LDS Media Talk

Provident Living is a Web site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that contains information regarding self-reliance, emergency preparedness, and humanitarian efforts. Resources range from calculators to help with family budgets and food storage to updates on ongoing global initiatives and emergency disaster response. Many of the welfare tools were designed for Church members, but much of the information is useful to the general public.

The guiding purpose of the site is to help people become self-reliant, care for the poor and needy, and encourage service to other. The Web site is intended to teach principles of welfare and to help visitors find opportunities to apply those principles in their lives and in the lives of others.  Visitors to the site can also get specific information about being self-reliant—a state in which families can care for themselves and then turn outwards to help others do the same.

Key content on the site

• Check out the main sections on Employment, Emergency Preparedness, Food Storage, Family Finances, Education and Literacy, Physical Health, and Social and Emotional Strength.
• Check out the new tips on Growing a Garden.
• Learn about the many programs provided by Deseret Industries.
• Learn about the services of LDS Family Services, including counseling and the addiction recovery program for substance and pornography addictions, gambling, etc.
• Besides teaching Welfare principles, the site also provides training and teaching materials to Church leaders and volunteers.
• Visitors can also find service opportunities, home storage order forms, employment or counseling services, and other resources that might be helpful in their efforts to live more providently.
• Humanitarian.lds.org is a page that the Church uses  to provide information on ongoing global initiatives and emergency updates during a natural disaster.
• In the Social and Emotional Strength channel, see the new site recently launched about adoption: ItsAboutLove.org.
• Employment Resource Services recently added “Job Search Tips,” a series of PDF sheets to help job seekers find employment.
• Also recently added is the Web version of  Providing in the Lord’s Way: Summary of A Leader’s Guide to Welfare, now available in 23 languages.
• The most recently redone channels are on Family Home Storage and Family Finances.
• Upcoming plans include a major upgrade of the site CombatingPornography.lds.org in the Social and Emotional Strength channel of Provident Living, as well as major revisions to the Employment Resource Services and Physical Health channels.

Let your family, friends, and ward members know about the resources at ProvidentLiving.lds.org that can help your family use its resources wisely. For example, last Sunday, I prepared a financial preparedness handout for my ward and included a reference to the Provident Living Web site.

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Mormon Messages has posted a new video that focuses on the importance of freedom and being thankful for the freedoms we are blessed to have.

What freedoms are you grateful for?

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I just reviewed the site OnGuardOnline.gov that provides practical tips from the federal government and the technology industry to help you be on guard against Internet fraud, secure your computer, and protect your personal information. It has some great tips you may find useful.

The site MyMoney.gov also  has links to sites with advice on privacy and avoiding fraud and scams.

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If you haven’t added the LDS App on Facebook, you should check it out. It allows you to include on Facebook some of your LDS interests and background. You have the option whether or not to include the information on your personal profile.

New features:

• Share your mission, with dates and experiences, and see other friends from your mission
• Share the temple you were married (or would like to be married). Include the date you were sealed.
• Share gospel artwork on your profile and through messages.
• Group your favorite scriptures together and share your thoughts on them.
• Play some scripture mastery games.
• Reference the help section which overviews all the features.

The LDS App was created by the More Good Foundation. The LDS App now has 39,500 members.

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The Joseph Smith Papers Web site is the official site of The Joseph Smith Papers, a comprehensive edition of extant Joseph Smith documents featuring complete and accurate transcription with both textual and contextual annotation.

When completed, The Joseph Smith Papers will consist of more than 30 published volumes within six series (journals, documents, revelations and translations, history, legal and business records, and administrative records). They will present the earliest handwritten and published texts of the foundational documents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including Joseph Smith’s revelations and translations. The Papers will provide insights into Joseph’s life and times through his correspondence, journals, discourses, court cases, and business dealings. In addition, the Papers will contain minutes of important church councils, reproductions of the scriptural canon as it existed during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, official histories, and records pertaining to church institutions that were under Joseph Smith’s direction or that reflect his personal instruction and involvement.

This publication of an essential resource for scholars and serious students of the life and work of Joseph Smith, early Mormonism, and nineteenth-century American religion.

With the Papers’ publication, readers will have, for the first time in one place, access to these essential primary documents.

Why people should visit The Joseph Smith Papers site:

The site provides sample documents featured in current and future volumes.  The site also provides reference materials that are not available in the printed publications.  For instance, the Web site features biographical and geographical indexes of important people and places in Joseph Smith’s life.  Visitors can also view a timeline of Joseph life.  Whether or not you own the published volume, these materials can be resources for any student of Joseph Smith’s life or early Mormonism.  For those who have purchased the first volume of The Joseph Smith Papers, there is an exhaustive index for that volume available on the site as well.  In addition, the site offers three key essays on Joseph Smith, as written by volume editors.

The site gives visitors a better understanding of the project, such as information about the objective and scope of the project, intended content of future volumes, the credentials of the scholars and professional working on the Joseph Smith Papers, and a description of the project itself.  Sample digital images give visitors a “taste” of the original documents as they will be treated in the project.      

The site is updated regularlywith information on the publishing schedule of upcoming volumes.  The News and Reviews section of the site highlights newsworthy items about the project, as well as recent awards and reviews given to the volumes of the project.  Future upgrades to the site will add additional documents, reference materials, and essays, all in searchable formats.

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I just posted a page to this site that lists all the major Web sites of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its permanent link is on the right side of this site, under Blogroll.

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President Dieter F. Uchtdorf at the April 2008 general conference:

“This conference is being translated into 92 languages and broadcast to 96 countries by the miracle of modern technology. Many of you brethren attend general conference by means of the Internet. New technologies such as this make it possible for the gospel message to be spread throughout the world. The Church Web sites are good examples of how you can use this technology as a wonderful resource of inspiration, help, and learning. They can be a blessing for you priesthood holders, your families, and the Church.

“But be cautious. These same technologies can allow evil influences to cross the threshold of your homes. These dangerous traps are only a mouse click away. Pornography, violence, intolerance, and ungodliness destroy families, marriages, and individual lives. These dangers are distributed through many media, including magazines, books, television, movies, and music, as well as the Internet. The Lord will help you to recognize and avoid those evils. It is the early recognition of danger and a clear course correction that will keep you in the light of the gospel. Minor decisions can lead to major consequences.

“Entering a strange and risky chat room on the Internet could lead you into the center of a raging storm. Putting a computer in a private room that the rest of the family cannot access could be the starting point for a deceitful and dangerous journey.”

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “A Matter of a Few Degrees,” Ensign, May 2008, 57-60

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A recent article in USA Today titled “Txting away ur education” talked about the use of cell phones and texting in our schools and the distraction that can be to your child’s education. It also talked about how addicted some youth are to texting and the emotional impact it has on them. I encourage you to read the article to be informed about the issues.

A Nielsen study reports that American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the 4th quarter of 2008 — almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier. Read more about the extent of text messaging. 

How many messages do your children send? Are those during school time? Are they during sleep time? Have you had a good discussion with your children, taught them to be responsible in using their cell phones, and set ground rules with them?

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People change religions early and often.  That is a conclusion from a recently published report regarding American’s religious affiliation changes from The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 

In reading the report, I saw some things that I think may help us better succeed in our missionary objectives and in retaining converts.  I also noticed several points that may be of interest to parents and leaders of youth regarding keeping young people strong in the faith.  Young people are among the most likely to change religious affiliations or fall away from church altogether.  This report gives some interesting data points explaining why that change of religion happens.

The report is called Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S., and was published on April 27, 2009. The report discusses:

1. why people change from one religion to another
2. why people stop going to church
3. why non-religious people start practicing religion

Why people change from one religion to another

The data in the report shows that about half of American adults will change their religion at some point in their life.  Of those that change religion, about a third change only once, about a third change religions twice, and another third change religions three or more times in their life.  Most of the people who change from one religion to another do so early in life, generally before the age of 24.  People over the age of 50 rarely change religion according to the report.

The Pew report dives into why Americans change religious affiliation, and it turns out to be for a variety of reasons.  The top reason people give for leaving a former faith is that they “just gradually drifted away from their childhood religion.”  The second most cited reason for leaving their religion is that “their spiritual needs were not being met.”  See the full list of reasons in the chart below.

Why people stop going to church

The group that has grown the most in recent years due to religious change is the number of people that stop going to any particular church (the “unaffiliated” group as the Pew report calls them).  It’s interesting that very few people say they stopped going to church because they believe science disproves religion or that religion is just a superstition.  But they do admit a waning of faith is generally the reason why they stop going to church.

“Two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated and half of former Protestants who have become unaffiliated say they left their childhood faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, and roughly four-in-ten say they became unaffiliated because they do not believe in God or the teachings of most religions.”

The survey had another startling revelation on why people stop going to Church.  For those people who grew up in a Church and are now “unaffiliated,” 90% of them report a weakening of their faith in the year or two prior to the change.

“The numbers are even lower among those who have become unaffiliated, with only 10% of former Catholics and 11% of former Protestants saying they had very strong faith just before leaving their former religion. This is consistent with another of the survey’s key findings – that among both former Protestants and former Catholics who are now unaffiliated, more than seven-in-ten say they just gradually drifted away from their childhood religion.”

Why non-religious people start practicing religion

According to the report, 16% of adults say they are currently unaffiliated with any particular religion.  This is despite the fact that only 7% were raised without religion.  The interesting thing here is that most people who were raised unaffiliated with religion now belong to a church.  Rather than remaining unaffiliated with a church, the people raised without religion tend to have a religious awakening in their early adulthood and join a church. 

Whether a person is joining a church after having never gone to church or after previously having attended a different one, the top reasons for joining a new religion are generally the same.  Most people say they have joined a church because 1) they “enjoy the religious services and style of worship,” and 2) they “felt called by God.”  Not surprisingly, many of those joining a church for the first time also cite reasons related to “personal spirituality” as an explanation for why they have now became involved with a religion.

Conclusion

This report gives us many insights into ways to do missionary work more effectively and ways to keep our children from falling away from the faith.  After studying this report, below are the takeaways that I have learned.  See if you agree or disagree.  Either way, let me know.

• All other things being equal, our missionary efforts are going to be more effectively focused at younger people. Of course some older people join the church.  I have heard the stories and even participated in such conversions.  But young people tend to be more open to change, particularly regarding religion.
• Statistically speaking, people raised without a church are very likely to have a religious awakening. We should not be shy about sharing our religion with those people who were raised unaffiliated with a religion.  We should be ready, willing and able to share the gospel of Jesus Christ to the humble seeker of truth.
• Be aware of signs that people’s faith is slipping.  Often times they will be very open about it.  Share your testimony and strengthen one another’s faith. Fulfill your callings, do your home teaching, find opportunities to serve those in need. “Lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.” (D&C 81:5)
• Our youth are the most susceptible to a slow decline in faith. So beware of our children, and other church members as well, gradually drifting away from the church. This is the most common way people fall away from active participation in religion.   This is one of the reasons why strengthening families is so important.

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When was the last time you checked out the Web site for the Church’s Friend magazine at friend.lds.org? If it’s been a while, you may be surprised by what you’ll find there today.

All the Church magazine Web sites are in their very early stages of development. They started by being a library of current and past issues of the magazines. However, they are now beginning to develop additional content and interactivity. The Friend magazine is a great example of this. The home page is divided into two sections:

Why visit the site?

The center of the home page offers to children a selection of entertaining ways to learn many of the same things they already enjoy in the magazine. Hopefully, children will enjoy their time on the site because it helps bring gospel principles to them in a way that’s fun and spiritually uplifting. Plans are to add several new features to the site each month.

The right sash on the home page includes features geared toward assisting parents, teachers, and Primary leaders. Parents can trust the site to have safe games and no advertisements that may be inappropriate for children. Parents also like that the site’s activities give parents a chance to engage with their children in teaching opportunities that often lead to child-parent discussions.

What’s available on the site?

For children:

• Hidden Pictures. The hidden pictures puzzles allow children to look through a drawing just as they would in the magazine and find hidden pictures. However, instead of circling or coloring the hidden pictures, children on the Web site click on each image they find. As they do, the image appears in color. After all the images have been found, the whole page appears in color. There are currently 5 hidden picture pages.
• Puzzles: There are currently 16 puzzles. Most of the puzzles include art from stories found in the scriptures, however there are a few puzzles of temples and church history events. There is a related song that plays in the background of each puzzle and hints are included to help children who are a too young to figure the puzzles out.
• Matching Games. There are currently 4 matching games: Temples, Scripture Stories, Prophets and Apostles, and Latter-day Prophets. These games also have music that plays in the background as well as a timer that children can use to see how long it takes them to complete a game. There is a background image  behind the cards that slowly reveals as each match is found. The background pictures and the order in which the cards are displayed changes each time a new game is loaded. The photos of the latter-day prophets and current prophets and apostles line up along the bottom of the page and when they are scrolled over, the name of the prophet or apostle appears.
• Interactive Coloring Pages. The Web site includes four interactive coloring pages that allow children to color online. Music also plays in the background as children color these pages. The pages can be printed, although the images will not print full page.
• Our Creative Friends Slideshow. This is one of the most popular sections in the Friend magazine. The Web version simply takes the drawings and includes them in a slideshow format. This is updated each month.
• “Matt and Mandy” and “For Little Friends” videos. These videos are also updated each month. The videos combine the drawings from the magazine with the audio story. Each video is 1-2 minutes long. There are almost 20 videos on the site.
• Listen to Stories. This link on the home page allows children to easily navigate to the stories from an issue. Children can choose a story to listen to by selecting the image from the magazine that relates to the story. Updated monthly.
• Scripture Stories. This link simply sends visitors to scripturestories.lds.org, where they can view the videos or listen to the MP3 audio files of the stories that are in the Old Testament, New Testament, Doctrine & Covenants, and Book of Mormon readers.
• Surveys. This is a Web-only feature that asks children 3 or 4 simple questions. When the next month’s magazine is posted, the results from the previous month’s survey are posted as well.

For Parents and Teachers:

• Print Coloring Pages. This link, which is located in the children’s section of the page, allows parents to print coloring pages published in the Friend over the last few years.
• Sharing Time. This helps Primary leaders to plan for next month’s sharing time. Resources for a month’s sharing time are posted about the middle of the previous month.
• Print Activities. Parents or teachers can find and print any of the pages from an issue that would be considered to be an activity, such as Funstuf pages, crafts, recipes, and coloring pages.
• Music. The home page includes a link to the Children’s Songbook. It currently also includes a link to a song published last October called “The Family is of God.” In the near future, more music printed in the Friend will be made available.

Feedback

The Friend staff would welcome your comments and suggestions for future content. E-mail them at friend@ldschurch.org. Those hoping to have their work published in the Friend can find Writers’ Guidelines on the bottom right of the Friend home page. Likewise, submissions by children and by adults can now be submitted using the “Submit Your Material” link on that page.

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 The FamilySearch Indexing application at FamilySearchIndexing.org is now available in 3 additional languages—Italian, Portuguese, and Russian. The application was already available in English, French, German, and Spanish.

In 2008, FamilySearch indexing volunteers from around the world indexed more than 115 million names. Volunteers are always in demand, especially those who read a language other than English. Anyone of any age can register to volunteer by visiting FamilySearchIndexing.org.

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Matt Leonard over at Search Engine Journal recently wrote about Twitter SEO: 4 Simple Tips to Help Your Twitter Profile Rank. If you’ve got a Twitter account and want to make sure your profile appears the way you want in search engines, then this is a good article to review. Here is a brief review of Matt’s suggestions:

1. Optimize the title tag by using your actual name instead of your Twitter username.
2. Optimize the meta description  by writing a good “one line bio”.
3. Build followers, links and PageRank. Followers who have pages with higher PageRank can help boost your profile’s PageRank and good quality tweets should help with conventional SEO.
4. Link to your Twitter profile using your name as the link anchor text every now and then.

If you have any questions about these Twitter SEO tips, check out the whole article.

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Last month, I wrote “Faith-Promoting Story or Urban Legend?” I just found this video clip, which debunks a few other Mormon myths.

And, of course, there is this video produced by the Church Public Affairs Department:

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After 15 years of planning, 4 years of construction, and a million artifacts moved, the new Church History Library was dedicated Saturday, June 20, and opens to the public today. The impressive granite and glass structure sits at the intersection of North Temple and Main Street in Salt Lake City, sharing intersection with the Conference Center, Temple Square, and the Relief Society Building.

The 230,000-square-foot (4 football fields of space) facility houses more than 179 years’ worth of Church history. In addition to collecting and preserving, the facility is also designed to provide access to the Church history information.

Last week, I toured this impressive new library with fellow Church employees.

Moving the Collection

In an extraordinary operation, more than a million valuable documents, books, photos, diaries, microfiche, and film were moved from their old home at the Church Office Building across the street to the Church History Library. Although it took just 19 days to physically move the items across the street, it took 200 volunteers (aged 19-91) more than 10,000 man-hours over a period of a year and a half to tag, categorize, and prepare each piece to be moved. One project leader compared the mammoth undertaking to moving the Library of Congress.

Preserving the Collection

Priceless documents and artifacts are housed and preserved on nearly 50 miles of shelving in temperature-controlled vaults with fire and seismic protection. 10 storage rooms maintain a constant temperature of 55 degrees F, with 35% relative humidity, to slow down the chemical processes that cause the documents to age. Some items, such as color motion picture films, photographs, and records of special significance, are kept in subzero (minus 4 degrees F) vaults. Environmental controls reduce the physical stress of expansion and contraction induced by fluctuating temperatures, which in Utah range from 0 to 105 degrees F.

The old-and-new collection contains everything from Book of Mormon manuscript pages to modern-day patriarchal blessings; antiquated wax cylinder audio recordings to advanced digital technology. And each year, the collection of a million-plus records grows by approximately 6,000 items.

The Church History Library also provides the latest methods in conservation, collection development, and research. Conservators repair, restore, and stabilize books, documents and photographs with a state-of-the-art conservation lab. The lab includes a darkroom, where conservators are able to turn acetate negatives into useable photographs, and a document cleaning room that enables them to wash historical records and apply age-slowing chemical treatments. 

Digital records are also preserved through periodic migration to different mediums. Even obsolete equipment has its place. The collection contains media formats that have been used over 100 years–for example, an 1897 wax cylinder of President Wilford Woodruff’s voice. There are also wire recordings, reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and motion picture films. Their challenge is to have not only the items themselves, but the equipment on which to play them.

More About the Facility

That state-of-the-art spirit is also found in the innovation of the Church History Library’s design. Great care was taken to make sure the building not only met, but surpassed building code and energy efficiency standards. That attention to a “green” building design is found in such areas as the filtering system, which eliminates allergens. The paper, plastic and metal products used in the Church History Library will be recycled, and the heating and cooling systems have the highest efficiency ratings. The landscaping and plumbing will use less water, and the windows, blinds, and insulation will preserve temperatures.

But perhaps one of the most notable aspects of the new library is that it is designed for public accessibility. The Church History Department’s previous accommodations were designed to be more of an internal archive, said Steve Olsen, managing director over Church history. “The Church in its foundational documents has a huge commitment to preserving history and to making history useful for members and others interested in learning about its history,” said Brother Olsen. “It is the first time in the Church’s 179-year history that we have had a dedicated public building for this purpose. … It’s really quite significant.”

Resources Online

The new Web site ChurchHistoryLibrary.org provides online information about the library; the building; fun facts; architectural renderings, construction photographs, and slideshows; inventory of the building’s time capsule; the video “O Remember, Remember;” a list of services provided by the Church History Library; and links to the Church History Web site, Joseph Smith Papers Web site, and the Joseph Smith Web site.

Eventually, more of the actual documents from the Church History Library collection will be provided online.

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I am pleased to report that the free Mormon Channel iPhone application is now available. This application allows iPhone users to tune into content being broadcast on the Mormon Channel, as well as listen to audio recordings of General Conference addresses, magazine articles, and the Church’s standard works. This application also works on the iPod Touch.

We are working on something similar for other mobile phones.

Get the Mormon Channel iPhone app

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