See the Preserving Marriage Channel on YouTube for some great videos that explain the reasons for supporting Proposition 8. Also see our previous post on Proposition 8.
Posted October 15th, 2008 · Permalink · No Comments »
The popular printed books with colorfully illustrated scripture stories are now available online: Book of Mormon Stories, Doctrine and Covenants Stories, Old Testament Stories, and New Testament Stories.
Each of the four books is available online in downloadable text, audio, and video formats. These are written on a basic reading level for children and are also a valuable resource for others who may not yet be familiar with the standard works. The Church has also released a video version (not animated) of the books on a new DVD set.
Consider getting the printed books or the DVD set as Christmas gifts for children.
How helpful is it to your family for the Church to provide the HTML, PDF, MP3, and downloadable video formats, in addition to the printed books and DVD formats?
Posted October 13th, 2008 · Permalink · 6 Comments »
In the year 2000, over 61% of California voters passed Proposition 22, saying that a marriage in California is between a man and a woman. Earlier this year, four activist judges in San Francisco wrongly overturned the people’s vote, legalizing same-sex marriage. On November 4, Californians will vote on an amendment to the state constitution that says “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” These are the same 14 words that were previously approved in 2000.
Many churches and organizations are strongly against legalizing same-sex marriage which would make it normal and equal in value in the law and in our society. This would have profound effects throughout society, including the limiting of the rights of churches to preach and act upon their beliefs and values.
Because this is a moral issue, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is encouraging all Californians to vote for Proposition 8.
Proposition 8 is NOT an attack on gay couples and does not take away the rights that same-sex couples already have under California’s domestic partner law. California law already grants domestic partners all the rights that a state can grant to a married couple. Gay people have a right to their private lives, but not to change the definition of marriage for everyone else.
It restores the definition of marriage to what the vast majority of California voters already approved and what Californians agree should be supported, not undermined.
It overturns the outrageous decision of four activist Supreme Court judges who ignored the will of the people.
It protects our children from being taught in public schools that same-sex marriage is the same as traditional marriage, and prevents other consequences to Californians who will be forced to not just be tolerant of gay lifestyles, but face mandatory compliance regardless of their personal beliefs.
On June 20, 2008, the First Presidency of the Church distributed a letter about “Preserving Traditional Marriage and Strengthening Families,” announcing the Church’s participation with the coalition. The letter, which was read in sacrament meetings in California, asked that Church members “do all [they] can to support the proposed constitutional amendment.”
Members of the many churches and organizations that are participating in the Protect Marriage Coalition, including members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are calling friends, family and fellow citizens in California to urge support of Proposition 8 to defend traditional marriage.
Members of the Church in Arizona and Florida will also be voting on constitutional amendments regarding marriage in their states, where coalitions similar to California’s are now being formed. It is expected that virtually all states will be voting on this issue in the near future.
Because the outcome of Proposition 8 will have a major impact on the whole nation, the Church is readying members in other states to help phone California voters and encourage them to vote Yes on this critical issue.
Learn more from these Web sites:
In the video below, young adults from California discuss their involvement in preserving traditional marriage.
Segments from a Church broadcast to Californian Church members addressing the Church’s doctrine of marriage and the Protect Marriage Coalition:
Two good videos from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council:
Posted October 11th, 2008 · Permalink · 8 Comments »
Consistent with this Blog’s goal of discussing topics relevant to LDS parents and youth, as well as considering my professional field of Web analytics, I’d like to talk today about the growth of Facebook and how it relates to LDS families. Facebook.com is one of the world’s most popular Web sites, particularly among youth and young adults, and has been a frequent topic of discussion at this blog (see What are social networks?, Watch Out Google, Here Comes Facebook, and 12 Ways to Share the Gospel on the Internet).
The Stats
According to comScore, Facebook recently took over MySpace as the leading social networking site, attracting 132 million visitors world-wide in June 2008. In the US, Facebook’s popularity still trails MySpace, though Hitwise reports that Facebook saw a 40% growth in US market share over the last year while MySpace’s share declined. Alexa reports that Facebook is 5th most popular Web site in the world behind Yahoo!, Google, YouTube and Windows Live. Facebook has particularly high usage among teens and young adults; according to a 2006 study, Facebook was named the second most popular thing among undergraduate college students, and only ranked lower than the iPod.
What this Means for Parents and Leaders of Youth
Chances are that if you are a parent of a teenage or a youth leader, you are probably less technically savvy than the youth you work with. Many parents and youth leaders I have spoken with don’t really understand what Facebook is and most have never visited the Web site. I’m not advocating spying on your kids (I’ll leave that up to your own discretion) but I do think parents and leaders should visit Facebook and see what the youth are doing online. You will probably be surprised at what you find; pleasantly surprised in some instances, unpleasantly surprised in other cases.
My wife and I have worked with the youth in Church callings for years. We love staying in contact with these youth that we came to care about so much and Facebook provides a great way to do just that. It is so satisfying to see the youth that we remember as Deacons and Teachers, Beehives and Miamaids, growing up, entering college, going on missions, and marrying in the temple. On the flip side, it is saddening to see the poor choices some of the youth are making, as reflected in the things they write on Facebook and the pictures they post.
Like the Internet in general, there is much good and much evil easily available on social media Web sites such as Facebook. Church leaders have stated that the Internet is a great tool for hastening the work of the Lord, but they have also repeatedly counseled members to avoid evils that are available on the Web. Elder L. Edward Brown of the Seventy taught: ”You have access through the Internet to resources one cannot begin to imagine. However, lurking there as well is a sinister evil, as deadly as a rapidly growing cancer…Self-discipline is required relative to the materials you choose to read and the videos you may select to view.” (”Bring Your Mission Home with You,” Ensign, Dec. 2000, 18).
Join In
I believe that by joining in this online social network, we parents and leaders can help, guide and protect the youth. To sign up for a free Facebook account, simply go to Facebook.com and fill out the form on the home page. Once you’re in, browse around, see what it’s all about, and request friendships with your youth, family and other friends. To learn more about how to create an account and connect with friends, check out A beginner’s guide to Facebook, or this Videos Series, “How to Use Facebook”, by eHow.com.
Posted October 10th, 2008 · Permalink · 4 Comments »
Mormon Magz reports that the New Era has posted comments from youth on general conference. It is inspiring to see how well these addresses can connect to youth and how deeply the youth can feel about the doctrines of the gospel. Their spontaneous reactions to the conference addresses show a simple and growing understanding of and faith in the Lord and His servants.
Youth can send their comments to the New Era.
Posted October 10th, 2008 · Permalink · No Comments »
English text of all the sessions from the recent LDS General Conference is now available online.
Read more information about audio, video, and non-English text.
Posted October 9th, 2008 · Permalink · No Comments »
We have recently added to the footer of all the new pages in LDS.org the option to “E-mail to a Friend.” This allows you to send the link to a favorite page to a friend, along with a message.
Why might you use this? Let’s say you are browsing the image libraries in the Gospel Library and discover that you can access the Gospel Art Picture Kit online. You think your sister would be interested in referencing it when she prepares her Primary lessons, so you click “E-mail to a Friend” in the footer on that page, enter her e-mail address, yours, and a message to her.
Go discover something new on LDS.org and tell a friend about it.
Posted October 8th, 2008 · Permalink · No Comments »
Video of all conference sessions (except the priesthood session) in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and American Sign Language was available online within hours of each session. These can be viewed using the new high-quality video player, which allows you to pause, restart, fast forward, and reverse.
You can also select a language at the bottom of that page to view files that you can download. Audio files are already available in many languages, and video and text will be available over the next few days.
Posted October 6th, 2008 · Permalink · 15 Comments »
This weekend’s general conference will feature a new online video player using the super fantastic Move Networks streaming technologyz. The live video will be available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and American Sign Language. The quality of the video is quite amazing. The better your connection, the sharper the picture. (Try the fullscreen.) And it is crazy fast.
Each talk, musical number, prayer and conducting will be “clipped” for easy navigation. You can watch it live beginning tomorrow at 10:00 am MST (12:00 pm EST).
Rob Jex and Brian Hansbrow led product management of the online General Conference. Chris Mayfield, Wayne Pullman and I designed the new player. Darin Warren developed the flash player. Brent Lewis, Tyler Dalton, Travis Foxley, Mindie Sorenson, Chris Jones, Chris Twitty, Vicki Bird, Bill Bush and many others helped put it on the site with many hours of testing (I’m sure I missed others).
And lastly, thank you to the great people of Move Networks who helped us provide this great service. Wish us luck! (We hope we can handle all of the load this weekend.)
And please give us your feedback. Thank you!
Posted October 3rd, 2008 · Permalink · 26 Comments »
You’ve probably heard the acronym PDF, but what is it?
PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for exchanging documents. Let’s say you create a word processing file using Microsoft Word and want to send it to a friend, but she uses WordPerfect. Or what if you create an Excel spreadsheet and send it to someone who doesn’t have the Excel program. Well, PDF is your answer. From Word, WordPerfect, Excel, or hundreds of other programs, you can create a document in PDF format that others can open and view in all its formatted glory, whether or not they have the program that created the file. All they need is a free Acrobat Reader to view the document. (It’s likely that your computer already has Acrobat Reader installed.)
Visitors to Church Web sites use PDF files a lot. In fact, since January 1, 2008, visitors have viewed 2,358,619 such files. All the major Church publications are available in PDF format, so you can see them with all the illustrations, photographs, and text formatted just like the printed page. You can see an index of Church publications available in PDF format or while viewing a publication online, you can access the PDF of the entire publication or just a single article or chapter.
To access the PDF of an entire publication: Go to the Table of Contents for the magazine or manual and click View on the format bar.
To access individual articles or chapters: Go to the article or chapter and click View on the format bar.
Once you’ve found the PDF, you can read it online, print all or part of it using the Adobe Reader command buttons that appear inside the window, or download the PDF by clicking the Adobe Reader command button labeled Save a Copy.
Note: PDFs of magazines are only available back to 2001 (because of copyright restrictions), even though the text of the magazines is available online back to 1971.
Posted October 3rd, 2008 · Permalink · 3 Comments »
Hello. My name is Jimmy Smith. I am the Web Analytics Product Manager at the LDS Church, and along with Greg McMurdie, I am the newest contributor to the LDS Media Talk blog. Prior to landing here at the Church earlier this year, I was a Marketing Analyst for FedEx in Memphis, TN and prior to that I was a Software Engineer for Motorola in Fort Lauderdale, FL. My educational background is a BS in Electronics Engineering Technology from BYU in 2001, and an MBA from Arizona State University in 2005. In my role at the Church, I:
I am married to the lovely and gracious Heather, and we have three children, Hannah, Abraham and Maxwell. I am very grateful that my full-time employment is working for the Church and striving to hasten the work of the Lord my making Church Web sites better. I am also grateful that Larry Richman has allowed me to be a contributor on this blog; I hope I can make a positive influence on all its readers and I look forward to conversing (electronically) with all of you.
Posted October 2nd, 2008 · Permalink ·
