Church will start sending e-mails to members

[pam]

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-send-email-messages-members-worldwide

 

 

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will soon begin receiving an email message from the First Presidency for the first time. The first email is being sent this week to a small group of about 10,000 members in the United States as the system is tested. Emails will be sent to millions of Church members throughout the world in 10 languages on December 3 and 4, 2014.

 

The newsletter contains a message from the First Presidency and two announcements concerning the Christmas season, including a greeting and information about the upcoming “He Is the Gift” initiative and the First Presidency Christmas devotional.

 

[classylady]

I like this.

[Vort]

This is great. My inbox is lonely. I desperately need lots more emails to fill it up.

[Crypto]

I hope they act with prudence with the email sending.

[Vort]

I'm only joking. I would be happy to get a hundred emails a day from the First Presidency. I would read them all carefully.

[Palerider]

I am looking forward to it. Can't wait, I wish I was one of the lucky 10,000. Lol

[MarginOfError]

This could be interesting or it could be tedious.  As a general rule, I unsubscribe from anything that sends me more than three e-mails in a week*.  This would be no exception.

 

* My ward mission leader used to send somewhere between 2 and 4 emails a week to the ward.  I got particularly irritated one day when he sent four e-mails within 90 minutes.  I wrote a rule to immediately move any e-mail from him to my trash folder.  I have to admit, it's been kind of nice.

[pam]

My understanding is that it will be a monthly newsletter with a message from the First Presidency and other bits of information.

[Palerider]

My understanding is that it will be a monthly newsletter with a message from the First Presidency and other bits of information.

That's how I thought it was going to work

[Crypto]

Once a month doesn't sound bad. It'll still get it's own special little filter and folder though, so it doesn't get mixed with all the other email messages.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Crypto

[MarginOfError]

So I'm getting the Ensign delivered to my e-mail.

[Bini]

I like the idea from an environmental standpoint, if it helps reduce the paper used annually, I'm all for digital newsletters. 

[Urstadt]

This is cool! I am very excited to see what this looks like.

But, are they really going to be from the First Presidency? Or will they be written by church workers based on bullet point summaries from the First Presidency? Because if that's the case, then the emails are really from Church HQ, that the First Presidency is merely involved in. Which is perfectly fine, too, and still fun. :)

I am not trying to be critical or negative. I am a bit of a philosopher and causality is something I just like to think about. It's just fun for me. Regardless of how one looks at it, this is still really cool and I am excited for it. :)

[Dravin]

I like the idea from an environmental standpoint, if it helps reduce the paper used annually, I'm all for digital newsletters. 

 

Despite MoE's bit of smarminess the newsletters won't be replacing the Ensign (which is available online already if one wanted to avoid a paper copy) and unless I've missed something over the years, they won't be replacing monthly paper newsletters coming from the First Presidency. So it's unlikely this will reduce paper use. I suppose if they are gung ho enough about monthly newsletters such that they'd do them even with the costs involved in a hard-copy newsletter it could be considered a paper reduction measure, but from the sounds of it they aren't deciding to save paper by burning electronics, they just decided to burn more electrons.

Edited November 29, 2014 by Dravin

[PolarVortex]

I just got the email, and "newsletter" would be a generous way to describe it.  It contains three items, and the first item announces the newsletter itself. 

 

I mean, I wasn't expecting an advice column, advertising, or a crossword puzzle, but this is pretty modest.  Perhaps it will grow with time.  It's not like the cost of paper and delivery would limit the size.

[estradling75]

I just got it too

[Roseslipper]

I  received mine today and I think it is awesome!!!  :)

[Roseslipper]

if you wish you can take your name off the emailing list if you desided you do not want to receive these emails.

[Saul Hudson]

I got an email from the First Presidency!!! How awesome is that! I have started reading the letters of Paul in the New Testament again and then here comes this email! It got me thinking, as much as Paul wrote, how would he have used email! How awesome it is to get an email from the apostles!

[Palerider]

Never got my email from the First Presidency. Wondering now if it got sent the spam folder. Ggggrrrrrrr

[Crypto]

First step to check is to see if your email is in your ward directory.

[pam]

It's not based on any ward directories.  It's based on the email address you used when you set up your LDS account.

[classylady]

I got the newsletter sent to both my email accounts.  I'm rather mystified how it was sent to one of my emails since I don't use that one except for very few instances.

[NightSG]

It's not based on any ward directories.  It's based on the email address you used when you set up your LDS account.

Oh good.  For some reason, through three secretaries now, my phone number and email in the ward directory seem to get messed up again about 6 months after I fix them.

 

It does keep the phone calls to a minimum, though :)

[Crypto]

The email I used for my lds account is what ended up in our ward directory that can be viewed online by logging into my lds account. All I can say is hmm. If it doesn't automatically get put there that means someone else did, and it certainly wasn't me. So I was under the impression that lds account and the corresponding online ward directory would be the same.