Dear Elders, Sisters, Parents, and friends of our missionaries and our returned missionaries,
We
are grateful for each of you who diligently serve, have served or
support those who serve in this great Area of the world. We are
grateful for each of our wonderful missionaries and we
appreciate those who willingly share them with us at this very sacred
time in their lives.
We
are facing a very unique time in the Europe East Area. This letter is
asking for a level of discipline and obedience that has never been asked
of you before. Our situation here is such
that your cooperation and support are very important. As you read this
letter, please carefully examine your own situation and think what
changes you might make to help keep our missionaries, new converts,
members and investigators safe and how we can help
the Church remain in good standing with local and national governments
and organizations. The Area Presidency of the East Europe Area has
requested we send this letter to you all and that you respectfully do
all you can to follow the guidelines as listed.
Living
and serving in this special Area brings great blessings and also
provides us each with an opportunity to learn sacrifice and consecration
in order to help move the work of the Lord
forward. We are deeply committed to protecting the safety and well
being of each precious missionary and member as well as the Church and
have some special requests of each of you in order to protect them.
This
unique part of the world has special social and legal sensitivities
which do not exist in our home wards and which do not allow the same
freedom of expression to which we are all accustomed.
The Lord has blessed us all with incredible digital technologies and we
all benefit from the use of emails, blogs, and other social media.
These tools however carry a responsibility and can be used to harm
missionaries, members and the Church. After much
careful and prayerful consideration we ask each of you to willingly
observe the following guidelines:
1. Laws in the countries of our Area
prohibit the online sharing of any “personal data,” directly or
indirectly, pertaining to another person.
Thus, we ask that you not share through social media tools any information
– including
photographs, names, addresses, contact information, or any other “personal data”
– about individual members, nonmembers or missionaries. If you currently have a
public social media site or Facebook page where Area related material is posted,
please immediately remove all posted
photographs of missionaries, members and nonmembers as well as
any written information about them. If you wish to keep photographs on
your site, please make that site private, and strictly control who has
access to the site – by invitation only. Please
ensure that those invited onto the site can be trusted not to share or
forward information made available on the site to ensure that we honor
and uphold the law.
Our missionaries are
focusing on their missionary purpose, even on preparation days and we
are asking them to be wise even regarding the number of photographs that
they send home.
2. Church activities are subject to
special regulations under local laws and noncompliance may result in
legal problems for the Church.
Please do not share through social media tools
– including emails
– any information about or
photographs of branch, member or missionary programs or
activities (e.g. preparation day activities, zone conferences, other
missionary meetings or missionary teaching activities, baptisms,
humanitarian projects, etc.).
Please do not share, post or forward,
through social media tools – including emails – any information
regarding legal or other “challenges, incidents or problems” that you,
the Church organization or its members, or other missionaries
may encounter from time to time (e.g. visa problems, interactions with
local police, apartment issues, etc.). We are asking our missionaries
not to share this information in their weekly emails, and their parents
and friends to discontinue the practice of
posting their emails or letters home, or portions of those letters on
public social media sites such as, but not limited to blogs and
Facebook.
3. Inappropriate comments about the
governments, officials, customs or laws of our countries can create
great risks for the Church and members.
We are asking that you never share through social media tools,
comments about political or social issues (e.g. international relations,
the government or any political leaders, criticisms of the country or
its people, etc.).
We especially ask family members
and friends of our missionaries to refrain from posting through social
media tools any photographs or other personal information that the
missionary emails or sends home. We are asking our
missionaries not to share photographs or personal data of any
individual in weekly emails to friends and family.
Again, posting photographs or any other
personal data of any missionary, member, or nonmember in this part of
the world creates risks for the Church, the missionaries, the members
and well as nonmembers. We are thus sincerely
asking for your support and cooperation in following these
recommendations in order to
help protect your son or daughter, as well as the members and the Church in this part of the world.
In summary, we ask that you do not
post your missionary’s weekly emails or any photograph of missionaries,
members or nonmembers on public social media sites.
Please make any
public site that contains photographs of missionaries, members or
nonmembers private. Please remove all photographs of missionaries,
members and nonmembers and other personal data covered above
from your social media sites if you wish to keep them public.
One last item. It has come to our
attention that missionaries occasionally time their Internet time with
family or friends so that they can “chat” live via email. The Church
Missionary Department has made it clear that this is
violating the spirit of the law and the Missionary Handbook and should
not be done. Even though it is a joy to be able to check up on your
missionary in “real time”, it is not really helping them. The Church has
provided for either phone calls or Skype calls
on Christmas and Mother’s Day so you can talk live with them.
Otherwise, emails (not simultaneous emailing) or letters are the method
of communication. Perhaps you weren’t aware that doing this was in
violation of the Missionary Handbook. But now that you
know, will you please support us in this request? We feel so strongly
that obedience brings the Spirit as well as miracles to our
missionaries.
Thank you for your sacrifices in this regard during this sacred time of service and consecration.
With gratitude,
