Stephen Anderson is a teacher and composer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He is a good friend of mine and also LDS.  In February of this year he wrote a musical piece called “War Peace” earlier this year and collaborated with some others to build a multimedia presentation out of it.  The result is astounding.

This piece has strong ties to the Book of Mormon and the pride cycle.   He even starts out with a familiar hymn and a visual representation of the pride cycle.

Peace – Prosperity – Greed – Pride – Enmity – Revenge – Regret – Sorrow – Peace

He quotes scriptures and has a ton of political video and really put the Pride Cycle into a modern visual experience.  The whole piece is about 20 minutes long and an amazing multimedia experience.

Listening Tip:  Can you hear the different cycles?  I don’t know this for sure, but I think he musically represents all the cycles.  My guess is that he briefly starts with peace and prosperity but quickly goes into Greed and Pride and certainly ends with peace again.   He has put the score on his website for you to kind of follow along.

So full screen the video, sit back and enjoy.  Don’t worry… the pictures are supposed to be blurry at the beginning. ‘

If you enjoy this, you might also check out his facebook page and his latest CD “Nation Degeneration” (Can you guess what the topic is?)

I often will find an awesome YouTube video that I want to share in a class I am teaching…. but how do I get it downloaded? Unless you are one of the lucky few, you don’t have an internet connection at church. I hope this post will give you some ideas of things that have worked for me.

NOTE: YouTube has said that they are working toward putting download options on all Video’s, but for now they are only on certain popular ones. So hopefully one day, this won’t be important.

Downloading YouTube Videos:

The easiest way to download a YouTube video is the following:

• Go to this website: http://keepvid.com/
• Enter the URL in the top part: ie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM3mlgLAlMs
• Click the Download button to the right. Look to the bottom and click the download button under High Quality. Wahla!

You can play the video it downloads with Quicktime, which if it doesn’t play on your computer, you can download for free here.

Downloading other Online Streaming Video’s

Sometime you run across video’s from other sites you want to download. There is a nice Firefox Extension you can install that will look for the media on each page and allow you to download it. It is called SoThink Web Video Downloader for Firefox.

For those that might not be familiar with Firefox, it is a web browser like Internet Explorer or Safari and can be downloaded for free here.

After it is installed, you will see a little icon in the top right next to the google bar. Browse to the video you want to download and then click on the icon. It will have a URL in there of the video download. Right click on that and select Download.

The download will be in .flv flash format. You can watch that using Quicktime or VLC Media Player.

Conclusion

This is just two of dozens of ways to get videos offline. You should keep in mind that this is an area that is constantly changing. Google may change the way Video’s are online tomorrow and it might stop working. Sometimes it just will download the sound, and no video. It isn’t an exact science, and unless there is a Download option right next to the Video, there will probably always be the possiblity of problems. That being said, it does work mostly!

Feel free to share other ideas and tools you have used in the comments. Once you have it local, you can then put it on a DVD if you have software for that, or just bring a laptop to class to show the video. Good luck and happy teaching!!

I came across this great art exibt that is showing right now in the Joseph Smith Memorial building in Salt Lake.  This video is okay, but doesn’t really do it justice.  But the Spirit is strong.  Sit and listen for a couple of minutes when you can listen to the words.

This is a video posted by SethAdamSmith a while ago… I just watched it and couldn’t help thinking of my dear children. I would do anything for them. As I see these pictures my heart just goes out to them. I feel like there is little I can do for them, but there is something I can do for mine. I can love them.

Note: You probably don’t want to watch this with your kids. There are a couple scary pictures of kids that are hurt.

This is Seth’s introduction:

This film is dedicated to the real victims of war, hatred and unforgiving hearts: Children.

This serves as but a part of my prayer for those who have suffered at places such as Columbine, Africa, Virginia Tech, Chechnya and other war-torn, hate filled places. Though we may not be able to cause the wars abroad to cease, we can cause the wars within our hearts and homes to end. Forgive and love others. Truly these small and simple steps can eventually cause great and powerful strides in the world.

Lyrics:

“The Prayer of the Children” by Kurt Bestor and Sam Cardon

Can you hear the prayer of the children?
On bended knee, in the shadow of an unknown room
Empty eyes with no more tears to cry
Turning heavenward toward the light

Crying jesus, help me
To see the morning light-of one more day
But if i should die before i wake,
I pray my soul to take

Can you feel the hearts of the children?
Aching for home, for something of their very own
Reaching hands, with nothing to hold on to,
But hope for a better day a better day

Crying jesus, help me
To feel the love again in my own land
But if unknown roads lead away from home,
Give me loving arms, away from harm

Can you hear the voice of the children?
Softly pleading for silence in a shattered world?
Angry guns preach a gospel full of hate,
Blood of the innocent on their hands

Crying jesus, help me
To feel the sun again upon my face,
For when darkness clears i know you’re near,
Bringing peace again

Dali cujete sve djecje molitive?
(croatian translation:
‘can you hear all the children’s prayers?’)
Can you hear the prayer of the children?

Great video, especially after this awesome month of studying the life of Christ from Seth Adam Smith

How grateful I am for my Savior and Redeemer this morning.

Great video about Missionary work. Good to share with some friends about what I did/the missionaries do.

This is GREAT!  He talks a bit about why we should use the internet to preach the gospel and the awesome new JesusChrist.lds.org website.

Great article on about using social networking for LDS folks here.  At the end of that the author references a great site: Mormonwebtv.com.  This is GREAT!   I wasted a good hour watching movies… some of my favorites:

This one makes me think about user generated content and the place it is playing in the church as well. If kids are spending their time making fun stuff online (which I would totally have done) they aren’t getting in trouble. Which leads me to this next one.

Seems like a great youth activity… or seminary. I don’t know where this one came from… but I felt the spirit at the end… good stuff… great seminary video.

And then this one was a preview for a video I didn’t even know existed!  I so want this…

Anyway… enjoy! This is so getting added to my RSS reader.

I just read that ldsWebGuy just put up a website dedicated to President Hinckley.  This is awesome!  Newsroom stories, video’s of President Hinckley bearing his testimony, a nice timeline, and even notable talks.  Great, great great!

Here are a couple of BYU-TV Stuff about President Hinckley (from morning study and today’s proceedings!)

• “Gordon B. Hinckley: Man of Integrity”
• “Remembering Presdient Gordon B. Hinckley” with:
• Professors Brent Top and Robert Millet
• Richard Cowan
• BYU President Ceicl O. Samuelson
• Sheri L. Dew
• Funeral Services

It appears that some of these links are not working exactly right, but they should get you close and give you an idea of what is there. 

This morning I was looking around for my Friday BYU TV Study and came across a mini-series entitled Joseph.  It is fantastic.  It plays every day at 3AM (which really isn’t a problem with the online version… you can watch it whenever).

When I was a missionary one of the most profound testimony building experiences of my mission was listening to Truman Madsen’s Joseph Smith, the Prophet.  Well, these video’s are the equivalent of these tapes for TV.  From BYU-TV Broadcasting Page:

“Joseph” features many faculty from BYU’s Department of Church History and Doctrine, Department of Ancient Scripture, and other scholars from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The project is a joint effort of BYU Broadcasting and BYU Religious Education. The series executive producers are Dean Andrew Skinner and Susan Easton Black. Dr. Black is also the series host.

The 6 hour television series and accompanying book was written by many of the same faculty that are interviewed and is a scholarly examination of the life and teachings of Joseph Smith. The series is not an exhaustive review of Joseph’s life but instead focuses on some aspects and events in Joseph’s life that have a lasting impact on members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today, two centuries after the birth of Joseph Smith.

The content includes Susan Black at the relevant church history sites introducing the topics to be covered, the expert interviews and quotes from Joseph Smith and his contemporaries. Hundreds of images of Joseph, artwork featuring events from his life, and footage of the relevant church history sites enhance the expert interviews.”

I highly recommend it!  Check it out!

1. “I Had Seen a Vision” 1805-1823 (Summary, Watch)
2. “The Most Correct of Any book” 1823-1830 (Summary, Watch)
3. “The Only True and Living Church” 1830-1832 (Summary, Watch)
4. “A House to Thy Name” 1832-1836 (Summary, Watch)
5. “Peace Be Unto Thy Soul” 1836-1839 (Summary)
6. “Calm as a Summer’s Morning” 1839-1844 (Summary)

Note: The last two episodes are probably going to be played today and tomorrow.. the other’s have been playing all week.  I’ll add links on Monday or so. 

Note 2: BYU still needs an easy way to embed their player on another page or share a link without having to send an e-mail… very difficult.