Women At Church stories are submitted by church members and shared anonymously.
Our two oldest children have both served missions, and my husband and I both noticed that all communication that comes from church headquarters or the mission president in regard to their mission activity is addressed directly to my husband. They happen to be my step-children, so I assumed it had something to do with that aspect of our family dynamic.
Recently my husband was called as Ward Clerk, and was asked to send a letter on behalf of the bishop to all of the members of our ward. When he sat down to print the address labels from the ward/church record keeping software, he realized that it would only print out the “head of household”– the husband’s name– along with the home address. He mentioned to me that he tried to figure out a way to also add the wife’s name, but the software would not allow him to make any changes– he deduced that it was an issue that would need to be fixed at church headquarters. Instead of mailing out the letters with the labels as such, the Relief Society presidency volunteered to hand address each envelope. Bless them.
We realized then that the issue with our correspondence regarding our missionaries has nothing to do with my legal relationship to our two oldest children, but instead comes from an oversight that can be easily fixed in the software, I hope. I am currently researching who to contact in Salt Lake City make aware of this oversight and solve the problem.