"I believe faith communities can do a lot to promote healthy lifestyles," said the Rev. Lee Shaw of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. Such groups can build self-esteem and strengthen stability of families, among other things that "promote a healthy society." People need to be able to make "healthy lifestyle choices and have the support of their faith communities" in doing so.

Elder Robert C. Oaks, a member of the LDS Church's Presidency of the Seventy, said he spent three years for the church on AIDS education in East Africa, helping teach what AIDS is, how you get it, how to avoid it and how to care for those who have it. The LDS Church, he said, developed a whole package of HIV/AIDS material that were taught in blocs of time as part of Sunday services. That same information can be and is used wherever it is needed.

The federal officials were slated to meet with the First Presidency of the LDS Church later in the day and were to be given materials developed by the church that address AIDS prevention and treatment, he said.

"AIDS is a most tragic and disruptive condition that reaches around the world and into every level of society," Elder Oaks said. "Families, individuals and whole communities have felt its painful and fatal effects. We mourn with those who have lost loved ones to AIDS and salute the tireless caregivers who give comfort and assistance to those battling these trials."

"We seek to heal souls of the diseases of isolation and alienation, to bring persons fully into the community and not exile persons to margins of society," said Glen Brown, a lay member of Holladay United Church of Christ.

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E-mail: lois@desnews.com