The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints publishes four worldwide periodicals: the Ensign, Liahona, New Era and Friend.

All of the magazines are available on the Church’s website for free; subscriptions are available for the printed versions. 

Members of the Church eagerly anticipate each issue of the Ensign and Liahona.  Both magazines publish the same content, but the Ensign only in English, whilst the Liahona is made available throughout the world in 61 langauges (‘Making Church Magazines’, Ensign, Jul 2008, pp. 64–69).

Ensign and Liahona issues always begin with a message from the First Presidency (the governing body of the Church consisting of the Prophet and two counsellors).

Messages from the Twelve (Apostles) are included in all magazines, as well as articles written and submitted by ordinary Church members and magazine staff.

Because the periodicals are authorized by a member of the Seventy and Twelve (ibid.), Church members accept anything written in the publications as scripture.  In fact, anything which a Prophet says officially, in the name of the Saviour, is considered considered scriptural: it is direct revelation from God.

FamilySearch has revamped its website.  According to Renee Zamora’s blog (rzamor1.blogspot.com/2008/07/familysearchorg-new-look), the genealogy giant owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opened its redesigned site on Thursday.

The makeover is in preparation for the integration of FamilySearch’s many websites popularly used by Church members and the general public.  One of these is FamilySearch Indexing (www.familysearchindexing.org), where millions of genealogical records which are currently only available on microfilm are being transcribed by volunteers.   The project is revolutionary: the world-famous records in the granite vault in Salt Lake City are being placed online by people who work at home for a few minutes every week.

FamilySearch Indexing already has its own tab on the newly designed FamilySearch website.

New FamilySearch (new.familysearch.org) has already become a sensation amongst Church members.  A worldwide database of family trees is being stored on this site, allowing members to collaborate and submit names for Temple ordinances quickly.  The Church is currently implementing the system in temples around the world.

NFS has not been given a link on the original, revamped, FamilySearch page, but provision for it is being made.

According to schedule, the Johannesburg South Africa Temple will today begin utilising the New FamilySearch website instead of the old TempleReady system.

Members of the Church will now be able to submit names for ordinance work themselves and will no longer have to wait days before the names are ready.  A simple printout, the Family Ordinance Request, which can be done in a few minutes, is all that is needed.  This is then taken to the Temple staff, who will the print ordinance cards which one then takes through to do the actual ordinances.

For more information on this story, see the Post’s article ‘Alive with New FamilySearch‘.