Obviously, I am not alone in this desire, and as technology evolves and advances, much of the media we produce and consume is in fact already in a digital format. We now use digital cameras, pay our bills and receive bank statements through the internet in a digital format, communicate by email and other digital means, etc. The reason for this gradual conversion from an analog to a digital world is that the benefits of the change outweigh the disadvantages. They include easier organization, faster access, cheaper storage, better data security, protection from loss, and many others.

So, as I said, I have a goal of getting all the information in my life into a digital format. One of the reasons this makes sense for me is because I place little sentimental value on the physicalness of the objects that I own. To me, a digital copy of a book or a picture is just as good as the physical copy, no matter the circumstances. In fact, I have long considered myself the opposite of a compulsive hoarder, getting more satisfaction from having an empty drawer than from having a drawer full of “sentimentally important” things.

(Sad story to illustrate my point: When I was probably around 12 years old, I shared my room with my brother and it would frequently become so full of stuff that we could hardly move around in it. Every once in a while I would become fed up and just clean it out, throwing most things in the trash. My mom had designated a particular drawer as “Scott’s Drawer” where my important things were kept, such as drawings from kindergarten, awards, essays, and pictures. At some point during one of my cleaning binges, I became a little overzealous and decided I needed to clean all the “junk” out of that drawer. Suffice it to say that my mom was upset when she found out I had thrown away many things that she had been saving since I was baby. Sorry mom.)

Here’s where the irony comes in. As I transition to All Things Digital®, I am becoming a kind of “digital hoarder,” although not in the worst sense of the word. Since storage is so cheap, I never throw anything away (digitally speaking) anymore. I keep it all on the computer. And while I still like to throw physical things away, in my defense, I at least have a desire to convert everything to digital before I toss it out now. Unfortunately, I have a lot of information that is not yet digital. Fortunately, because I am young, a majority of what I have is already digital. This has led to the scanning of hundreds, and maybe thousands, of pictures; the capture of hundreds of hours of old family videos; and the conversion of hundreds of documents and journal pages and letters.

All of my files are backed up not only to hard drives in my house, but to online storage services like Amazon S3 via Jungle Disk and Dropbox. (One more side note: Dropbox is one of the coolest and most useful services ever. If you are not using it, it is worth taking a look at. Viewing their screencast will give you an idea of what it can do.) I love having access to all of these files from anywhere I can get internet access, and I especially take comfort in knowing that if my house was to burn down today, or half the world was to get blown up, my data would (most likely) be safe. If the whole world was to blow up I might be in trouble, so hopefully that won’t happen.

Next: A PDF of the LDS Version of the Scriptures

Robot Story 1 – The Engineer:

When I was 5 or 6 years old, I got the idea that I wanted to build a robot. I remember planning it all out in my head: it would have a body, and arms, and it would be really big, and have wires inside so it could move, and it would talk, and it would have a light bulb on the top. I couldn’t wait to build my robot, but I didn’t have the materials to do it. So I put together a list of materials, complete with hand-drawn descriptive pictures, and asked my dad to pick the items up for me at work. He agreed, and thus my plan to build a robot was initiated.

I waited with all the anticipation of an excited little child for my dad to come home that day, but when he arrived I found out that he had forgotten to pick up the materials. I was sad, but he promised he would get them the next day. So again I waited, barely able to contain my excitement when his van pulled up the house. Yes! He had remembered. But he wasn’t able to find the exact things I had asked for, and so had made a few substitutions. That was okay, I just wanted to build my robot!

I carried everything into the garage, and began the construction. A large cardboard box made up the legs. An upside-down 5-gallon bucket was the body. An emptied-out plastic flower pot was placed on top as the head. Long pieces of Styrofoam were taped on to the body as arms. Lots of masking tape helped hold the whole thing together. It was great. It was so tall I was going to have to stand on a bucket to put the wires in my robot’s head, and to connect the light bulb on top.

This is where the story gets a little sad. It wasn’t until I actually began placing the wires in my robot, that I realized it was going to take more than wires and a light bulb to make him move and talk. Yes, I had seen pictures of robots before, and they always had wires, but what did wires do? How was a wire in a pot going to help an arm made of Styrofoam and masking tape move? I was suddenly baffled and overwhelmed. What had been so clear and obvious only seconds earlier, now seemed absolutely impossible. I think it was one of the most profound moments of realization of my childhood… at least that’s how I remember it.

Well, I didn’t give up. I finished my robot, but it didn’t do everything I was hoping for. It stood in the garage for a few days, and then it was completely disassembled (so that it could do no further harm to humanity).

Epilogue:

Scott didn’t stop building things after that first robot. No, he went on to become a full-fledged electrical engineer, building other super-amazing things such as: a small fan, a marble-chute, and a pop-up book. But nothing he ever built has come as close to meeting its design specifications as that robot.

The mission administrative organization has its own complex and highly developed jargon. First of all, each mission, which consists of anywhere from 20 to 200 (or sometimes more) missionaries, is located geographically within an ‘area’, consisting of many missions, which are overseen by an ‘Area President.’ As stated previously, the mission is overseen by a ‘Mission President’, who reports to the Area President. Two highly motivated and experienced missionaries are chosen by the Mission President to be ‘Assistants to the President’ (often abbreviated ‘Assistants’), to help him in fulfilling his administrative duties. The mission is subdivided into ‘zones’, which are overseen by missionaries designated as ‘Zone Leaders’, who report to the Assistants to the President. The zones are further subdivided into ‘districts’, made up of 2 to 5 companionships, overseen by ‘District Leaders’, who report to the Zone Leaders. At the most fundamental level, districts are divided into ‘areas’ (yes, this is the second use of ‘area’), with one companionship assigned to each area. Nightly, each companionship ‘calls in numbers’ (a report of the work done that day) to their District Leader. The District Leaders call in to the Zone Leaders their district’s information, and Zone Leaders call in to the Assistants, who then report to the President. Typically ‘District Meetings’ are held weekly, ‘Zone Meetings’ are monthly, ‘Zone Conferences’ (where multiple zones meet together) are held once a transfer, and ‘Mission Conferences’ are held yearly, all focused on teaching the missionaries to become better at their missionary work. The aforementioned ‘meetings’ are usually a couple hours in length, while the ‘conferences’ are usually all-day affairs.

Missionaries spend their days teaching the ‘lessons’ – formerly known as, and still frequently referred to as, ‘discussions’ – which refers to a set of 5 specific, preplanned lessons on the Church. They teach these lessons mostly to either ‘investigators’ (people that are not members, but are willing to learn about the Church) with the goal of ‘baptizing’ them (performing the ‘ordinance’ or rite that would make them an official member of the Church), or ‘less-active’ members (an adjective applied to members of the Church that do not participate, and do not have a desire to participate, in anything related to the Church; also used as a noun to refer to such persons, e.g. ‘Let’s go see that one less-active.’), in hopes of ‘re-activating’ them. (The commonly used verb, ‘to re-activate’, is an optimistic take on what might be considered the more correct verb, simply ‘to activate’.) Particularly promising investigators are termed ‘golden’: “Sister Jones has read the whole Book of Mormon and wants to get baptized next week. She is golden!”; whereas investigators that do not seem to have moved forward in their learning about the Church for an extended period of time are termed ‘eternal investigators’: “We have been teaching Mr. Smith for 3 months, and he still isn’t ready to get baptized. Eternal investigators are frustrating!”

Missionaries are encouraged not to use language that is considered by the Church or the Mission President to be vulgar, informal, or negative. This has given rise to a myriad of mission-specific euphemisms or replacement words, many of which use the word ‘less’ as a prefix meaning ‘not’. These include words such as: ‘less-effective’ (an adjective meaning ineffective or a waste of time), the previously mentioned ‘less-active’, ‘semi-active’ (used the same as ‘less-active’, but refers to members that have some interest in the Church), ‘you Elders’ or ‘you Sisters’ (used as a replacement second person plural pronoun because ‘you guys’ or ‘y’all’ is considered informal), flip or fetch (euphemisms for another word that starts with an ‘f’; also replace other words that are themselves euphemisms, but are nonetheless considered to be vulgar by the Mission President, such as crap), among many others.

The missionary subculture of the Mormon Church has also developed a ‘missionary slang’, which is discouraged by mission leadership among current full-time missionaries, but is used freely among the regular membership of the Church, usually in reference to their missions. Some examples include the following: referring to the President as the ‘prez’; referring to the Assistants as ‘apes’ (a slight modification of the acronym for Assistant to the President: AP); referring to the Zone Leaders as ‘zonies’; referring to missionaries that are new in the field as ‘green’ or ‘greenies’; referring to one’s companion as ‘comp’; referring to missionary exchanges as ‘splits’; referring to the top leadership of the Church, which are collectively referred to as ‘General Authorities’, as GAs (an alphabetism, pronounced gee-eihs); etc. Although an effort is made by mission leadership to suppress the use of such slang terms, over time the slang use has persisted and even spread from mission to mission throughout the whole world.

There are two possible outcomes at the end of a missionary’s service: a missionary can receive an ‘honorable release’, or just a ‘release’. ‘Release’ refers to the end of the calling to be a missionary, and it is honorable if the missionary has completed the term of service usually required, or if the missionary is ‘leaving the field’ for medical reasons. All other circumstances lead to a ‘release’. Once released, the former missionary is referred to as a ‘returned missionary’, or an ‘RM’ (an alphabetism). Being an RM is a considerable honor within the Church, and a man’s being an RM is a marriage requirement for many women in the Church. Honorably released RMs usually spend considerable time once they are home going to various church meetings in their area, giving a ‘homecoming talk’, in which they frequently recount exceptional experiences that occurred during their missions, and invite the membership of the Church to participate in missionary work. It has been noted that the phrase, ‘the best two years of my life’, is used in every homecoming talk, almost without exception, although the phrase ‘so far’ is sometimes self-consciously appended to the end.

One of the most remarkable things about Mormon jargon and culture is that it is amazingly similar in every country throughout the world. Since the Mormon Church began in 1830, more than 1 million Mormon missionaries have gone to all parts of the world, most of them from the United States, taking with them both their language and their culture. Nearly all of the English Mormon jargon, only a small fraction of which has been mentioned in this paper, has been adopted by Mormons in every culture and language in which they exist. In languages where equivalent words exist, those are sometimes used, but more often than not the English jargon is adopted in its English form. This is true of the missionary subculture, as well as of Mormon culture in general, and it has led many members to exclaim that they feel at home no matter where in the world they attend a Mormon meeting. The Mormon Church provides a fascinating look into the subject of language variation in a social context that transcends all geographical boundaries.

Variation in language occurs constantly and continuously throughout our society, and for each of us, whether we realize it or not, it is a daily experience. Social groups have dialects, jargon, and slang that oftentimes transcend geographical boundaries and provide cohesion among members. This is particularly true of racial groups and religious groups. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church, provides an excellent example of religious/social language variation. It has been noted that Mormons made early contributions to American English. H. L. Mencken, in the earliest editions of The American Language, mentions some of these. In the 1921 edition he writes:

The Mormon Church has an extensive and unique culture and jargon that can be very difficult for outsiders to penetrate. Kenneth Woodward, a columnist for The New York Times, in an April 2007 op-ed piece concerning an address Mitt Romney (who was running for President at the time) was to give at Regent University, noted:

But Mr. Romney must be sure to express himself in a way that will be properly understood. Any journalist who has covered the church knows that Mormons speak one way among themselves, another among outsiders. This is not duplicity but a consequence of the very different meanings Mormon doctrine attaches to words it shares with historic Christianity.

He continued:

Thus, when Mr. Romney told South Carolina Republicans a few months ago that Jesus was his “personal savior,” he used Southern Baptist language to affirm a relationship to Christ that is quite different in Mormon belief. (For Southern Baptists, “personal savior” implies a specific born-again experience that is not required or expected of Mormons.)

Indeed, Mormon jargon is quite unique even among Christian religions. In fact, it is commonly understood among members of the Church that newcomers to the group will be disoriented at first – and as a result will have to go through a significant learning period before beginning to feel comfortable – and the members are thus counseled to assist the foreigner during the learning process. It is this impenetrable nature of the language and vocabulary that has led Orson Scott Card to refer to it as, ‘Saintspeak’.

In fact, the use of the name Mormon, in reference to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, comes from the Book of Mormon, a book which is considered by the members of the Church to be of divine origin. The book itself is named after an ancient American prophet/historian, Mormon, who, according to Church teachings, compiled and abridged the original engraved plates from which the book was translated. But ‘Mormons’ is not the preferred term among the members of the Church. They usually refer to themselves as LDS, an alphabetism of Latter-day Saint, or even more simply, as Saints. ‘Saint’, in Mormon usage, refers to any true follower of Christ (which obviously includes all members of the Church), which contrasts with the Catholic usage, and with the common everyday use in reference to “anyone who does good deeds.”

Probably the most unique area of Mormon jargon can be found among the Church’s missionary force. In the Church the term ‘missionary’ is used to refer to the young men and women dedicated to full-time service to the Church, although many frequently attempt to apply the designation to the general membership of the Church (as in “Every member is a missionary!”). The typical Mormon missionary is a 19-25 year-old male, or a 21-25 year-old female, who has been ‘called’ to ‘go on a mission’. The ‘call’ to be a missionary is not what most Christians would understand as a personal divine conversion or a lifelong commitment to a cause, but actually just a normal, temporary church assignment. And in Mormon jargon, one ‘gets a mission call’, and is thus ‘called to go on a mission’ or ‘called to serve’. The duration of the mission call is either 18 months or 2 years, and begins with a ‘farewell’, a special Sunday meeting in honor of the young man or woman and their family (a meeting which is, in fact, officially discouraged by the Church). Then, after a quick stop at the Missionary Training Center (commonly referred to as the MTC), the missionary ‘enters the field’ – leaves home to go and serve the full-time mission – at his assigned location.

‘Mission’ refers to both the 2-year (or 18-month) event of ‘serving the Lord’, and the group of missionaries in a particular location. Each mission (meaning the group of missionaries) is led by the ‘Mission President’, who lives in the ‘Mission Home’, which is typically near the ‘Mission Office’ (where the administrative work of the mission is done). The Mission President (who is always male) and his wife are also considered full-time missionaries, and have thus been called to serve in the mission, but they are typically older than 35. The missionaries in the mission refer to the Mission President as ‘President’, and to one another as ‘Elder’ (if male) or ‘Sister’ (if female). In the Church, ‘Sister’ and ‘Brother’ are used among the members to refer to one another (as is commonly practiced in many other Christian religions), but ‘Elder’ is a title reserved exclusively for two groups: either the leadership of the Church at the very top of its hierarchy, or, interestingly, the 19-25 year-old male missionaries.

All missionaries are assigned a ‘companion’, another missionary with whom they are expected to remain at all times. Infrequently, a third missionary may temporarily be added to a companionship, creating a ‘threesome’. One missionary in the ‘companionship’ is designated by the Mission President as the ‘Senior Companion’, responsible for all final decisions in the companionship, while the other is the ‘Junior Companion’. The Senior Companion is usually, but not always, the more experienced missionary in the companionship. Missionaries are rotated among different locations, and assigned different companions typically on a 6-week basis in an event called ‘transfers’. Usually a transfer is not a welcomed event, but sometimes it is, as in the event of a ‘less-effective’ companionship (meaning that the two missionaries do not get along at all). Frequently, between transfers missionaries participate in ‘exchanges’, which involve trading companions for one day. One day each week, usually Monday, is designated as ‘Preparation Day’, which is somewhat of a misnomer since, although it was originally intended as a day for weekly preparation-type activities (such as getting a hair cut, going shopping for food and clothes, etc.), it is commonly used by missionaries for sightseeing, playing sports, or sleeping.

Mormon missionaries enjoy keeping track of ‘mission genealogy’. When a missionary enters the field for the first time he is ‘born’, his first companion is referred to as his ‘father’, and likewise he is his father’s ‘son’. Second companions are referred to as ‘stepfathers’, and third companions are referred to as ‘godfathers’. A similar system applies to the female missionaries, but the female equivalent designations are used. Missionaries eventually ‘die’ – leave the mission – and, infrequently, they are ‘resurrected’ – re-enter the mission. Large and complex family trees develop quickly, with many missionaries keeping track of their ‘brothers’, ‘grandfathers’, ‘grandsons’, etc. Usually missionaries can only reasonably retain a couple of generations of mission genealogy, with one exception. Every once in a while there is a missionary that does something extraordinary, whether it be good or bad, that merits their designation as a ‘mission legend’. Mission genealogy that immediately precedes, and which follows, the mission legend, is often maintained for years.

(Read part 2 here.)