dressing endowed members for their funeral

[askandanswer]

Could someone please point me to any official church instructions on how to dress an endowed member for their funeral? There is the beginning of a disagreement between some of the people who will be dressing a friend of mine in a day or two, with some saying that the non-member staff of the funeral home can do it, under the direction of endowed members, and another saying that only endowed members can be involved in the dressing.

THanks

[askandanswer]

Can anyone confirm if this is still current? Its' dated 1999. Given the current rate of change, I'm not even sure if last week's policies are still current  

https://store.lds.org/wcsimages/LDSCAS/products/000/31461_000_Clothing_Dead.pdf

[zil]

Yes, that looks current to me.  There are some blurbs in this regard in Handbook 2 - look for text similar to what's in that PDF - but it won't give you any more, just confirm some bits of the PDF.

[scottyg]

Handbook 2 states 

18.6.6

Burial or Cremation Where possible, deceased members who were endowed should be buried in temple clothing. Where cultural traditions or burial practices make this inappropriate or difficult, the clothing may be folded and placed next to the body in the casket. Additional instructions on temple burial clothing and dressing the dead are provided in 7.10.2, 9.10.3...

[JohnsonJones]

On ‎1‎/‎14‎/‎2019 at 11:54 PM, askandanswer said:

Could someone please point me to any official church instructions on how to dress an endowed member for their funeral? There is the beginning of a disagreement between some of the people who will be dressing a friend of mine in a day or two, with some saying that the non-member staff of the funeral home can do it, under the direction of endowed members, and another saying that only endowed members can be involved in the dressing.

THanks

IF possible, and endowed member should dress the deceased.  If it is not legal due to the law, a mortician or those legally approved to do so may dress the body, but an endowed member should be in the room to ensure it is done properly.

A plain white covering should be used in many instances to cover the body.

No adornments should be placed on top of the body in these instances.

That's my suggestions...

Though probably a little too late to be useful.

[askandanswer]

It happened this afternoon although the funeral is not until Tuesday. Five sisters were involved. I was surprised to hear that the body was wrapped in some sort of plastic film, I don/t know why, so the temple clothing will not be directly in touch with the skin.

[Iggy]

9 hours ago, askandanswer said:

It happened this afternoon although the funeral is not until Tuesday. Five sisters were involved. I was surprised to hear that the body was wrapped in some sort of plastic film, I don/t know why, so the temple clothing will not be directly in touch with the skin.

My MIL passed away while visiting her second son in Missouri after the ME was through with his/her examination (she was in a car accident, and according to Missouri law, an autopsy is required. She had a pre-paid funeral/burial & death insurance plan. PIF - long story somewhat short ~ the funeral home in Missouri was not going to get their overcharged fee for preparing her to travel to her home in Arizona for burial. Thus they did one H311 of bad, bad job of embalming her.  On top of which they delayed sending her home for 4 days. By the time I and the RS President was able to go dress her, she had to be wrapped in a clear heavy duty plastic. Fortunately the funeral home owners and all of their employees were LDS, so we didn't have to have a privacy screen in place while we dressed her in the garments. We didn't bother trying to put her foundation garment on - and the furneral home owner told us that it was okay to cut all the clothing down the back, put her arms through them and then tuck them under her.

After dressing her, there was only a 2 hour window left for viewing before it would be impossible to be near her. We had already alerted her extended family, all of whom were non members. Most had already arrived as the RS President and I left the funeral home. Her son was waiting outside to greet his relatives, I went and sat in the RS Pres. car and cried. I didn't cry because my MIL had passed away. She was in the 5th stage of Alzhtimers when she passed. I cried because of the callous treatment this graceous lady recieved from the furneral home in Missouri.

I only had known her for two weeks before Husband and Good Brother decided to remove her from her rotten baby son and for her to go live with Good Brother. But even in the full blown Alzhtimers she was a gentle, gracious Lady. She had a wicked funny sense of humor too that began when she must have been in her very early teens, because by the time she went to live with Good Son, she was reliving her late teens.

Had she passed in AZ, and I was able to dress her within 2 days of her passing, it would have gone differently. No plastic wrapping. No rush to the viewing.

My own mother passed away while living in Washington state. No wrapping in plastic there, but all people must wear surgical gloves while handling the deceased.

When my oldest sister passed in Washington state she weighed nearly 675 pounds. She was endowed, but it would have been tremendously difficult to dress her. Since she was to be cremated, her temple everythings was placed in the fabric temple envelope and placed on top of her body.

 

[Maureen]

11 hours ago, askandanswer said:

It happened this afternoon although the funeral is not until Tuesday. Five sisters were involved. I was surprised to hear that the body was wrapped in some sort of plastic film, I don/t know why, so the temple clothing will not be directly in touch with the skin.

I was curious about this, so did some reading and it appears that some bodies can leak; so the plastic film is because of leakage.

M.

[Just_A_Guy]

http://www.keepapitchinin.org/archives/dressing-the-dead/comment-page-1/

[askandanswer]

2 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

http://www.keepapitchinin.org/archives/dressing-the-dead/comment-page-1/

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Your access to this service has been temporarily limited. Please try again in a few minutes. (HTTP response code 503)

Reason: Advanced blocking in effect."

Thanks Jag, but I coudn't get to it. What does it say, in summary?

[JohnsonJones]

8 hours ago, askandanswer said:

"Your access to this site has been limited

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Reason: Advanced blocking in effect."

Thanks Jag, but I coudn't get to it. What does it say, in summary?

I'll quote two paragraphs that basically summarize the article

Quote

Most of us are so sheltered from death that our only experience is the sight of elderly relatives already dressed and coffined by the undertaker. It may never occur to us to give that service ourselves – yet in the case of a parent or child, or someone else to whom we are extremely close, we miss a profound opportunity if we do not at least consider dressing the dead. Based on my admittedly limited experience, this is what you might expect:

Undertakers in the U.S. are not used to family members tending to their own dead. You need to speak up if you want to do this – when the undertaker asks about burial clothes is a good time

Individual dresses their dead ancestor.  It is their experience and their suggestion that individuals also do so.