LDS to download copy of blessings

Members of the LDS Church soon will be able to get a copy of their patriarchal blessing online, as well as a chance to contribute their technological expertise to a new LDS wiki, thanks to a Web initiative announced Tuesday on www.lds.org.

LDS Tech, as the project has been named, is designed to give church members worldwide "a glimpse" into "the type of technical work we do ... and how you can get involved," according to the home page, located at tech.lds.org.

One of the features that may be of most interest to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is their ability (in the near future) to view and print a digitized copy of a patriarchal blessing — either their own or those of their spouse, direct-line descendants and deceased direct-line ancestors.

A link on the Web site describes the new offering, noting the first phase of the project "was to scan all of the blessings into digital form and add meta tags. To date, 1.7 million blessings have been scanned out of an estimated 3.6 million."

The project's second phase is a new Web application that finds the digital blessing being sought.

At present, a request can be made to personnel in the Church History Department, whose employees have access to the digital archive. They can then call up the blessing electronically, get the required information from the person requesting a copy and print the blessing.

In the near future, however, "there are plans to tie this project into LDS.org, allowing members to log in to LDS.org, find blessings that they have access to and view or print them. This will be faster and more convenient than the current process," the announcement said.

Links are provided on the Web site for more specific information about how to make a request.

Latter-day Saints receive a patriarchal blessing from a patriarch, a designated priesthood holder in their geographic area who has been asked or "called" by church leaders to provide these specific types of blessings. Each is believed to be a declaration of God's promises, warnings and guidance for that specific individual, and the pronouncements are highly individual.

Members receive such a blessing at their own request, and a transcript of the blessing is provided to each recipient. Latter-day Saints are urged to ponder the blessing as a means of help and guidance throughout life.

By April, stake patriarchs will be able to digitally submit a copy of each blessing they give, and stake presidents will have the ability to log in and view the activities within their stake, according to the announcement.

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