Tech Forum

The church will be testing a church-wide newsletter on December 3 and 4 that will be sent to the membership of the church by email:
http://ldsmediatalk.com/2014/11/28/chur ... worldwide/

This is especially relevant for clerks, who will want to make sure that all of their ward members' email addresses are up-to-date.

For new clerks: You can update email addresses and other contact information in MLS, at LDS.org/directory, or at leader.lds.org – all of these systems sync with each other.

Not to pick hairs, but the following quote taken from Deseret News states "On December 3 and 4 batches of emails will be sent to members who have provided an email address through their LDS account."

It implies that only members with an LDS Account and valid email address, will receive the communication. There are many members in my own ward, who don't even have a computer, let alone an LDS Account.

Which raises the question of which email in the LDS Account will be used? Primary, Alternate or Membership? The clerk only has access to the Membership email. Most of my emails from the church comes to my Primary (although it could be that's what I've input in some other area and is unrelated to the Primary field.)

What are primary, alternate, and membership email addresses?
I've seen Household Email and Individual Email, and also Contact Email that can be output for custom reports in MLS. I don't know where Contact Email comes from, but I assumed it just chose one of the other two emails.

sbradshaw wrote:What are primary, alternate, and membership email addresses?

The following comes up if you log into ldsaccount.lds.org and click on "Contact and Recovery" (link)

Primary Email: Used for Account Recovery, Newsletter Subscriptions, and Change Notifications
Alternate Email: Used for Account Recovery and Newsletter Subscriptions
Membership Email: Used for Directory, LDS Tools and local unit communication.

As such, I think it's most likely going to come on the Primary Email - which is one the clerks do not have access to.

I'm sure there are still questions about other email fields found in other applications, but I'm just going by the announcement it will be sent via LDS Account and what the LDS Account page says. So I guess based on a sample set of one, the Individual email might be

In my case, my Household Email in the directory doesn't match anything in LDS Account. As expected, the individual email in the directory matches the Membership Email in LDS Account.

There's also the Email Subscriptions tab in LDS Account where I can select what email is used. And where it allows me to unsubscribe from various emails. This seems like the most likely place for the controls mentioned to allow members to unsubscribe.

And I think the reason they're using the LDS Account - it's already set up to handle subscriptions and such. Plus I'd bet that signing up for the LDS Account grants permission to send emails - where as simply being included in the directory does not.

russellhltn wrote:

Primary Email: Used for Account Recovery, Newsletter Subscriptions, and Change Notifications
Alternate Email: Used for Account Recovery and Newsletter Subscriptions
Membership Email: Used for Directory, LDS Tools and local unit communication.

There's also the Email Subscriptions tab in LDS Account where I can select what email is used. And where it allows me to unsubscribe from various emails. This seems like the most likely place for the controls mentioned to allow members to unsubscribe.

And I think the reason they're using the LDS Account - it's already set up to handle subscriptions and such.

Although it's not mentioned explicitly in the articles, I think the above logic is quite compelling. The article Church to Send Email Newsletters to Members Worldwide specifically states "To be respectful of members’ needs and choices, it will be possible to unsubscribe from the emails." Given that the Primary Email listed in a person's LDS Account is explicitly described as being used for "Newsletter Subscriptions", and that LDS Account already has a mechanism for subscribing to and unsubscribing from newsletters, it seems quite logical that the Primary Email from LDS Account would be used for this purpose.

The Alternate Email is also described as being used for "Newsletter Subscriptions," but my guess is that it would be used only in an alternate role, i.e., if the Primary Email address could not be used for some reason to deliver the newsletter.

Does the primary email default to the membership email when a person creates an account? I would assume it does, which is helpful.

Looks like a new "subscription" showed up in my LDS Account: "Inspiration and News - Receive inspiring and uplifting media from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

russellhltn wrote:Looks like a new "subscription" showed up in my LDS Account: "Inspiration and News - Receive inspiring and uplifting media from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

I see that, but I am not subscribed. Is that why I am not among the chosen 10,000 who received the email this week? (One person at our presidency meeting got two.)

lajackson wrote:I see that, but I am not subscribed. Is that why I am not among the chosen 10,000 who received the email this week? (One person at our presidency meeting got two.)

I am subscribed, but I'm still waiting.