the Spirit of Elijah...in the twenty-first century

The Latter-day Saint Stake (geographical unit) we live in here (Newcastle, NSW) is one of the only (if not THE only) stakes in Australia that has access to stake/ward websites and the LDS memberonly New FamilySearch. (Many in North America take access to the ward websites for granted, I'm sure.)

In 2005 when I worked at the LDS Motion Picture Studio, we were called to shoot some preliminary training materials with Elder Marlin Jensen. When we were living in the Washington, D.C. area, they were asking for volunteers to go and help with a huge new data center the Church was building in Virginia. Both of these and I'm sure many more efforts have now come to fruition as the new FamilySearch (log in at http://new.familysearch.org - I don't think Utah members have access yet, data center not ready for the load probably... :)

Some of you may or may not have access to the new LDS member-only new.familysearch.org. If you do, and you think thats cool, you really need to go check out what they have cooking in the labs:

http://labs.familysearch.org/familytree/Main.html#start

Here's a screenshot to give you an idea of what you can do:

(blogger uploads not working...we'll post 'em soon!!)