Come, Follow Me: Young Women 2014 E-book and other great LDS.org Resources

Did you know that the Come Follow Me: Young Women is available in E-book format?  It is and you can find it here at this link on LDS.org http://www.lds.org/media-library/ebooks?lang=eng  And just for your information, it comes as a PDF, ePub, Kindle/mobi, and can be accessed at the iTunes Store, and at the Amazon Kindle Store.  On that same page, you can also access the Sunday school, Come, Follow Me. 

I thought that since the Young Women are so actively using their iphones, smart phones, and many of them have E-book readers, they would certainly think their YW leaders were cool, if they were teaching their lessons by electronic means.  This eliminates lots of paperwork.  The church is encouraging all of it's members, whenever and wherever possible, to use their electronic devices  and that cuts down on the cost for the Church in printing lesson manuals, and the money can be sent to help with missionary work instead!  One concern though.... sometimes the youth want to bring their own electronic devices to church.  They are not using them in a way that you would want and do create a distraction in class.  I cannot tell you how many youth I see playing games on their phones, or texting, etc., in Sacrament meeting.  My suggestion during class:  unless you are teaching a lesson where you can have the youth follow along with their scriptures, or look up things on LDS.org, or for some Sunday purpose, have them turn off their phones during class.  They are a huge distraction for youth and their teachers.  In my own ward, the Priest's are now a NO PHONE or Device class, so they can focus on preparing them to serve missions.  It might be something you might want to consider.

Also, if you used your electronics (computer, ipad, phones, etc.) you could also have access to all that LDS.org has available as visual aids, pictures, videos, conference talks and so much more.  You would need to make sure to download your videos, etc., on your electronics, before you teach your lesson on Sunday, because sometimes the church meeting houses has limited bandwidth.   With so many members using their electronics and the bandwidth,  you may not be able to bring it up, which would pretty much frustrate you trying to give a beautiful lesson.  Download it to your computer before you teach, t hen you don't need to worry if you will have your video, or other things for your lesson.  (Some videos are not available to download, because of copyright issues or other rights concerns, so be sure you pick one that is downloadable.)

Did you know that you can use the images found on LDS.org for your personal use, which includes use in your Sunday lessons, handouts, invitations to YW programs and activities, and FHE and such? The key word is for personal use, but that includes church use.  No Commercial use.

Mobile apps: Did you know that there are a bunch of mobile aps available?  Yes there are and there are some that specifically will benefit the youth.  These are OFFICIAL LDS apps, so you should know about these and encourage the youth to get them.  Maybe an activity night might be a good way to teach them about what is available from the church.  Here is the link that will take you to the Mobile App page on LDS.org: http://www.lds.org/pages/mobileapps/apple?lang=eng  Look specifically for the LDS youth app for iPhone and iPod Touch.  There is also the Book of Mormon, Scripture Mastery, LDS Music, Bible Videos, the Ensign, and more.  Be sure to also check out the Mobile Apps for Android as well that can be found here: http://www.lds.org/pages/mobileapps/android?lang=eng

Church Magazines:  All the Church magazines are available online for free now days.  You don't have to purchase a hard copy, though it is nice to have in your home too.  For the Youth, here is the link to the New Era page on LDS.org http://www.lds.org/new-era?lang=eng  You can read the current issues, or all the others in the archives, dating back to 1971.  This is a great resource for not only the youth, but the leaders, for their lessons.

Without going into detail, here are some other really important links to pages that will really help when working with the Young Women, and the Youth as a whole.

Young Women Page on LDS.org:  https://www.lds.org/callings/young-women?lang=eng


Youth Website:  https://www.lds.org/youth/activities?lang=eng

Personal Progress:   https://www.lds.org/young-women/personal-progress?lang=eng

Scriptures:  This link is the link to the Book of Mormon, but you can also get access to all the other scriptures on the column to the left from this page.  https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm?lang=eng
Did you know about the darling scripture stories in video? Bible Videos of the life of Jesus Christ, and if you look under "Video Categories at this link: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video?lang=eng  you can see all the Video Categories, including Book of Mormon, New Testament, Old Testament, Church History, feature films, and sooooo much more!

Well, I think I had better stop now.  I just love LDS.org and I am also currently serving a service mission for LDS.org on the Response Team.  I love this church and love how forward thinking they are in using the most current technology available, and constantly improving upon a great website resource for it's member, and nonmembers alike.  I hope you will visit LDS.org and see what more there is available to you as a leader, teacher, and member of this wonderful church.  Best regards, Katie G.