Official web sites of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Church is doing a remarkable job at getting things online. The online missionary recommendation forms are a great example of this. Young men and women are already computer savvy and can go online and fill out the form. Then the Bishop and Stake President enter some other information and it’s done. Within a few days a call letter is sent. I waited 8 weeks for my mission call. The last couple of missionaries that have gone out from our ward have waited about 10-12 days. Amazing! The other sites the Church have also provide great information, both for members and leaders, and even non-members.

Here is a list of the main Church web sites that you may need access to:

Main sites

Secondary sites

Useful Sub sections

  • http://scriptures.lds.org/ - the standard works available online
  • http://scriptures.byu.edu/ - Scriptural Index to the Latter-day Prophets - this isn’t technically a Church site, but it’s BYU so it counts. On this site you can look up a scripture, and then find all of the General Conference talks that have used that scripture. It is a great resource for preparing talks and finding a good quote.
  • http://lds.org/units/ - This is the shortest address to remember to get to a Ward/Branch/Stake/District web site
  • http://maps.lds.org/ - one of the coolest tools the Church has! You put in an address, and it shows the closest meetinghouses. In my case, I put my address in, and it showed me 3 meetinghouses within 50 miles or so. It then shows that the address I entered is actually part of 2 assigned congregations (my actual ward, and a YSA branch).
  • http://music.lds.org/ - the shortest address to remember to get to the Church’s music web site. From here you can download music, use the Interactive Church Music Player, and more
  • http://gems.lds.org/ - LDS Gems - the shortest address to remember to sign up for emails or RSS feeds of gems (good/interesting/faith-promoting stories, scriptures, etc) from the following categories: Church History Gems, Daily Gems, Family Gems, Young Single Adult Gems, Youth Gems
  • http://videos.lds.org/ - LDS Videos - the Church has put a lot of videos online. There are scripture resource videos, firesides, and even The World Report (the news show between sessions of conference).
  • http://mail.ldschurch.org/ - Outlook Web Access for Church email accounts - I don’t have one, but if you have an LDSChurch.org address, I assume this is where you can check your email.

Tools

  • http://lds.org/mss/ - the online missionary application form
  • http://col.ldschurch.org/ - the online directory of leaders. The Church used to publish a book with all of the worldwide leaders, and then they started to send around a CD. They still send the CD, but the online version is always up-to-date (Bishops de Yong, Ayers, and Olsen already show up). You can search by name or part of a name for either the unit or the person.
  • https://apps.lds.org/letters/ - Official Communication Library. Stake Presidents can look up previously issued memos and other official directives

Technical Sites

  • http://tech.lds.org/ - the Church has an official “tech” web site. There are postings from various Church employees
  • http://tech.lds.org/forum/ - the best part of the tech web site is the forum. You can post questions or answer other people’s questions about MLS, new Family Search, and more. From the forums I’ve learned about upcoming changes to MLS, learned about how to do certain things, and learned about upcoming test programs the Church is running (new mission tools online, new Family Search, Internet access in clerk’s office, etc)
  • For Family History related technical sites, see below

Family History

  • http://new.familysearch.org/ - official web site of the new Family Search. The roll-out of this has been delayed, but it looks like it will go along way in stopping duplication in our temple work. Since it is online, the information is always current, and members will be able to connect more easily.
  • http://priesthood.familysearch.org - this web site is for Family History Consultants and Priesthood leaders. I registered here and that is what got me access a couple of months ago to the new Family Search beta. I’m not sure if that is still true today.
  • http://familysearchlabs.org/ - FamilySearch Labs - This site has links to several different projects that are currently being tested. At the time of this writing, there are links to Research Wiki, Standard Finder, Family Tree, and Record Search
  • http://familysearchindexing.org - FamilySearch Indexing - The Church has a great system online where everyone could index records. You read a handwritten census sheet or something like that and type in what you’ve read. Someone else does the same thing and they they work through a process of standardizing the input. Very impressive!
  • http://search.labs.familysearch.org/ or http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/ - There are dozens of sources to search