Bloggernacle Back Bench: BYU Studies' live blogging event

The BYU Studies Blog began with a bang as 10 bloggers attended, live blogged, and photographed last weekend's conference: "Of Things Both in Heaven and in the Earth," a symposium in honor of BYU Studies' 50th anniversary.

"This is a portent of things to come" said BYU Studies Editor Jim Summerhays. "Conferences often have reporters and photographers roaming about, but it is a sign of the times when the place is crawling with on-site bloggers. Technology is changing so fast and demands change with it. I guess I need to throw away my VHS."

And while live blogging is fun to follow in and of itself, you can also reap the rewards of the live blogging since now the different conference presentations are currently available on the blog. Even if you were able to attend the symposium, you couldn't have attended the concurrent sessions. So learn about what the presenters said about "To War or not to War" or "Sustaining Life on Planet Earth" from Saturday. Or on Friday, a few examples of sessions include "Joseph Smith From the Sacred Grove to Carthage Jail"  and "The Verse, Voice and Vision of Two Leading LDS Women."

And you may have heard the early Wilford Woodruff testimony but Richard N. Holzapfel explained in his Friday Morning Plenary Session that there is a third cylinder in the Church Archives and thinks he knows whose testimonies it contains. From the live blogged notes: "Holzapfel read a statement from George Q. Cannon, explaining that both he and Joseph F. Smith also recorded their witnesses that they were present to hear Wilford Woodruff's testimony. What if the third cylinder holds the only recording of George Q. Cannon and the earliest recording of Joseph F. Smith? If there is a way to extract the audio from those cylinders and re-record them, it will be exciting to find out what they hold."

And I just highlighted a few from among the many offerings on the site. It looks like the live bloggers hit every single presentation, so go learn more about church history, scriptures, doctrine and current events, and courtesy of BYU Studies.

Now let's find other posts convening in the Bloggernacle this last week:

Power pick: "Do you not want to join us? I can understand that this life can be scary. There is so much pain, so much sorrow, so much sadness in this world. It's frightening for me too...Maybe it has nothing to do with you. Maybe you're as sad as we are." These are a few "maybes" in this heartbreaking post from a dad to his miscarried baby. In "Dear Ronan", he continues wondering if "Maybe it is part of some plan. Maybe the Mommy and Daddy of us all have taken you onto their laps, enfolded you in their warmth, and explained why this wasn't the time."

Comic relief — I don't know who produced this "Redesigning Mormons: A Style Guide for the Hipster Mormon", but I enjoyed it and thought you might get a kick out of it as well.

Techie tip: I love Wordles. You know those are the text/art pieces produced by a computer? So I was excited to see this email from Mormon Wordles, highlighting this cool visual online device. Here are a few examples: the Wordle version of President Benson's Beware of Pride talk. And here is the "Articles of Faith" as a Wordle. Currently there are about 20 images on the site, "with more being added all the time." And they also have a Blog where they explain how the different Wordles are created and why.