You can update the photo in your LDS.org directory profile either from LDS.org or from LDS Tools for iPhone. Having an up-to-date directory photo helps others in your ward and stake recognize you, and when others upload their photos, you can better recognize them. Adding photos to profiles helps convert lists of names to real people and has the potential to make your ward and stake a friendlier place. 

Follow these four steps to update your directory photo:

1. Take your photo
2. Upload your photo
3. Get the uploaded photo approved
4. Make sure your profile is visible

Note: To encourage members to update their photos, you can download and print the following quick reference guide. The one-page guide is an extract from the more detailed information in this article.

Step 1. Take your photo

You can upload an overall household photo as well as an individual photo for each household member.

Join us for our next LDSTech Broadcast on July 6 at 12:00pm MDT. Kevin Fitzpatrick, a quality assurance manager in ICS, will introduce LDSTech Swarm — a new tool developed by LDSTech for crowdsource testing.

Swarm Broadcast Description

Swarm allows project teams to identify a series of test cases (or tasks) that they want users to perform in an application. Users can test as many test cases as their time allows. As users note whether the application passes or fails the test cases, reports are sent to the project team. The following screenshot shows test cases for the Mormon Channel for Android project.

If a user marks a test as failed, Swarm automatically logs a bug in JIRA for that test case. The reports of all users who fail the same test case appear as comments on the same JIRA item. This consolidation of feedback in JIRA helps project teams quickly sort through the feedback for each test case in one place.

Ben Minson, a senior technical writer within the ICS department, was recently approached with a big project that he knew he couldn't complete alone within the project's budget or time frame. It was at that point he turned to the LDSTech community of volunteers for help. 

“We had a group of ten volunteers who actively participated and completed tasks on the LDS Account Help project,” Ben said. “It involved getting the initial set of knowledge-base articles used by the Global Service Center (the Church’s IT support) into a help format that the general public could understand and use. It saved effort, time, and money to have volunteers go through and test the different answers and solutions in each article and update them for the next version of LDS Account.”

The LDS Account Help project team worked on improving documentation and help materials for LDS Account.

One volunteer on the project was Anna-Marie Robertson, from Rigby, Idaho, who felt the project offered a good opportunity to serve, especially since the project interested her and connected with her writing skills. She also enjoyed working with knowledgeable, like-minded people.

The Young Women Personal Progress site now allows the appropriate leaders, such as Young Women presidents and bishops, to update value experiences for young women through the Leader Summary section of the site. If young women have opted to use the site, leaders can mark updates for value experiences to better track and view progress of all young women in their ward or stake.

Viewing the Leader Summary

To view the Personal Progress site, from LDS.org, go to Menu > Youth. On the Youth site menu, click Personal Progress. (Or go directly here.) Once on the Personal Progress site, sign in with your LDS Account. Then click Leader Summary in the lower-right column.

When you view the Leader Summary, you see a grid showing the progress the young women in your ward have made on their value experiences. The names of all young women using the system (which you have responsibility for) appear as hyperlinks. If a young woman has not started using the system, her name does not appear as a hyperlink.

Are you interested in serving a Church-service mission? We are currently looking for volunteers with experience in web development. Here are the position details:

Web Developer

#9996 in the Salt Lake City Area | #9997 in the Provo Area

Description: A Church-service missionary (CSM) is needed as a web developer at the Riverton Office Building. The CSM's primary responsibilities would be to develop and test XQuery, HTML, and JavaScript code for LDS.org.

Skills: This Church-service missionary would be required to have experience in XML, HTML, and JavaScript. It would be good to have experience in XQuery (will train), JSON, and CSS, but it is not mandatory.

If you're interested in the position and want more details, send an e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . For more information about the location, see Riverton Office Building.

For additional mission opportunities and information, see Church-service missionary opportunities with LDSTech.

If you're working as a developer on a community project, such as the LDSTech community project, you will most likely need to set up a local web development environment on your computer. Setting up a local web development environment allows you to create and modify web applications on your own computer rather than uploading the application files to a server to run the files.

To set up a local web development environment, you will need to download and set up a web server, such as Uniform Server, on your local machine. Uniform Server (similar to WampServer or XAMPP) simulates a web server on your machine with the LAMP Stack resources (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP), which are essential for working with LDSTech Swarm, Joomla, Mediawiki and other applications.

In addition to a web server, there are a few other programs you'll need to work with application files. One is Notepad++, a text editor that lets you write and edit various types of code, including PHP. You will also need to install TortoiseSVN, a subversion client that helps you manage versions of source code.

For step-by-step details on setting up these resources, see this new article on the wiki: Setting up a local web development environment.

The store.lds.org team has redesigned the magazine ordering system. You are invited to help us test the next version of the site and provide feedback about the new process. The most valuable feedback will come from your test of the following scenarios:

• Renewing a subscription
• Changing a subscription address
• Giving a gift subscription

Things to know for testing:

• Access the test site at http://store-stage.lds.org.
• Use your personal LDS Account and magazine subscription information to test renewing and changing a subscription address.
• This is a test version of the store, so your order will not actually be placed. Please use the test credit card number 4111111111111111, use a security code of 111, and provide any expiration date in the future.
• E-mail your feedback to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with the subject of “Magazine Feedback” before 9 a.m. MST on Friday, June 22.

Thank you for your help. Your feedback will positively affect the way store.lds.org users around the world access magazines.

Version 2.1 of the LDS.org calendar has been released on the calendar beta site: https://lds.org/calendarws. This release provides a simpler interface, includes a Churchwide calendar, offers private bishopric calendars on setup, and more.

See the 2.1 Community Beta Release Notes for a full list of the new features.

You are invited to test out the calendar and report any bugs, issues, or other feedback. Please submit your feedback in the LDSTech Beta Calendar forum here.

Version 2.1 is expected to be in beta for a couple of weeks before it’s released to production. When it is released to production, you will access it as usual from the Tools menu on LDS.org.

Stay Notified about Testing Opportunities

To stay notified about opportunities to test LDS.org applications, join the Local Unit Application Beta Testing project on LDSTech. To join the project, sign in to LDSTech, then click Projects on the top navigation bar. If you haven't already completed your profile, click Profile on the submenu and complete the required fields. Make sure you sign the contributor's license agreement.

Once your profile is complete, click Projects on the submenu, click the Local Unit Application Beta Testing project, and scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click Join.

You don't have to be a member of the Local Unit Application Beta Testing project to submit feedback about the calendar. Anyone can post to the LDSTech Forums. However, by joining the project, we will keep you updated about testing opportunities not only for calendar but other LDS.org applications too.

Elder Bangerter (left) and Elder Rogers (right) are two LDSTech Church service missionaries serving in the Church's Information and Communication Services (ICS) department.

Elder Joshua Bangerter, like many LDS young men, always knew he wanted to serve a mission. And, like many LDS young men with a medical condition, he still had the desire to serve – no matter what.

“Once I was released from full-time service, I met with my bishop the second day home to see what options were available for Church Service missionaries,” he said. “He suggested I go to work in the temple, which I did, and then I was directed to Alan Smoot, who suggested I come serve within the ICS Department.”

During the seven months he has served in the Riverton Office Building as a quality assurance assistant, Elder Bangerter has found working for the ICS Department has brought many blessings into his life. For example, with a desire to become an electrical engineer, serving a mission within the ICS Department is helping him prepare for his career.

Mormon.org has announced a new tool for bloggers and website owners to help them easily share the gospel online. The Mormon.org web widget was created to provide a simple way to engage others in learning about the Church and highlight some of the unique members of the Church. It also includes a function that allows those learning about our faith to chat online with the full-time missionaries. You can embed this widget on your blog or personal website. For more information and to get the embed code, visit the Mormon.org Widget page.