Today in the Bloggernacle: Safely serving in the New York South Mission

Safely serving: Among the mission blogs in Hurricane Sandy’s path, the New York New York South Mission had a goal to be “Safe then Serve.” I love it. Here are some snippets: “Dear parents, All missionaries are SAFE. The first phase of 'Safe' and 'Serve' is complete. We are being cautious and asking all missionaries to stay another night in the same locations. We will make a decision tomorrow on whether to return to our original apartments on Thursday. Thank you for all of your prayers. President and Sister Calderwood” and “Our plan is called Safe and Serve — Be safe first and then go and serve.” Wow!

Choir hangout: Not only is this “Live Chat with Members with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir” neat for those interested in the reaction to the choir's new YouTube channel, but it’s awesome just for its use of technology: Google Hangouts are easy ways to hold roundtable discussions of up to 10 people that can then be uploaded to YouTube. It’s easy and fun. What a great example!

NaNoWriMo tips: It's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) where writers and aspiring writers try to compose an entire book. To help you, if you are participating, the Mormon Life Hacker shares some tips that screenwriters use in composing. Here are a few: keep your reader in mind, create conflict, include frequent sense detail, and much more. Plus, he reproduces Pixar's 22 rules for great storytelling. Check it out, then type, type, type!

Emily W. Jensen updates "Today in the Bloggernacle" on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, presenting the best from the world of LDS-oriented blog sites. Her extended "Bloggernacle Back Bench" appears on Tuesdays. Email: ejensen@desnews.com