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In celebration of its 10 year anniversary, Google has released a tool for searching its oldest search index, from 2001. A search for “Mormon beliefs” or “Mormon missionaries” returned a very different set of results 7 years ago.

Due to the efforts of the Church and many Church members, people looking for information about Mormonism can now expect to find a wide variety of stories, testimonies, and experiences from Mormons living their faith.

And there’s still more to do.

Tags: Google, history

Testimony Tag is an idea for sharing your beliefs on your blog and encouraging your friends to do the same. You may have seen these viral games of “tag” in which one blogger writes, for example, “5 things you didn’t know about me” and then “tags” others to do the same.

If you have a blog, you can participate in a Testimony Tag by
1. Creating a blog post about a Gospel topic
2. Linking to another positive website or resource about the Church
3. Encouraging (”tagging”) your friends to do the same

For more information, read Testimony Tag.

Thanks to David for sending this in. I thought this was a great idea.

By the way, for an example of being a missionary online, see Matt Asay’s post “Five things you don’t know about me”. In the course of explaining five things about himself to a business and technical audience, he mentioned both his high school seminary class and his mission to France. He wasn’t preachy; he simply mentioned elements of his beliefs and practices that were a part of his life. This sort of transparency and openness helps build bridges and dispel myths about the Church.

Speaking of websites launched by Church employees, Brian Hansbrow has recently launched LDSTeacher.com. LDSTeacher.com is a social network with the goal of “improving teaching and learning in the … Church.”

At LDSTeacher.com you can discuss such topics as how to invite the Spirit into lessons, how to increase student participation, and how to prepare to teach. In a Church with no paid ministry, teachers may find these resources helpful.

LDSMediaTalk.com is a new blog created by several Church employees to share “technology ideas for LDS parents and youth.” While this blog is not an official publication of the Church, these bloggers are experts in their fields and are close to the issues. Anybody interested in how the Church uses and will use technology to fulfill its mission should subscribe to this blog.

Participants include the following individuals, as well as occasional guests:

• Larry Richman, LDS.org Product Manager
• Joel Dehlin, Church CIO
• David Nielson, Managing Director, Church Audiovisual Dept
• David Frischknecht, Managing Director, Church Curriculum Dept

A recent MormonTimes.com article quoted Larry Richman relative to the launch of this new site:

Richman said the principal writers for LDSMediaTalk.com will glean technology information useful to families based on each author’s area of expertise. The curriculum director will focus on teaching the gospel. The audiovisual director will focus on Hollywood, movie-watching and music. The CIO will dig into technology issues. “I’m somewhere in the middle of all of those,” Richman said.

Facebook now allows advertisers to discover the size of specific demographic audiences. By doing a few searches related to the Church, I was able to get an idea of the number of Mormons on Facebook. (See image below.)

The number of people in the U.S. who listed a Church-owned university as their college*:

• 20,660 - Brigham Young University
• 9,300 - Brigham Young University-Idaho
• 1,200 - Brigham Young University-Hawaii

*A small percentage of BYU students are not Mormons, and I think this figure only includes students. The BYU network, which includes alumni and faculty, has 37,395 people.

The number of people, by country, who listed “The Book of Mormon” as an interest:

• 11,880 - United States (1 in every 1,679 Americans on Facebook)
• 700 - Canada (1 in 10,516)
• 140 - United Kingdom (1 in 45,768)
• 40 - Australia (1 in 37,458)

These interests are, of course, self-selected and don’t reflect the actual number of Mormons on Facebook. I personally have several Mormon friends who do not list The Book of Mormon as an interest or did not attend a Church-owned university. Though Facebook users can specify a religion, Facebook does not allow advertisers to see demographics by religion.

Other interests listed by people in the U.S.:

• 696,120 - The Bible
• 281,380 - God
• 46,160 - Spending time with my family
• 38,940 - Religion
• 26,420 - Going to Church
• 18,000 - Jesus Christ

The More Good Foundation is pleased to announce a partnership with Dr. Richard Holzapfel to create the #1 website about Jesus Christ at Christ.org. (In the meantime, we are redirecting traffic to Mormon.org.)

Dr. Holzapfel is a BYU professor of Church History and Doctrine and a prolific author. We are very excited and honored to work with him.

Christ.org will include top articles, music, and videos on the life, death, resurrection, and mission of the Savior Jesus Christ. It will be well documented, well designed, and translated into over a dozen languages. We hope it will bring everyone who visits it closer to Christ.

Question for Commenters: What resources or features should the top website on Jesus Christ include?

I thought that it would be nice to keep a snapshot of when we reached 1,000 articles on our Mormonwiki. If you click on the thumbnail it will be enlarged.

Here are four ways the Internet can help you study the scriptures and other gospel material more consistently and more conveniently.

1. Be reminded each day to read the scriptures — Visit ReadTheScriptures.com to sign up for a daily scripture study email. You choose what you’re reading and how fast you want to go. There’s also an option for “notes” and “journal”. (This site had a few broken links when I tried it, but it’s a great concept.)
2. Get the scriptures downloaded to your iPod by podcast — Visit ScriptureCast.net, choose the book of scripture you’re reading, and select how fast you want to read (listen) or by what date you want to finish. Each day new audio is downloaded to your iPod so you can listen to your scriptures on the go.
3. Subscribe to the home teaching and visiting teaching messages, Ensign articles, priesthood and Relief Society lessons, and General Conference talks. Visit IfYeArePrepared.org and subscribe with iTunes (podcast) or by email.
4. If you have a shiny new iPhone, there’s an iPhone-friendly version of the standard works at tall.mountainmighty.com and at ReadScriptures.com. Very cool.

Jacob Durrant of AllAboutMormons.com is on a streak. He’s recently created eight videos explaining Gospel teachings in his own words:

A Crash Course in Mormonism

He’s also begun translating the videos into Portuguese, and all his videos are available on YouTube.

Here’s what Jacob is doing right:

1. He has created excellent videos using “consumer” level tools.
2. He shares his videos on YouTube, in addition to his own website, so more people will find them.
3. He uses his ability to speak Portuguese to translate the videos and reach even more people.
4. His explanations use terminology that persons of other faith will understand.
5. He explains Gospel principles in his own words, not claiming to be an official representative of The Church. His disclaimer makes it clear that his words are his own.

I believe these videos are amateur work in the best sense of that word, a word that derives from the Latin word for love.

Did you know you don’t need any video editing software or equipment to create a video on YouTube? Any Church member with a web cam can use YouTube’s Quick Capture option to record video testimonies.

15-16 June 2007 are the first ever MormonWiki.com Edit Days. We are advising all More Good Foundation members and friends of the event. An edit need not be grand, just a few words can help increase the usefulness of MormonWiki. Consider my first edits:

My first tentative step to editing MormonWiki.com was to add Aaron the Jaredite King to the Book of Mormon Characters index. My first edit went very well—success! I then added Helaman, son of King Benjamin to the index. Looking great! I didn’t write articles about King Aaron or Helaman, not even a sentence but I had made my first edit and life was good. However, before the evening was over I wrote my first article. I added Joseph to the Book of Mormon Characters index and then wrote this:

The younger of Lehi’s two sons born after Lehi left Jerusalem.

One sentence, but there it was—my first article, and life was more good. Gaining confidence I later went on to make a number of contributions and have the satisfaction that I am contributing to More Good on the Internet. Choosing a Book of Mormon character and tracing where he first appears and who he interacts with is an interesting way to study the Book of Mormon. For example, when I picked a bad guy, Zerahemnah, to write about I had forgotten that Captain Moroni shows up to do battle. It then became a study in tactics, reasons for fighting, and God giving the ultimate victory to those with the greater cause.

If you are a Foundation member, join in a worthwhile cause on Friday 15 and Saturday 16 June. If you are not a member, register now and ready yourself for MormonWiki Edit Days.