Dr. B. Creates Official Mormon Mission World Aggregator in Response to Missionary Request to Become International

On Friday 1 October 2010 I noticed that Elder Louis Dajeu of the New York Rochester Mission's blog link Remember Who You Are! wasn't working on my blog list on Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord. I saw that he was on Facebook so I chatted with him briefly to get the correct link or to ask him to fix a broken link. He quickly responded giving me the correct link with which I fixed my blog.

A few minutes later I noticed he was engaging me in a further chat conversation. As a result of the two hours we spent chatting I have designed a new aggregator Official Mormon Mission World because of this elder's desire to have a truly International presence on the Internet.  Unfortunately and ironically it is an unofficial aggregator because I am just a Joe Blow member and not connected to the new LDS Blogging movement officially. I changed it temporarily to state it was unofficial but opted to put it in the only post on the site. The aggregator doesn't have the stamp of approval from the Church but I am working on that.

I thought Elder Dajeu was a sincere young servant of the Lord with a very righteous desire so I did this in response to his request to get international attention. I know he is called to a specific mission but even that effort needs some aggregation to drum up business.

This is a brief description of what transpired on Friday, 30 September 2010 and which I ended up spending about three hours working on mostly from home since I get off work early in the afternoon since I go to work at 6am.  Elder Dajeu wrote me on Facebook chat and asked me to help him improve his blog saying "can you help me fix my blog." He said further "I want an international blog." I said "I can help you. Do you have some time now?"

I spent a couple of hours showing him how to make some enhancements to his blog that possibly would   drive traffic to his blog. I first showed him my own personal blog list that I created to support the newly called blogging missionaries called "Official Blogging Missionaries" on my sidebar of my blog Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord. I taught him how to create a blog list of all of his own official missionary peeps.  I explained to him that he should show all the official blogging missionaries and that they should all do the same.  I told him four times to teach the other missionaries how to do this. People who do Google searches on those missionaries names will see a link to his blog and all the other blogs if they create a blog list.  Within a few minutes if I add a missionary blog to any blog list I am picked up by Google which accounts for 80% of my traffic.

Elder Dajeu didn't know how to create a blog list so I showed him how.

Steps for Creating a Blog List in Blogger (Blogspot)

• Login
• Click on Design
• Click Add a gadget
• Scroll down entries under Basic to Blog List 
• Click on Blog List
• In Title Box type "Official Missionary Blog Peeps" or whatever title you choose
• Check the following boxes (Title of most recent item, Snippet of most recent item, Thumbnail of most recent item, and Date of last update)
•  Click Add to List
• Under Add by URL Box either type out a URL "i.e Elder Sabin" or paste one by right clicking and scroll hand down to one you have copy or cut
• Click Add
• Click Rename (add missionary name and mission or whatever text you desire)
• Click Save

I showed him how to do one so he could do it.  I joked with him that he must be typing with his nose or toes since it was taking him a while.  My wife said he was probably multi-tasking talking to other missionaries and didn't see the importance at first of what I was doing.  He became a little more receptive when I showed him my Stat Counter and how I had 266,000 hits. He was really amazed at how many people go to my blog.  I told him that he could large numbers if he had things that would attract them.

He told me again that he wanted his blog to be an international blog visited by people throughout the world. I could tell he wasn't sure this blog list would help him much.  Then I said okay I will show you how to possibly make it an international blog.  I explained to him about aggregators.  He didn't have a clue what an aggregator was so I showed him Mormon Mission World.  I could tell he again couldn't grasp fully what I was trying to show him since he didn't respond for some time.  There were too many blogs to get the picture since I have over one thousand missionary official and unofficial blogs aggregated.

Again he wondered if I could help him become an international blog. I told him that I could show him how to do that in a short time. I then took him to the ultimate blog aggregator for making his blog International which is BlogPulse. It has 147,648,247 blogs aggregated in one place. It adds about fifty thousand blogs a day. It took me a little bit of an effort but Elder Dajeu was finally able to submit his blog. Blog Pulse allows you to submit your blog for free. The flaw in the tool is that you can't readily find LDS or Mormon missionary blogs unless you search a term like "MTC" which is unique.  I showed Elder Dajeu you could do a search on "New York Rochester LDS Mission" and get back a few results none of which included him.  Adding his blog to Blog Pulse is better than no aggregation.

These are the steps for adding your blog to Blog Pulse that I taught him:

1. type BlogPulse URL: http://www.blogpulse.com
2. Scroll to bottom of home or front page
3. Click on About BlogPulse 
4. On right side is five grey boxes click Submit Blog
5. In Box 1 type your email address
6. In Box 2 type your blog URL: "elderdajeu.blogspot.com," or whatever your blog, make sure to separate blogs by a comma if more than one
7. Click Submit 

I got to thinking after I was done with him that I should create a new aggregator especially for the officially blogging missionaries.  So I worked for an extra hour after our chat and populated the aggregator in an hour between sessions on Sunday. I used my template from Mormon Blogosphere and Mormon Mission World which have four columns and is a variation of a custom template.  I found an exceptionally good picture on the Internet of a missionary standing in a wheat field that I added as the background picture.  I created seven categories for the seven mission units blogging: New York Rochester, Referral Center (RC) Provo MTC, Michigan Lansing Mission, Philadelphia Pennsylvania Mission, Louisiana Baton Rouge, and California Santa Rosa Mission . I had already added the official blogging missionary blogs to Mormon Mission World but I knew they wouldn't stand out as well among a thousand blogs so I made the special aggregator.


I am not officially involved in the official LDS blogging project but I know that they need to aggregate in order to drum up business so I created this one to help my friend Elder Dajeu.  I am more than willing to let Michael Hemingway become an administrator on this aggregator (which is just a blogspot blog with a big friends list) or anyone else he so chooses.  Hemingway is my Facebook friend so maybe he will consider it. Either way I am going aggregate the missionaries and I assure you I will track all of them down as I have done for the unofficial ones. I do what I consider ethical and I feel strongly that this is a tool that is necessary to get the word out about them.

I also suggest that Brother Hemingway try to get them aggregated on the other five general LDS aggregators:  Mormon Archipelago, Nothing Wavering, Mormon Blogosphere, Mormon Blogs and LDS Blogs.  Also they might want to ask Emily Jenson of Today in the Bloggernacle to consider doing a piece or two on them.  One thing I know is that Elder Dajeu and the other missionaries need to follow his lead and use all the tools they can find.

I did this as a labor of love.  I spent two hours on Friday with Elder Dajeu and his desire to be an international blog deserves the aggregator I designed and the two additional hours I put in to this project.  This is aggregator is dedicated to his desire of international exposure.  It is my gift on the altar.  It is my way of being a missionary.  When I first started chatting with Elder Dajeu I never knew it would take two hours but as a teacher/librarian I resisted the impulse to blow him off. This aggregator is dedicated to Elder Louis Dajeu, a fine young man using social media to the best of his ability. I hope this helps.