Temple Prayer Roll

Various years ago I wrote about the funny little placard I noticed on the LDS temple prayer roll boxes.

At the time I was amused at the restriction on the number of people you could submit to the prayer roll. Apparently at some point there was a conversation or a problem that made it all the way up to the leadership levels.  It had to have been such a problem that it resulted in a mass produced gold placard at every single temple.  It's funny to contemplate but it appears that at some point in time temple patrons were simply praying for too many people, and such apparently immature and unchristian mischief had to be stopped.  I guess the capacity of the little box was just being exceeded too often?  Or the capacity of the prayers?  It's a bit of a mystery.    

Today I got an e-mail from the LDS Church about temple prayer roll box submissions letting me know they have now been made digital.  At last! Now space constraints are no longer an issue.  But what interestingly continues to be an issue for the LDS church is the quantity of how many people you can submit names for.  This restriction continues, even with digital pray role submissions.  This continues to be very amusing. 

(The banner image for the temple prayer roll announcement above has one man and TWO adult women leaving the temple... Maybe it's their adult daughter.  Maybe adult females attending the temple with just their parents is normal? This is a prayer roll announcement so their choice of image is funny. If the two women are not mother-daughter, and this is one man leaving the temple with two women, oh boy, that brings to mind a variety of other ideas the LDS church has tried hard to avoid..... but I digress)

Below is the new Church instruction on this matter of submitting names, but now digitally. The gold placard (which you can see in the background of the Church provided picture below) has been replaced with a new version of the same message, but now it's on the website where you make submissions.  

The previous placard said "long lists" were inappropriate.  But it was left it up to discretion of the patron whether their submission met that standard or not. The size of those tiny white pieces of paper they provide you (also shown in the image) helps to not-so-subtly communicate the desired number of people they think you ought to submitting names for.    

But now to the NEW message they have for the patrons when it comes to who and how many people you can submit for prayer roll.  The electronic submission announced August 2020 has a 5 name max per request!  See image caption.  Maybe this is a logistical thing for if they try to print out the submissions to physically have on hand for prayers.  I wonder what is behind this.  Why 5?  That's not even enough for a lot of Utah parents to include all of their children! I have 11 siblings, so.... maybe they can help me determine which one I can't submit a name for?  Only the special ones? Guess the non special are out of luck.   

Do not prophets and authors of scripture often pray and intercede on behalf of entire cities?  Nations?  Shall we go smack them on the hand and inform them that it's inappropriate to name off more than 5 individuals?  I get that you can pray for any number of people yourself if you want to.  But this limitation on temple prayer roll just seems funny to me. 

When Jesus came to the Nephites, to the temple (3 Nephi 11:1) it says this in verse 23: And now Father, I pray unto thee for them, and also for all those who shall believe on their words.

WHOA stop right there Jesus.... you came to the temple and are sending prayers to God for TOO many people.  In order to use our services you will have to split that up into groups  individuals of 5.  Sorry bout that Jesus, rules are rules.    

Ok, humor aside, I would never complain if my name was one in a long list of names submitted for prayer at a temple. How many people are really causing this to be a problem?  And even IF members got carried away with such a practice.... is that not the least of all the problems for a global religion in 2020 during a pandemic and natural unrest??