1820: Tim Ballard’s Alleged Excommunication

Several comments don’t match up with my understanding of current protocol.

Stake presidents are generally released at the second stake conference of his ninth year. It’s effectively calendared as soon as he is called. Virtually no stake presidents serve a full ten years. Unless his release came before that time, it is not unusual.

Stake presidents get an email from the Office of the First Presidency authorizing them to hold every stake conference, and designating whether a general or area authority will preside or if they are on their own. In the case of calling a new stake president, it would only be a general authority seventy or (infrequently) and apostle. It would not be an area authority.

While it would be normal that the area presidency would be aware of the calendaring, they are not involved in setting it up.

From the time a stake president is called Saturday afternoon, even infrequently extending into late afternoon or evening, almost all of the time with the designated general authority is spent in choosing counselors and beginning to council over how to refill the staffing model and then schedule the necessary interviews. It would not be unusual in ANY organizational change is any organization of any size for them to discuss everything that is in process in the stake. All worthiness issues, and members that might have annotations on their record, would be discussed, though this might happen after the GA has returned home.

It is public knowledge that the situation was known to Salt Lake. As you have contacts that are feeding you information, expect that the church had a very explicit understanding of the investigation from Davis County. If those reports aligned with the information that is coming out now, they would have been very concerned, both from the acts and from Tim’s very high profile, including as a member. I’m not surprised at all that this matter would be escalated, regardless of how long the SP had been serving, nor that the church might be involved and giving counsel to whomever the SP was, without any concern for tenure. That he was new may be completely coincidental if the old SP was released at 9 1/2 years.

Part of a married couple’s records can be moved out of the ward without a divorce or separation. If someone moves to a new residence for work, records can move so that the member can accept a calling where they are living.