Computers and the Kingdom

As a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I spent every waking hour thinking about and attempting to bring the life-changing message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as were interested. In the back country of Kentucky and Indiana, our mission was the home of almost 200 missionaries. A central office in Louisville organized and directed the work of those missionaries and provided referral information about people who were likely interested in hearing the message. I had the rare privilege of spending 6 months of my mission serving in that office. It was there that I learned just how much well-designed computer systems improve efficiency in the work of the church. The church created a database system called MOS to handle the missionary office work. Unfortunately, MOS was extremely lacking in features and the result was that a lot of work that should have been computerized was being done by hand. It was better than having no computer system at all, without a doubt, but things could have been much more efficient. During the course of my time in the office, I wrote some programs that connected with the MOS database and extracted information in a more meaningful way. I was able to automate many tasks, some of which took hours, and allow them to be completed by simply pressing a button. Perhaps the most useful of these was a program that automatically sent the referrals out by text message. In short, this experience showed me just how much of a blessing computers can be in the church and how much improvement there can still be in the processes. I believe that the church is improving the way it uses technology, but the best is yet to come.