Anybody who has seen “The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepherd“, has an opinion of Tomas Kofod, the Danish actor selected to play the role of Jesus. I can’t imagine a more difficult role to play. Each of us has a very specific and intimate portrait of the Savior in our own heart based on our own experiences and understanding. We have our own impression of how he looks, talks , walks. We each have in our minds an image of his eyes and hair and hands and voice. These images are complicated by the many Hollywood images of Christ, from Max von Sydow in “The Greatest Story Ever Told” to John Caviezel in “Passion of the Christ”. Now imagine the additional pressure of being cast in a film about the Savior that the Church will use to show visitors — members and non-members alike — the story of Christ from the perspective of the Old World and the New. Now imagine you are a young stage actor, from Denmark, and a convert to the Church.

“Of One Fold and One Shepherd - Fireside“, is the story of Tomas Kofod, told by himself and his wife, Ane Marie, about his experience being cast in this most singular role. It is a live recording of a fireside that Ane Marie and Tomas presented and is full of stories about the miracles associated with their conversions to the Gospel and the incredible experiences surrounding their involvement with the production and the lessons of faith, patience and the reality of the Savior that they learned while making “The Testaments”.

LDSAudio.com made this fireside available in April and had an immediate rush of orders. In fact, it quickly became our bestseller for the month. Then it became our bestseller so far this year! Last week I finally took the time to listen. At about an hour in length, it features both Ane Marie and Tomas Kofod relating the stories of their conversion as well as stories regarding “The Testaments”.

I recommend this audio fireside highly. The messages that are presented are sweet and powerful. The delivery of the messages is mesmerizing. Both Ane Marie and Tomas have voices that are so compelling that it is impossible to stop listening. They are warm, sweet and the Danish accent adds a touch of character that makes the presentation perfect.

I really want to relate a number of the stories, but I don’t want to spoil anything. They speak about their time as exchange students at Orem High and Bingham High, how they were converted to the Gospel (great messages here for kids about their influence on their friends!) and great stories about the casting and production of The Testaments, the events that conspired against their involvement and about how all things were resolved.

This fireside is available to download or the CD can be purchased. One possible way to use this is to watch “The Testaments” for family home evening, then download this fireside to the kids’ iPods (especially the teenagers). They will have a greater appreciation for this actor and for the production.

I was in Gospel Doctrine on Sunday and enjoying a wonderful lesson — well prepared, excellent participation from the class, beautiful spirit, learning new things — all of the things I hope for when I attend. Then there was a HINT of a disruption. Not a major problem, just a glitch. Our teacher started to tell the story from Luke 19 about Zacchaeus, chief among the publicans. Now the problem was that she didn’t know how to pronouce the name “Zacchaeus”. The fact is, neither did I. At least I had a different pronunciation than she did, and several others had a different pronunciation than I did. Finally a vocal member of the class prevailed and that was the pronunciation we went with.

I don’t want to overstate this little disruption. It was far from a skirmish. Barely even an issue. I’m not certain how many in the class even noticed. I noticed because I have been thinking about this some in the past few weeks since we started uploading audio clips from the Sunday School lessons onto LDSClip.com. I have listened to the material nearly every week, but this week I read instead. Listen to how wonderful it sounds from the most recognized bible narrator in the world, Alexander Scourby.

As a Gospel Doctrine teacher, I want to have as little disruption as possible. Something as simple as HEARING someone pronouce the name of Zacchaeus properly before I have to pronounce it in class, gives me great confidence and minimizes unnecessary distractions. I have also heard from a Gospel Doctrine teacher whose class is getting along in years and they struggle reading. He downloads the clips to his iPod and uses them in class so EVERYONE can hear them read clearly and well.

Since the reading assignments are so short, my new goal is to make certain that I read AND listen every week. It will be fun to see what I pick up when I do that!

Both of our sites, www.ldslibrary.com and www.ldsaudio.com, have affiliated with a site called LDSClip.com. this is a site that contains small snippets of spoken audio for personal use or for convenience for Gospel Doctrine teachers and students, Priesthood and Relief Society teachers and students, and even Family Home Evening. They can even be used to email a scripture or thought to another person. Right now LDSClip.com has a small but growing number of clips in the library, mostly scriptures pertaining to the Gospel Doctrine lessons. There is also a great clip to go along with the lesson on the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It is from Robert Millet’s book “When a Child Wanders”.

Soon a tool will be included that allows users to clip thier own audio files and include them in the ldsclip library.

As this catalog of clips grows, this will be a more and more useful tool.

Well it seems like it is time to revitalize the blog here at LDSAudio. We have had a fascinating, challenging year, and are emerging with confidence that our little web site is surviving and appreciated by Latter-day Saints all over the world! We survived a difficult year and now we want to begin to thrive! Our goal with our weekly emails and our site is to do more educating about good music and other entertainment, about new digital technologies and applications, and broaden the kinds of products opportunities we provide.

in the near future we will be providing:

• Digital Sheet Music (you may have seen our beta site — we will be releasing an update soon)
• LDS Ringtones
• An iTunes affiliation
• Weekly Artist Spotlights
• Podcasts
• LDSClip.com — small clips from scriptures, talks and books for uses in lessons, family home evenings or to send to a friend
• Lyrics for all of our songs that will be searchable
• ways to make it easier to give an LDSAudio gift
• Links to LDSLibrary.com
• Links to other relevant blogs
• Calendars of events, concerts and items of interest

Which of these is most useful to you? Do you have other things you’d like to see? let us know.

Neal

Well,  the long anticipated LDSMedia.com Online LDS Search page is now live.  You can access it at www.library.com.  Right now the site has a 14 free trial offer.  This won’t last forever though so hurry and give it a whirl.  I think you’ll agree it’s the fastest, easiest to navigate and is loaded with information.  We’ve been getting some fantastic opinions and ideas from guest users while it was under development.  Their input was and still is a major part of the process.  We really appreciate their feedback.   

 For those of you who aren’t aware, we have been working on this new search page for about a year.  Between Gospel Link Online and the Online LDS Library we have seen a lot of ways to impliment the new one.  We have seen what worked and what didn’t work.  I am so impressed with this new approach and am amazed at how fast I can access information now.  Searching is a breeze.  Just type in any group of words to search for and it will return the most relevent information first and in the blink of an eye.  You can search within a specific book or just one authors work (from both talks and text).  Pull up 1000’s of images in a snap.  Get commentaries on your scripture search results at the click of a button.

What’s really great is you don’t need a subscription to search.  In many cases you will find great information from conference talks and scriptures as well as some other sources without requiring a subscription.  Want to open the entire database to your fingertips….. Piece a cake.  Open an annual subscription account and you can find just about anything ever written by LDS authorities, biographers, scriptorians, historians and more.  Find out first hand what someone really said on that day or about this doctrinal point.  You will be amazed at how often we misquote passages from scripture and words from latter-day authorities.  I love this.  I can find an answer to about any question I can think of.  Probably answer a few I didn’t think in the process. 

Finally, fixes to the site as well as new content will no longer require months to impliment.  We could have the latest information added overnight,  Add features or fix broken ones while you sleep.  If you find something that you think could work better give us a hollar.  You might just see it the next time you login. Ok,  maybe I’m being a bit optimistic but you get the idea. 

This really is an new and exciting approach to scripture study.  Don’t just take my word for it though.  If you haven’t checked it out yet give it a test drive and see for yourself.  I look forward to your response.

I was listening to some of the music from the new Halestorm Movie soundtracks today.  Let me just preface my remarks with the fact that I’m at that age where text seems smaller than it used to and my wife notices wild eyebrow hairs starting to sprout.  I say keep’em she says “NOT gonna happen”.  With that in mind here I am working on answering emails from our beloved customers and I have this big grin on my face while listening to “In the Hollow of thy Hand” by The Sugarland Run from the album Janice Kapp Perry’s Parallel Universe, or “Onward Christian Soldier” by The Cretins from the soundtrack from ”The R.M”.  Now, you have to understand that I grew up on this music in the 70’s.  The first song always made me tear up (yes, I admit it ….  now).  So I’m smiling because I’m really enjoying the song.  I’m smiling and at first was thinking I shouldn’t be.  It doesn’t make me cry anymore.  It does make me smile.  How can I put this…. it’s not what I grew up with but it’s really fun.  It’s like getting a whole new shine on my worn out shoes.  Made me feel good.  While I probably wouldn’t be playing these songs in church or maybe even on Sunday, I can definitely enjoy the upbeat even rowdy ( did I just say that?)  new style of these songs.  They remind me of the great bands I would listen to in the 70’s and early 80’s only filled with messages of  Heavenly Father and family and hope instead of my girlfriend or my car or…whatever. 

 Not all the songs are fastpaced or rowdy (i said it again!?).  Some are folksy and some will make you cry.  You can just sit back with your eyes closed, relax and enjoy.  Sweet and melodious.  A great mix that I don’t mind my kids listening to… and they would.  Now I want to go see the movies again or go see the movies I didn’t see. 

If you’ve seen the movies you gotta have the soundtracks.  If you haven’t seen the movie, get the soundtrack and you’ll want to see the movie they were created for.  These songs can break down the barrier between young and old and leave you with a grin on your face that could last for hours.