Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Second Wave of Approved Blogging LDS Missions: A Call to Help

Earlier I wrote about the New York Rochester Mission being the first to pilot LDS missionaries officially blogging. This week a second wave of missionaries from five other mission the California Santa Rosa Mission, Connecticut Hartford Mission, Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission, Michigan Lansing Mission, Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission, and a special branch of the   Referral Center Mission (RC) Provo MTC  joined the approved blogging network.

Seven mission groups in total have come on board under the new blogging czar Michael Hemmingway.The RC missionaries are not an official mission yet so there are six missions participating and one branch of the MTC. There are about a dozen missionaries anticipated from each mission blogging or soon to be blogging and Facebooking.   The missions are in various stages from just beginning to having blogs and Facebook.  They are used a variety of methods from general Facebook pages to Facebook notes to single person blogs to group blogs. The blogs are mostly Blogspot but there are a few Word Press blogs. One mission the California Santa Rosa hasn't had time to put up any blogs. The California Santa Rosa Mission only has the mission president on Facebook so far.

I was able to deduce that the change happened this past couple of weeks because: Elder Jordan Smith of the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission says on his facebook page "I am participating in a trial program as a missionary, using facebook to proselyte."

Using my deductive reasoning this past week I see that Hemingway has added four mission presidents all in a row and the Branch President over the Referral Mission at the MTC as friends. Also this week he added one other mission president:


 Jon Bunker California Santa Rosa Mission











H. Gary Pehrson President Connecticut Hartford Mission

William G. Woods Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission


Marc Jones Michigan Lansing Mission
Bill Schaefermeyer Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission

 John Allen Referral Mission MTC Provo, Utah









I noticed that President Jon Bunker of the California Santa Rosa Mission so far is the only one that has a Facebook page but none of his missionaries are online yet. He has been blogging since his mission started.  You can check out his blog: The Missionaries of Santa Rosa, California.
 

The Connecticut Hartford Mission President and at least five of his missionaries have come on board.


Elder Taylor

There are only a four missionaries from the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission currently blogging or on Facebook:


As far as I can tell about twelve out of the sixteen Michigan Lansing missionaries have blogs:
The following Michigan Lansing fifteen mission persons are officially using social media including Facebook and blogging:



The ten Referral Center (RC) Missionaries at the Provo MTC work under Branch President John Allen all have both a blog and a Facebook page. In the past two years there have been as many as fifty missionaries and as few as ten:



 
 Elder Bryan Sabin (blog | facebook) District Leader   
Elder Colton Baird (blog | facebook) District Leader
Elder Joshua Albright (blog | facebook)
Elder Jeffrey Edmons (blog | facebook)

  
Elder Andrew Howden (blog | facebook) 

    Elder Todd LeeMaster (blog | facebook)
    Elder Elliott Meza (blog | facebook)
    Elder Victor Moxley (blog | facebook)
    Elder Seth Spencer (blog | facebook)
    Elder Roger Thompson (blog | facebook) (leaving this week) 
    Kollin McMullin (blog | facebook) (now home)
    Elder Tyson Boardman (facebook) (the first -- and perhaps best -- chat missionary)

    Since 12 September 2010 the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission have six missionaries blogging on a group blog called GoodMormon America.Com.  Elder Azero, Elder Griffiths and Elder Bluth have posted so far. All of the six officially blogging missionaries have a Facebook page as well:

    Bill Schaefermeyer President Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission
     

    With the seven mission units due to come on in the next few weeks, I really think the missionaries could use some friends to add on Facebook and to follow their blogs. They definitely need people to comment and get some discussions going. If you want to help in the official effort add them as your friends on both their blogs and Facebook pages.  They should have hundreds of friends who comment on their blogs plus if your like me you have dozens of nonmember friends.  If you want to help them make the new program successful please participate in their social media experiment then soon we might have thousands of missionaries using social media to convert thousands to Christ.  I really think all the missionaries and their mission presidents could use some friends right now so add  them on Facebook and become followers of their blogs.
    Posted by Dr. B at 11:30 AM
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    1 comment:

    Sharilee Griffiths said...

    Thank you for this thorough summary of what is happening. Our son is Elder Griffiths in the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission and we are so thrilled to see this new mode of missionary work and to be able to be a part of it.

    The gospel has been such an incredible blessing in my life and I have such a strong desire for everyone to enjoy the blessings and the peace and the joy that comes through knowing Christ and understanding our relationship to Him and what He has done for us. I am so excited at the potential this new work has for reaching those who are searching for truth and desiring to learn more about Christ.

    Keep up the good work!!

    September 29, 2010 at 11:23 AM

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