How long until Lola and Bob are sealed?
Bob, an 89-year-old in Utah, died this week. He was 21 when he and 19-year-old Lola got married in Las Vegas. They had four children togeether, but later in life they divorced and each married someone else. Lola was born in Provo and raised in a Mormon family; Bob was never a member of the Church.
So how many days will it be before some enterprising fourth cousin of Lola takes care of temple ordinances for Bob? Will that cousin, or another of Lola’s hundreds of such cousins, set up news alerts so she will know when Lola dies, so she can attend to a proxy sealing before someone else does? Will another cousin jump the gun and set up a proxy sealing before Lola dies?
Church policy, in case that matters to anyone, is:
Except as noted in 28.3, proxy ordinances may be performed for all deceased persons as soon as 30 days have passed from their date of death if either of the following applies:
A close relative of the deceased (undivorced spouse, adult child, parent, or sibling) submits the name for temple ordinances.
Permission to perform the ordinances is received from a close relative of the deceased (undivorced spouse, adult child, parent, or sibling).
If neither of the above conditions applies, proxy temple ordinances may be performed 110 years after the deceased person was born.
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
G.
September 18, 2025
>in case that matters to anyone
lol
William James Tychonievich
September 18, 2025
Isn’t there some exception for Jews who died during WWII? I thought I remembered some hooha about that a while back.
John Mansfield
September 18, 2025
Yes, at the link above:
28.1.1.2
Submitting the Names of Celebrities and Unauthorized Groups
Generally, Church members should not submit names to FamilySearch.org from the following groups:
Famous people
Names gathered from unapproved extraction projects
Jewish Holocaust victims
For more information, see the following article on FamilySearch: “Can I do temple work for victims of the Jewish Holocaust?”
John Mansfield
September 18, 2025
AT FamilySearch:
Can I do temple work for victims of the Jewish Holocaust?
You can request and perform the ordinances for Jewish Holocaust victims in some circumstances:
You are an immediate family member of the deceased (parent, spouse, child, or sibling).
You have permission from all living immediate family members.
If no immediate family members are alive, you have permission from the closest living relative.
Please carefully research all existing data to ensure that you have supporting sources for each person you add to Family Tree.
John Mansfield
September 19, 2025
It used to be that proxy ordinances in the temple, such as baptism and confirmation, were performed “for (George Washington) who is dead.” As of a couple years ago or whenever it was, we no longer say “who is dead.” The first time I confirmed in the temple after the deletion, the rhythms of many decades kept trying to assert themselves.
Another bit of streamlining, I thought. It had not occurred to me until this morning that it could be preparation for a huge leap forward in efficiency of not getting hung up about whether those receiving ordinances by proxy have already died. Gathering scattered Israel on both sides of the veil, indeed.
Ugly Mahana
September 19, 2025
I’m a bit confused by this discussion. It feels a bit like someone is dunking on church policy or leaders. Not that both don’t deserve criticism at times. But it also seems like temple administration is also being criticized. Which seems strange, because being critical of keys-holders as they exercise keys seems off-brand. Am I missing something?
G.
September 19, 2025
UM,
It looks to me more like wryly acknowledging that members will often ignore policy
Ugly Mahana
September 20, 2025
That makes sense.Thank you.
Rod
September 21, 2025
Quote “It looks to me more like wryly acknowledging that members will often ignore policy”
I have a good elderly friend who was Jewish, but converted to the LDS church. She regularly butted heads with some of the Jewish leaders in Isreal over temple work for the dead. They could not stop her since she was a direct descendent of holocaust victims. For those who she could not do temple work for… she has genealogy submitted on other deceased jewish holocaust relatives for that 110 year mark.
John Mansfield
September 22, 2025
Miss Mahana, I fully support the policies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints regarding obtaining permission of close relatives in order to perform ordinances by proxy for the dead in the temples. I do so first off because those ordinances require priesthood authority, and I respect those with stewardship of that authority admnistering it thoughtfully and revererently. Secondly, I think the policies are good manners.
Sixteen years ago my father died, and since he had not chosen to go the temple when he was alive, it did not feel right to do that work for him immediately after he died. It was a few years before it felt right to do the work for him and have my parents sealed in the temple, and their living children (including me) to them.
When I submitted his name to do proxy ordinances, I found that my previously unknown third-cousin on my mother’s side had already submitted his name to the temple. I requested that he release his hold on my father’s ordinance work, and he did so. This happenned less than 90 years after my father was born.
The man I wrote of in the opening paragraph, Bob, is the movie actor Robert Redford. My father and Robert Redford lived on opposite extremes of the spectrum of fame (Redford was very famous and my father was completely unknown to the world), so the scenario I elaborated in the second paragraph feels inevitable, despite the counsel and policy of the Church, which is good counsel and policy.