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LDS Blogger Responds to Call to Use Social Media

www.allisonkimball.com
LDS blogger Allison Kimball with her husband and nine children

A top leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is urging Mormons to “sweep the earth” with positive messages in social media.  One LDS blogger says she's already trying to do that.

Elder David Bednar of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles gave a talk at Brigham Young University on Monday, saying members of the church have only begun to tap the potential of social media.  He encouraged Mormons to do much more – without going overboard.

Bednar told those attending Education Week workshops, “We need not become social media experts or fanatics, and we do not need to spend inordinate amounts of time creating elaborate messages.”

Allison Kimball is an LDS blogger who’s trying to respond to that message.  She began blogging about eight years ago, focusing mainly on her interest in scrapbooking.  About four years ago, she started including messages about her faith.  But she doesn’t think Bednar’s talk means Mormons have to be pushy about their beliefs.

Kimball tells KUER, “I felt like it was more, ‘Please be positive.’  As members of the church, we are ordinary people, that we are kind.  And so I felt like, for me, from what I heard, it’s more just to be positive.”

Kimball’s site, allisonkimball.com, gets about 15-hundred hits a day, She wasn’t happy when a post was singled out for ridicule on exmormon.org, but she says the response to her messages has generally been welcome.

Social media have been important to the growth of the Ordain Women movement within the church.  Many who’ve left the church in recent years also say research on the Internet was crucial to their decisions.

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