So you know what makes me happy? OK, a lot of things make me happy! I’m just that sort of person.

Here’s the short list:

My kids doing something goofy (this happens about 28 times a day from each of them on average – they are pretty goofy)
Rainbows
Twirling my hair (yeah I’m a fidgety one)
Brownies
My dog wagging his tail (seriously, he’s so little and that tail is so big it makes his whole backside shake – it’s pretty funny to watch)
Traveling

So there’s the short list. Oh I could go on and on, but really? Not necessary. At least not today. You never know when I might get bored though…

At any rate, something new is out there and it makes me happy. What is it? It’s the fact my Church is like totally uber-nerdy. Oh yeah. OK, so some people might not believe it, but really!

See, I’ve been doing the whole handheld device scripture dealio for ages. I like tech. Call me, Batgirl. I need my toys. I remember my first PDA was a handspring and we got it in something like 2000. Who had those sorts of things back then? Yeah I think Megs and I were the only people in our ward with PDAs. Maybe our whole stake.

Our favourite app? Yanceyware. We searched high and low and tried out about eleventy hundred different reader things, but Yancey was the awesome. You could read scriptures and magazines and whatnot put out by our Church. the greatest day was when the official website for our Church started promoting all the various programs out there.

Seriously. There’s an entire page dedicated to the various handheld programs. Schweeeeet!

Well, a little while back the Church totally jumped onto the app store bandwagon and made up the Mormon Radio app to bring their awesome radio station to the iPod/iPhone world. (Yes, they are working on making a matching Android app and Crackberry app. I’ve got the starter app on my phone!)

Just recently they added their second app. Like real recently. Like in the last um… fortnight? Maybe not even that long. This time? It’s the scriptures!

So I already had a scripture app. A pretty snazzy one that what? Yup. Went off the yanceyware library of just about every LDS publication known to man and then some extras to boot. (You know, like where would be without the US Constitution in our scripture app? We’re wacky that way. Love it!)

Sure the Church gives the green light of love to yanceyware and some other softwares. But this is even hotter because why? Because it’s officially developed by the Church itself. And I’ve played with it. (Android lovers, you gotta hit up a website on your phone, it’s not in the app store yet but wowsers… for not complete it’s pretty smoking hot!)

You can scroll through the page by tilting your phone. SNAZZY! You can bookmark. You can see annotations. All good. Mostly you can do that in other apps. A lot of those apps are paid apps… this is not.

HERE is the awesomeness… you can totally highlight AND make notes. That’s right. Is that not cool or what? Wait… it gets BETTER. Hard to believe, right? How?

Did you know there’s all sorts of nifty changes to the LDS website? Cruise on over to beta.lds.org and see. One of the things is to make your account a little more dynamic. (Right now’s still pretty happening with the ability to look up the calendar and address information and whatnot.) So here’s the rumour which would be pretty snazzy… your phone app and your web account would sync up. Thus any notes I make on my phone could carry over to the web and I could see it from any computer.

Nice.

Oh, did I mention you get a selection of colours for marking? WOOT! I love my rainbow of fruity flavours marking style. I know. I’m kind of a fruity person so it works for me.

Anyway, so that makes me happy tonight. I love having my scriptures in my pocket. You just never know when you might need to read something. (I already have a cool scripture a day widget on my phone. Today’s says: And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord. Good one!)

I do find myself a fan of personal study in my actual scriptures just because I have that ability to mark, underline, make notes, and so forth, so this is fantastic to me!

Oh, and did I mention "night mode" is a nice little perk they tech dudes added in? THANK YOU! I’m often trying to read before I go to bed and so I do like reading apps with night mode. (The extra benefit to this is I don’t need a book light like when I try to use my actual scriptures!)

Anyway, a little SQUEEEEEE from me about the new Gospel Library app that my Church put out. I’m not ready to give up all my other goodies in my main app, but I’m super excited to start using GL!

Links for your aid:
Android: http://ping.fm/dz8An
iPhone: Hit up the app store – it’s been in there like two, almost three weeks? I dunno. But it’s there.

If you’re looking for other nifty apps to be LDS and geeky with on the Android, here’s some of my faves:

Ward Central: Logs in and allows you to access the directory. You can make phone calls and get directions. SCHWEET!
Reveal: Pulls from yanceyware docs so you can have scriptures plus all the goodies like lesson manuals and magazines and so on and so forth.
General Conference: Seriously, a decade’s worth of General Conferences. You can read or listen… or both at the same time!
Mormon Radio Lite: Starter app that gives you instant access to listening to radio.lds.org It’s still basic, but I know things are coming. (I read the wiki!)
Better: LDS Radio Live Stream: Gives you the basic radio feed but also you can view the schedule AND set up alarms. (I keep doing this, forgetting, and then JUMPING when suddenly the radio just starts playing. LOL) You also get two LDS music stations. Who knew there were LDS music stations on the internet besides the Church’s official one? Not me. I blame living in DC instead of Utah. LOL
LDS Scripture Citation: Seriously, this thing is INTERESTING. You can look up anything. Matthew chapter 1? There’s 12 different scriptures with citations. A quick look tells me that there’s six entries in the Journal of Discourses that reference Matthew 1:1. If I click, I can read said entries. In 1984, Neal A Maxwell referenced Matt 1:1-17 in a conference address. Wow.

I told you. We’re rather geeky. It’s how we roll.

So now that I’m happy and I’ve shared my happiness, I’m away to another thing that makes me happy… SLEEP!

–Lady O