If you're new here, read more about the More Good Foundation. We help members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church) share their beliefs on the Internet. Learn more about what Mormons believe or talk with Mormons at LDS.net.

There has been great enthusiasm lately for some of our tools at the Member’s Portal, especially the New Site tool. We have received several requests to create new Web sites and we will be letting you know about them as soon as they are up and running.

As I have mentioned before, establishing links between positive LDS sites is essential if we want to promote these sites online. We have created a list of “Top Ten Pages” that we should all link to. This list can be found in the Links tool on the Member’s Portal. By coordinating our efforts with these pages we should be able to see some great results. So if you maintain your own site or blog, or know someone else who does, make sure that some consideration is given to these and any other links other good sites.

We will be monitoring the pages pointed to by these links and will give you an update soon.

I’d like to say thank you to all those who have contacted me lately about starting a new Website. We expect that having lots of sites, each with lots of content, will have a powerful impact on search results. We will let you all know when these sites are up and running. It is very important that we are all linking our sites together, using keyword relevant text in the links (instead of “click here”).

We have been focusing on temple sites these past few weeks, with a special emphasis on the phrase “Mormon Temples.” You can find a list of the new sites we have created at the bottom of my comments. If you have your own website please add a link to any or all of these sites. You may find one that is close to your home, or one of your favorite temples. Odds are fairly good that you live near a temple that is not yet on this list. We can help you create a site for your favorite temple in just a few days, or you can add a couple more pages to your already existing site.

On a different note, many of you want to help with the Foundation’s efforts but may lack the skills to create a whole new site. We can help. If you are wondering what you can do (and what we can do for you), feel free to give me a phone call at 801-705-5122 or write me an e-mail at mhall@moregoodfoundation.org. Let me know what it is you enjoy doing and together we kind find some ways for you to get involved.

On the other hand, you may have some great skills but are having trouble finding something worthwhile to do. Again, contact me so that we can find something for you. We are constantly starting new projects and need all the help we can get. The possibilities are great; we just need to make the initial effort. Here are some of the great websites we have created so far for individual temples, focusing on content that is easily understood by non-members:

* Oakland (www.OaklandTemple.org) * San Diego (www.SanDiegoMormontemple.org) * Las Vegas (www.LasVegasMormonTemple.org) * Manhattan (www.manhattanmormontemple.org) * Newport Beach (www.NewportBeachMormonTemple.org) * Los Angeles (www.LosAngelesMormonTemple.org)

We need links to these sites; please consider adding the links to your own sites, to one or all of these temples. Soon we expect to have sites available for the following temples:

* St. Louis
* Louisville
* Palmyra
* Nauvoo
* Salt Lake
* Jordan River

Again, if you would like to have your own temple site, let us know and we can help you with it.

Thank you to all who were in attendance on the 15th. We enjoyed hearing from Larry Richman, coordinator of all Church Web sites. We also talked about the new Member’s Portal and some of the tools you can use.

I would like to bring your attention to the “New Site Tool” found on the Member’s Portal. There you will find many of the domain names that we have purchased and simple steps to get your own site started. This tool is very important because in order to make a greater impact on the Web, we need to have more sites with more content on them. We hope that you all are interested in maintaining your own site. If needed, we can help you with tackling technical questions as well as finding content to post.

Please take a look at all the great tools that are available on the Member’s Portal. If you would like to be a webmaster of a new site, let me know and we can get you started today. If you are already a webmaster, these tools can help you in creating even more effective sites.

In order to create more “search relevant” pages, all the sites that we create need to be linked together, one of the reasons for the “Link Tool” on the Member’s Portal. Please take a look at these sites we are working with and consider linking to them:

* www.AboutMormonism.com
* www.SanDiegoMormonTemple.org
* www.OaklandTemple.org

We will be sending updates on other sites we are working on as they progress.

We are living in very exciting times, and it’s never too late to get involved. Many of you already know about the upcoming meeting for the More Good Foundation. The Church is sending Larry Richmond, who is in charge of coordinating all of the activities on the Church Web sites. He will be talking about how and why the Church uses the Internet, and he will also talk about the Church’s future plans related to the Internet. (It should be interesting to see what they have up their sleeves.) All are invited to come and learn what the LDS community can do to help.

The meeting will be held this Thursday, December 15, at 2:00pm in room 151 of the Tanner Building on the BYU campus. There will be plenty of room, so feel free to bring your friends and anyone interested. Refreshments will be served!