This year marked my 10 year anniversary with this blog Smilingldsgirl. If you are new to the blog you might not understand this name but it is Smiling and girl combined with an acronym LDS which stands for Latter-day Saints or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of which I am a member. This name came about when I set up an email after my mission- a happy and religious time of my life and I felt fortunate it was available.
Recently the prophet of our church Russel M Nelson put out a statement regarding the name of the church and abbreviations like LDS and the nickname Mormon. He said:
“The Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance of the name He has revealed for His Church, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have work before us to bring ourselves in harmony with His will. In recent weeks, various Church leaders and departments have initiated the necessary steps to do so. Additional information about this important matter will be made available in the coming months”
It will be interesting to see how far they go with this new direction (and slightly ironic as it was released on http://www.mormonnewsroom.org). If they change the name of the choir that will be very shocking but other than that it isn’t entirely new. The church has been encouraging clergy and reporters to use the correct name for years. All the while using the shortened varieties in missionary efforts and more casual outreach. It now seems like there is going to be a push to be accurate in even those areas and it will be interesting to see how far they take it.
So some have asked me whether I am going to change the name of my blog/twitter handle? I’ve given the matter some thought and for the moment I am not going to. However, I am going to try to use Latter-day Saints or the full title The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in my prose and whenever I speak of the Church in videos. I feel this is living the spirit of the law rather than making my name an unwieldy length.
If the Church gets rid of similar handles like Mormon.org, Mormonnewsroom.org, the Mormon youtube channel, LDS Philanthropies ect and especially if they change the name of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir than I may reassess this decision. But for now I feel this is the right decision for my blog.
Let me know what you think of this emphasis on the full name by the Church and what you would do if faced with a similar situation?
Thanks!
Rachel's Musings 
Way back in 1977, when I joined the Church, the difference between the nicknames and the real name of the Church and its members were impressed upon me, so no matter what the Prophet says now, nothing has really changed. Nevertheless, even with strict compliance by the Church membership, nonmembers are not going to change their habits of mind or speech on their own. We may always have to use the nicknames in introductions, for nonmembers to recognize what faith we’re talking about (such as in some of the dialogue I wrote in Irish Firebrands). It takes a fairly long time of acquaintance with a nonmember for that person to spontaneously begin using the “correct usage” we model for them in conversations.
I remember a small amount of gassing over the changes to the appearance of the Church’s official logo that have taken place over the years. Web addresses evolve all the time, so I don’t think the URLs are an issue, but if the name of the Choir is changed, the Church will be in for an uncomfortable period of ridicule. Not that the mocking and pointing of fingers from those in the “great and spacious building” should make any difference, but for those members whose faith is new and delicate, it may be too much of a trial.
In all honesty, it bothers me a lot that the Church itself seems to be allowed to use Mormon, LDS, etc., but the members individually are supposed to say Latter-day Saint or a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
As for changing my blog name/url, I did. Mine hadn’t been open that long and I have the old URL pointing to the blog and will until the domain name expires. I feel bad for bloggers who used LDS in their blog names and social media handles, as some social media – Twitter for example – have character limits for their handles and LDS worked much better than LatterdaySaint (which uses 15 of Twitter’s 16 character limit).
I think it is more or less up to us to make a decision on what to do. We can choose to follow the prophet or we can choose to go our own way. As of right now, it seems it’s more of a request to “please remember you should be doing it this way” than an “all church members must do it this way or face consequences”. We still have our free will. (and I hope this makes sense)