OnMyMission.com - I wish I had this while on my mission!

While I was on my mission it was difficult trying to write and send pictures to everyone back home. I just didn't have the time! I also had many non-member friends who were curious about what I was doing and how things were going but weren't comfortable bugging my parents for news or photos. In fact, it was a non-member who went to college with me who gave me the idea for the site.

So, I created http://www.OnMyMission.com - A place where friends and family can create a website for their missionary and share photos, letters, events and more with everyone. There are some fun features such as the interactive timeline which lets everyone see major events from the missionary. Of course there is also a map. I'm also finishing a feature that will let missionaries send us email and we will automatically extract the text and photos and post it directly on their website. Check out the demo missionary page at: http://www.OnMyMission.com/demo

I would love to hear any feedback anyone has. What would you change? What features are missing?

Some things might look like a programmer made it, but hey, thats what I am I could use a couple of nudges and hints with usability and design.

A missionary is instructed to only e-mail his immediate family, and some missionaries do not even have that privilege. So it would seem to me that the family would need to post any message or photos from the missionary to the site that they would like to make generally available.

We already have a place for that, and we forward e-mails to a select e-mail list of close relatives and friends. I suppose if we did not already have a place to park photos, we might consider something like this, but we would probably look for something that did not include so much advertising, although I realize that it does cost to do these things.

I like that the site requires a login (although I wonder if I could remember another one [grin] ). That does keep it more private. Does the family get to control who can login and see the information there?

Thanks for your feedback.

Privacy was definitely one of the top priorities on the site. When I originally showed the site to parents I got very mixed requests. Some want their pages to be public so that relatives dont have to create an account to see it, while others want to lock down the pages and require the visitor to request permission or provide a password. We support all those methods of security.

The parents or friends of the missionary are definitely the ones who should really be putting the content up. We have a simple role/permission system that can grant 'editor' permissions to other visitors. That way many people can contribute photos, letters, etc.

I'm definitely looking for a way to get rid of the ads. Honestly, it was just a little experiment to see what kind of ads google would show for my site. I'm actually quite impressed with LDS missionary related ads that show up. Paying the bill isn't the priority right now though. I would love to just show lds specific services such as ones that provide care packages for missionaries.

This is a great idea. My brother had a blog where he posted his stuff (via email so as not to break any rules). I see there is some sort of email functionality. That is good.

To help get the word out more and add some social features links to companion's websites would also be good. That is a good way for parents to keep up with their sons/daughters from another perspective. Sometimes you miss them so much you will take ALL the pictures/info you can get!

I like it. Is there going to be a paid version that will show the profile without any google ads?

Very cool app. Nicely done! I think that this is a site that I would use when my kids go on a mission.

Tom

A wonderful feature! Need you help to translate it to Portuguese??? ^_^

larrydkb wrote:...i.e. personal names of converts & investigators.

Way back when, we used to have a local newsletter that mentioned new converts. We stopped that when it was discovered that the antis were using it to build their "target" list.

So yes, the names of converts and investigators needs to be limited to prevent that.

jeffvand wrote:This is a great idea. My brother had a blog where he posted his stuff (via email so as not to break any rules). I see there is some sort of email functionality. That is good.

To help get the word out more and add some social features links to companion's websites would also be good. That is a good way for parents to keep up with their sons/daughters from another perspective. Sometimes you miss them so much you will take ALL the pictures/info you can get!

I like it. Is there going to be a paid version that will show the profile without any google ads?

Thanks! Yes, the email parsing feature is in almost finished. I'm working on different ways to trigger the event that will read the emails and parse the text and photos.

Funny you should mention the companion idea. Thats another feature I started but haven't finished yet. Just incase you didn't notice, when you register and login you actually have a homepage/dashboard where you can create and also bookmark multiple missionary pages. So you could search for the companions and add them as a favorite. There is even a facebook'ish timeline to show you changes to your favorite missionary pages. I'll get to work on that feature though!

I actually coded up most of the site to support 'paid' pages, I just didnt know how much interest there would be. Sounds like I need to work more on that! What would you pay for unlimited pages, photos and other data?

tomw wrote:Very cool app. Nicely done! I think that this is a site that I would use when my kids go on a mission.

Tom

Thanks! All this feedback is definitely encouraging!

MorettiDP wrote:A wonderful feature! Need you help to translate it to Portuguese??? ^_^

Thanks for the offer! I'm actually in the middle of translating the whole site to Italian. I've create the site in a way where I'll be able to send xml files to people to help translate the site. I may contact you once I've tested the italian stuff.

larrydkb wrote:Looks good. I think it's cleaner than missionsite.net. While I like to read the letters and see the pictures on missionsite, sometimes they are not appropriate for general viewing, i.e. personal names of converts & investigators. That's something to consider.

Thanks! The design side always seems like the hardest part.

RussellHltn wrote:Way back when, we used to have a local newsletter that mentioned new converts. We stopped that when it was discovered that the antis were using it to build their "target" list.

So yes, the names of converts and investigators needs to be limited to prevent that.

Agreed, I hope users will take advantage of the flexible security options that are available.

----

With all that said. What's the best way to get the word out? Some suggested I print off business cards to hand to missionaries to mail home to their parents. Is that appropriate?

OnMyMission wrote:I actually coded up most of the site to support 'paid' pages, I just didnt know how much interest there would be. Sounds like I need to work more on that! What would you pay for unlimited pages, photos and other data?

Let's maybe keep discussion like this off of the public forums; perhaps you can contact each other via PM or email.

Thanks.

Along the lines of mkmurray's comments. We're OK with the site as-is, even with some advertising.

But if it becomes a commercial $ite, then the welcome mat starts getting rolled up. If you want to explore the gray areas, I'd suggest PMing Tomw to discuss it.

OnMyMission wrote:I actually coded up most of the site to support 'paid' pages, I just didnt know how much interest there would be. Sounds like I need to work more on that! What would you pay for unlimited pages, photos and other data?

Keep it for free if possible and therefore let the biggest amount of people benefit from it. But thats just my personal opinion. I think there are more benefits and blessings to find as it serves to inspire others.

RussellHltn wrote:Along the lines of mkmurray's comments. We're OK with the site as-is, even with some advertising.

But if it becomes a commercial $ite, then the welcome mat starts getting rolled up. If you want to explore the gray areas, I'd suggest PMing Tomw to discuss it.

Perhaps someone could explain to me why it is so taboo to discuss anything of commercial nature on these forums. I mean, as long a there is no direct solicitation, what's the harm in asking what kind of market might exist for a certain product or what price points may work. If the church wants to encourage people to build useful and awesome apps, like OnMyMission.com, then shunning anyone who tries to build something commercial seems counterproductive.

douglas.a.hatch wrote:Perhaps someone could explain to me why it is so taboo to discuss anything of commercial nature on these forums. I mean, as long a there is no direct solicitation, what's the harm in asking what kind of market might exist for a certain product or what price points may work. If the church wants to encourage people to build useful and awesome apps, like OnMyMission.com, then shunning anyone who tries to build something commercial seems counterproductive.

The Church is a non-profit, tax exempt organization. To avoid placing that at risk, the Code of Conduct and the Terms of Useincorporate rules to protect that status. Anyone registering to use these forums agrees to abide by those standards. You may want to review those standards since your questions are answered there. If you have any further questions regarding these standards, please direct them to Tom Welch, Church Technology Commmunity Manager and forums administrator, in a private message.

jdlessley wrote:The Church is a non-profit, tax exempt organization. To avoid placing that at risk, the Code of Conduct and the Terms of Useincorporate rules to protect that status. Anyone registering to use these forums agrees to abide by those standards. You may want to review those standards since your questions are answered there. If you have any further questions regarding these standards, please direct them to Tom Welch, Church Technology Commmunity Manager and forums administrator, in a private message.

I see the following in the code of conduct:

You agree not to post (d) any advertisements, solicitations, chain letters, pyramid schemes, investment opportunities, or other unsolicited commercial communication;

Seems like this would be aimed at preventing the kind stock pumping spam you get on Yahoo Finance--not necessarily preventing any discussion of commercial products. Am I wrong? Is this really an issue of the church's tax exempt status? That just seems a little far-fetched to me. But I'm no lawyer.

Just a FYI on what the missionary Handbook says today:

You may communicate with your family and mission president by e-mail, according to approved guidelines. Use only MyLDSMAIL.net, the filtered service established by the Church. Do not use any other e-mail service or any other Internet service or site that has not been authorized.

...

As your call letter states, you are "expected to devote all your time and ateention to serving the Lord, leaving behind all other personal affairs." Do not become preoccupied with communicating with family and friends.

So - unless mission president approves such usage, then such site, would encourage missionaries to be disobedient to mission rules. If they have to access it themselves.

Work around it, and let the missionary sent a email (as someone stated before here), to the web site, and let parents set it up?.

Just a FYI

douglas.a.hatch wrote:Perhaps someone could explain to me why it is so taboo to discuss anything of commercial nature on these forums.

Well, the last instruction we got was against things commercial. If you want to flesh out that boundary, then I suggest you PM Tom. The rest of us all answer to him, and I think you'll find he's the most open to the idea.

A PM to Tom will have a better chance of success than a public discussion. And that’s not a brush-off. That really is the best channel to get what you want.

zabaki wrote:Just a FYI on what the missionary Handbook says today:
So - unless mission president approves such usage, then such site, would encourage missionaries to be disobedient to mission rules. If they have to access it themselves.

Work around it, and let the missionary sent a email (as someone stated before here), to the web site, and let parents set it up?.

Just a FYI

The site is definitely not for missionaries to use themselves while on their mission. I try to reinforce this with the verbiage I use on the site. You should create a website FOR YOUR missionary.

The missionary will have the ability to CC us any emails they send home to their parents and we will automatically post the text and also any photos that are attached to their website.

The site also lets the page owner (usually a parent or friend) to grant other family and friends 'editor' permissions so that multiple people can upload and moderate content on the pages.

I wanted to thank those that have been sending me PMs with bugs or other suggestions.

Specifically, macsense and a few others found a couple of issues when creating new missionary websites.
Those issues should be resolved now. I deployed a new version this morning with a bunch of fixes and UI cleanup!

Can I bring my guitar with me on my mission?

judycooley wrote: Tue Mar 04, 2025 2:49 am Can I bring my guitar with me on my mission?

You'll have to check with your mission office. But unless you've been called on a musical mission, probably not. I doubt if the added bulk of the case would be welcome in your frequent moves.