Does anybody know of a way to import the online version of the scriptures into OneNote? I use OneNote extensively for my gospel study and love the hyperlink capability (not to mention the ability to tag, highlight, annotate and so much more). I have been slowly manually copying and pasting over the scriptures into OneNote, but it is a slow process… I am still debating about what would be best, but here are the two options I am thinking of.

1. Create an offline HTML backup of the entire scriptures.lds.org with a tool like WinHTTrack. Then try to edit the HTML and add tags that will put the books in separate sections and the chapters as pages and then find a way to import. I don’t really know how to code so this is proving to be a bit hard, and then I’m not even sure how to import a bunch of HTML at once.

Potentially this would be the best if I could change all the href link to lds.org and make them specific to the local copy in OneNote.

2. Find a complete PDF version of the scriptures and use a tool to import them all at once again. Or even chapter by chapter. I am a bit more inclined to this one because then I still have to physically navigate to the page I am looking for (helping me to remember where things are instead of instantly linking there). But again, I can not find a complete copy of the scriptures in PDF format. Anyone have any ideas?

If you think your readership would have any ideas, please post a link back to this article. Thanks for all your help!

I came across this great video this morning…

So… can you imagine? Some great questions in a humorous format.

First thought has to do with all the things the man who crashed the internet was doing. What really got to me was the question about bloggers. I am not the best at writing in my journal, but I do write on our family blog fairly often. All of my pictures from the past 5 years are on there, not to mention our comings and goings. In light of my recent “Are Blogs Modern Day Scriptures?” this really makes me sick…

Just imagine the other effects something like this would have…

My family and I have been blogging for several years. It all started out with a talk by Elder Boyd K Packer in the April 2003 General Conference entitled “The Golden Years.” At the time I my wife and I lived far away from our parents and grandparents. Although the talk is about honoring and learning from our grandparents, I realized that I was losing contact with them and they were missing out on our kids growing up. I resolved that day to figure out a way to keep in contact. We wrote weekly e-mails with photo’s for about a year, which eventually morphed into a webpage, which then became a blog.

Eventually our family members began to request blogs as well and soon every member of our family was writing the comings and goings of their lives. We were writing a family history richer than anything ever done before, complete with photo, video and audio. It was fantastic.

I just recently redesigned one of my sister’s blog. As part of the new theme we added an about to the top of the page. The about ended with “This is a record/rambling of their lives.” It really struck me as I read… this sounded like something… then I realized:

I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness of and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days. ¹

When we write on our blogs we are making a record of their lives that somebody will read someday. Unfortunately we are all so busy with our young families and new careers that we often don’t take time to write in our journals. There are large parts of the past 5 years for which our blog is the only record I have of what happened. (Sure brings to life how important it is to make a hard copy of what you are writing.. more on that later).

Much like scriptures, we don’t know who will read this. We have our dealings with our families, some of our trials, some of our joys, poems, parables, ponderings, humor, and even an occasional miracle.

1. 1 Nephi 1:1[↩]

A while ago I was listening to a lecture on Google Books and Google Scholar given by Ben Bunnell from Google. I highly recommend the lecture if you want a good introduction to Google Scholar and Google Book Search. As I was listening I decided I would try a search for “vandrimmelen” and see what came up. I knew that some of my ancestors were educators, but they died years before I was born, or I was too young to remember them to know what they really did.

I started out with Google Books and was delighted to find a couple of interesting things that my Dad and Mom probably know a little bit more about than me:

Addresses and Proceedings - National Education Association of the United States

This book has several references to Thomas VanDrimmelen Jr (from Utah). If you scroll down on the page you see the beginning of a dialog that he is having. It looks interesting. I think that Thomas was a brother of my Grandfather.

Nursing in Hospice and Terminal Care: Research and Practice

Reference to an article that my Grandma Van co-wrote: “Evaluation of a commonly used oral hygiene agent” (Published in Nursing Research, 1969). I knew she was a nurse and taught nursing classes at BYU.

Prediction of successful nursing performance v. 1

This one doesn’t have visuals of the book itself, but I imagine if I were to find this book (which is very easy with Google Books just enter search by zip code) I would find something about or by my Grandma in there.

I then went to Google Scholar and found a reference to my Grandpa Van:

Evaluation of Health Standards used in Determining Qualifications of Prospective Teachers.

Co-authored by my Grandpa Van in 1964. He died when my Dad was still a little kid, so it was almost surreal as I read something that my Grandfather, the man I had heard about my whole life, wrote.

What have your experiences been? Do you have any long lost relatives that you found through Google Scholar/Book Search? Try a search (Books, Scholar) and see what you find.

I came across this Noah commercial recently and thought it was just fantastic, for several reasons. Check it out.

(more…)

I have been reading the Old Testament as of late and am finding all sorts of nuggets hidden in there. I have decided that after I finish the Bible at the end of this year¹, I am going to go back and read the Old Testament several times!

I was reading this morning in 2 Kings and came across a good scripture. A little background is in order. Josiah is now king and he happens to be a righteous king (vs. 2). Both his father, Amon, and his Grandfather, Manassah, were evil kings (21:20), but somehow Josiah turns out to be a good king².

Solomon’s temple is in ruins and Josiah decides to repair the temple. He sends a servant to the temple and tells his to have the high priest take the silver that has been collected at the door from the people and give it to carpenters, builders and masons to repair the temple (2 Kings 22:3-6). And then this verse:

7 Howbeit there was no reckoning made with them of the money that was delivered into their hand, because they dealt faithfully.

The honesty and integrity with which the workers at the temple could be trusted really struck me this morning as I was reading. It reminds me of the story of Zoram at the beginning of the Book or Mormon. After he found out that Nephi was not Laban and decided to go into the wilderness with them he made and oath and Nephi’s “fears did cease concerning him” (1 Nephi 4:37). Zoram was a man of integrity, as were the workers at the temple in this day. There was no need to keep track of everything they did, or doubt their word. They would be faithful.

I guess my goal for today is to be as honest with my fellow beings as possible so I can be trusted of the Lord.

What about you? Can you think of any other stories in the scriptures or your own life where honesty and integrity were the keys to success and blessings?

1. This is my current scripture reading goal[↩]
2. Probably because of his mother [↩]

I am Mormon. I have been my whole life. That doesn’t mean I have never doubted, or that I didn’t have to come to a knowledge of God myself, but I’ll save that for another post. I am also a techie. I love technology and use it every day, practically all day long. I love to blog and maintain an instructional technology blog as well as MANY personal blogs for my family members.

As an avid blogger I also read a lot of blogs and one of my favorites is the More Good Foundation. The premise of their word is to “Promote good LDS content everywhere.” They often have great articles about using technology in the church and using technology to promote missionary work. They wrote a fantastic article today entitled: “Write fewer emails, more blog posts.” In that article Richard encourages people everywhere to put good content on the web. The Spirit has been working on me for several weeks with this exact same idea and I decided it is about time I joined in the effort.

So I took some of my lunch today (it doesn’t take long) and set up this blog. As I ponder about what I will write about I think this blog will have two main themes. First, I want to write about my thoughts and feelings about the Gospel. I often read something that I absolutely love. It may be music, a story, a quote, some scripture. Anything that is appropriate will go on here. The second thing I want to write about is my use of technology in the church. As I mentioned, I love technology and spend quite a bit of time researching new technologies. I often see great applications that could be used in the church as well. I only hope and pray that my writings may help someone better understand the church, or assist a member in this great work in which we are engaged!

This morning I came across a great quote by George Romney on the LDS Church and Religious Tolerance. I liked it so much I’m going to post it on my blog so I can find it later… Enjoy…

The LDS principles of tolerance are rooted in the teaching that all who have lived, now live, and will yet live on this earth are spirit children of God and are responsible only to God for their religious beliefs and practices. “We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience,” says Article of Faith 11, “and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship, how, where or what they may.” A corollary of this statement is a declaration of belief regarding governments and law, adopted by the Church in 1835.

It affirms that governments have no power to prescribe rules of worship to bind the consciences of men or to dictate forms for public or private devotion. In matters of religion, the declaration asserts, “men are amenable to God and to Him only for the exercise of their religious beliefs, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others” (D&C 134). The Church has maintained these principles while accommodating to secular authority: “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law” (Article of Faith 12; cf. D&C 134:1-12).

Related to this is a doctrine of primordial individual freedom. For Latter-day Saints agency is indestructible. All truth is “independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also” (D&C 93:30). The individual’s freedom to search for this truth should not be contravened, and in the last analysis it cannot be. Even God cannot coerce belief. The only power justified on earth or in heaven is loving persuasion (D&C 121:41).

Contrary to stereotypes, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is neither a sect nor a cult. It has an extensive scriptural foundation, but no formalized creeds and no closed canon. As the Prophet Joseph Smith said to Stephen A. Douglas, Latter-day Saints are “ready to believe all true principles that exist, as they are manifest from time to time” (HC 5:215). They are taught to “gather all the good and true principles in the world and treasure them up” (TPJS p. 316). Commitment to truth in this inclusive sense is commitment to the view that all philosophies, religions, and ethical systems have elements of truth and that all persons have a portion of light. This is a buttress for tolerance, goodwill, and fellowship on a worldwide scale (see World Religions [Non Christian] and Mormonism) “If ye will not embrace our religion,” Joseph Smith said, “embrace our hospitalities” (WJS 162).