very difficult for those in the chapel to follow the message of speakers they cannot see, only hear.
  
  
• Music to be conducted in the chapel to lead the congregational singing, which is preferred for encouraging singing in the home.

We appreciate so much your many efforts to provide both virtual and in-person sacrament meetings...so they're inspiring and safe.

Gratefully,

Stake Presidency