My Name is Andrea, and I'm a Mormon

Exciting things are afoot in the missionary efforts of the Mormon Church. As many of you know, Ron works for the Church in the Missionary Dept, and his biggest assignment is Mormon.org. He's been through a number of redesigns in the last 8 years, but the next one is, by far, the most exciting and significant.

I was able to go last week to a seminar for Mormon bloggers....yeah, I only got that invitation by virtue of being someone's wife! But it was fun to be there and see the presentation and the reaction of the people there. Overall: excitement about the new site. Those of us there were asked to go home, and blog about what we learned.

The new site is beautiful! Vibrant colors, and very inviting. The Church and missionary department have looked at studies, and done focus groups, and each time, they find out that the general non-Mormon population have very skewed perceptions of the Church. All the info they get is from garbage like "Big Love", or perhaps what comes up when they Google "Mormon", most of which is not true, or nice. But when a focus group was given the chance to look through a sample of the new site for a few minutes, their perceptions completely changed, and we were suddenly normal people, who try to do what's right, love our family, and serve others. We actually became something almost appealing, imagine that!

Take a look:

Probably the most awesome part of the site are the "portraits". They have chosen a number of Mormons, some you've heard of, some not, and filmed them in their regular lives, and talked to them about their stories.....their experiences, their conversions, what is important to them, and why they are Mormon. Since Ron has many of these that he has to review, I have seen many of them, and they are wonderful. They show how many different walks of life Mormons come from, and make us much more "normal". ;) Not only will these portraits be available on the new site when it goes live (mid-June), they are also creating advertising using these portraits...banner ads, billboards, etc. At the end of each portrait, the person uses a few sentences to describe themselves, and ends with "I'm a Mormon." That tag-line will also be used in the other advertising.

Here's the most exciting and innovative part of it: beyond the filmed portraits, the Church is also opening the site up to members to help their missionary efforts. They are asking members to create a profile. The profile shares your personal story: who you are, why you are Mormon, how you live your faith, and also asks you to answer a couple questions about our beliefs and how they affect you personally. (When you create your profile, you have to do at least 2 questions, but you can answer more, or come back later and do more after your profile is complete.) You can be as private as you like, although you are identified by your 1st name, and asked to provide a picture. If you want to add social networking links (blog, facebook, twitter), you can do that as well.

They would like 1,000 by the time they launch the site, but would love to have as many members on there as possible. Could you imagine how amazing it would be if there were 500,000?!  (Even if Ron's eyes fail from moderating that many profiles....just kidding, he has some help!)

As Ron is a "moderator" and approving profiles (basically making sure they don't give too much info about themselves, etc.) I've been able to read over his shoulder a little. There are some wonderful profiles coming in. Actually, ALL of them are wonderful. People are joining in and sharing themselves in a collective missionary effort.

So here's my plug: Go to new.mormon.org and create your profile! You use your LDS account to sign in(same way you get into lds.org) and if you need to register for an LDS account, you need your membership number (on your temple recommend or call your ward membership clerk).

I know I'm excited about this.  How can I not be?  There are so many people putting their heart, souls, and many, many, many hours of work into this.  Not only that but this could be revolutionary to missionary work.  Think about being able to reach someone with your words & your testimony, that you may be the reason their heart is softened to learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amazing.