Nie Nie Dialogues on Today Show:
I found the talk by Elder Ballard especially interesting. i really like that the lord is mindful of the way things change and He uses those to further his work. I contrasted the Church's response and use of technology with that of the Catholic church and the printing press. No one in our church will be tried for heresy for trying to use technology to spread the word of God.
I, myself, have had opportunity to use technology to share the gospel. i had a friend from high school that was attending Dartmouth college. she had the opportunity to take a class on mormonism there. she asked my opinion on whether or not she should take it. i told her she should but only if she will keep me informed about it. and so throughout my freshman year she and i would video chat from across the country and discuss the church and read the book of mormon together. it was like having her in my dorm room for a missionary discussion. it was a simple thing, and i could have just as easily used the phone, but the video chat made our discussions much more personal and exciting. She has yet to join the church but i am excited that we got as far as we did.
Stephanie Nielson is an excellent example of an active cyber missionary. Many of you may know her from the powerful mormon message entitled "My New Life". Her contribution to spreading the gospel online is through her blog called "The Nie Nie Dialogues". all throughout her blog are references to the church. and she even has pictures in the margins of the temple and offers for a free book of mormon. Her blog is widely read as well making her influence ver far reaching. her is a quote from a website commenting on the success of Stephanie's blog: "Her fans love the Nie Nie Dialogues for Stephanie's fun, family-oriented perspective and her positive attitude on life. Her family exhibited this same positive attitude in their interview with Matt Lauer. The family's story has also been covered in the New York Times. According to the New York Times, visitors to the Nie Nie Dialogues blog have increased from 1,000 to well over 20,000 a day." 20,000 times a day!!! that is amazing. Elder Ballard really knew what he was talking about when he said that these technologies can really become a powerful tool in bringing the Gospel to the whole world.
My bishop informed our ward that we would be a part of this new thing called "Voices for Virtue". Which basically filters out all the bad stuff of the web. Although it does not only contain gospel content, it is becoming more and more popular just because it filters all the inappropriate things on the internet.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post!
Wow. Thanks for sharing that about Stephanie. I'd not heard of her before, and I am so glad that I have now.
ReplyDeleteJust think--if someone hears about Mormons and didn't understand who they are, what do they do? Well, they google us, of course! Once they're online they have access to masses of anti-mormon messages, but they also have access to masses of mormon blog posts, facebook profiles, websites, etc. And, if they really want to know what a Mormon is, doesn't it make sense to read what a Mormon writes about himself/herself and the faith rather than someone outside the faith?