How to Pay LDS Tithing Online

Here's how to pay tithing online for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka Mormons or Latter-day Saints [LDS]).

If you're anything like me then you almost never use checks. The only day-to-day uses for these dinosaurs of the financial world are to pay rent and tithing. But more often than not I forget my checkbook when I go to church. After all, I don't carry it with me anywhere else! This habit has resulted in sporadic donations in which I try to figure out how many paychecks have come in since I last paid and then try to catch up.

(For those who may not know, Mormons usually pay 10% of their income to the church in the form of tithing. These funds support the growth of the church, building construction and maintenance, and other managerial things. They don't support a paid clergy (the LDS church has none at the local level) or humanitarian relief - there are separate donation avenues for helping the poor, victims of disaster, etc. Tithing does pay the administration costs of humanitarian aid so that 100% of money "given to the poor" actually goes to help the poor.)

Well I've finally found a solution. I heard a rumor that members can pay their tithing online somehow, so I fired up google and figured it out last night.

Here are directions to set up online tithing payment:

1. Download the necessary form from this website: The Bill Payment Service Electronic Donation Information Form. (The version dated 21 May 2010 doesn't work, download and use the one dated 21 August 2008.) Fill it out on your computer and e-mail it to donations@ldschurch.org. You'll need to know your membership number, which you can get off of your temple recommend or from your ward clerk.

2. After you have e-mailed the form you'll receive a detailed response on how to set up your electronic bill payment through your bank. You'll need to figure out how exactly to configure bill pay for your bank. I use Bank of America and it was relatively easy to set up.

The e-mail you receive will provide information on how to set up separate bill payments for the following:

• Tithing
  
• Fast offerings
• General missionary fund
• Book of Mormon fund
  
• Perpetual education fund
• Other

Each bill payment you set up will use a different biller name. These names must be entered exactly as shown below and are case sensitive.

• LDS-Tithing
• LDS-Fast Offering
• LDS-Missionary (General)
• LDS-Book of Mormon
• LDS-PEF
• LDS-Other
  

You will be identified by your membership ID which you enter as the account number on your banking website.


Lastly, take care to enter the Pay To address and phone number correctly as shown.

A few notes on donating tithes and offerings electronically:

• Any donations you send will go to church headquarters and will not be seen by your ward clerks or bishop - for good or for bad.
• You can't donate to your ward missionary fund online, only to the general missionary fund.
• The donations office can't accommodate special requests towards ward fast offerings or ward missionary funds.
• You will receive monthly statements to verify that your payments have been successful as well as yearly tax receipts. You can receive these statements via snail mail or e-mail. If you choose to receive them via e-mail, this is what they look like:

Good luck! Hopefully this will be useful to folks like me who always forget the checkbook before church.

ORIGINAL: 3/15/10
UPDATE: 7/27/10 Updated directions to download the working Bill Payment Service Electronic Donation Information Form. Also mentioned the new ability to receive statements electronically.
UPDATE: 11/9/10 Added example image of a monthly electronic donations statement. Re-published with today's date.

Largest Cruise Ship in the World Squeaks Under Danish Bridge with 20 Inches to Spare

To Woo

From the Wikipedia article on courtship:

...Acts such as meeting on the Internet or virtual dating, chatting on-line via instant messaging or e-mail, sending text messages, conversing over the telephone, writing each other letters, and sending each other flowers, songs, and gifts constitute wooing.

 LOL.

T-Rex vs. Mars Rover

Comment sections are usually full of idiots. Case in point:

jjeherrera Jul 30, 2010 6:17 PM
I've always found it hard to understand why there is so much insistence in manned space exploration, when it has been proven that robots are infinitely better at it.

Wanna know what I say?

Top speed of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the mightiest dinosaur: 25 mph
Top speed of the Spirit Mars rover: 2 inches/second

Human space flight ftw!

But seriously, "...it has been proven that robots are infinitely better at [space exploration]." Huh? What planet are you from? (Maybe one where T-Rex and Mars rovers can peacefully coexist?)

Right now robots are the method of choice for exploring the solar system because they don't want to come home when all is said and done. And nobody has a fit when one or two burn up in the atmosphere. But to do serious exploration, robots just won't cut it forever.

Imagine trying to design a robot to

1. Land in the Rocky Mountains (and survive!)
2. Move about successfully (good luck)
3. And then discover dinosaurs.

It's utterly unthinkable.

Do you think that's a bizarre scenario? Consider for a moment that Mars has both the highest mountain (Olympus Mons) and the biggest canyon (Valles Marineris) in the solar system. Mars used to have vast oceans, huge rivers, and gargantuan lava flows. It still has dust storms, polar ice caps, and massive amounts of water ice just below the surface. The possibility of fossilized microorganisms is very real - not to mention the chance of native life just below the frigid surface.

If we're ever going to do space exploration any justice we'll need to get our feet dirty. Humans are infinitely better at space exploration than robots!

Thanks for the drawing Brook!

The Value of Creative Science

When you hear the word creative you don't necessarily think of science. But science is an extremely creative process and has occupied some of the most creative thinkers in human history. Many of the problems in the world can be solved by science, such as rising energy costs, global warming, starvation, and disease.

Admittedly, the following video was made for corporate propaganda purposes, but it does a beautiful job of illustrating why science is an alluring, creative field with the mission to change the world.

I am a scientist because I love the thrill of creatively solving a difficult problem. The prospect that in some small way my work might change the world for the better turns a fun career into a great one.

And of course, nothing says science like Asians in lab coats. :D

Did you notice the boiling cryogen at the beginning of the movie? Cool.

More Blog Changes

Blogger has implemented a new native visitor statistics program (no, not a program that tracks native visitors, a native program that tracks visitors!). It's fairly new, but it told me that currently my most popular post is How to Pay LDS Tithing Online. Yay! So I've gone an updated a few things that have changed about the program since I wrote about it in March.

Blogger also has a great new preview button to use when writing posts. This feature works much better than the previous one (which was mostly useless) and I'm happy. I can also use more-normal keyboard shortcuts for formatting on while blogging on my mac such as command-I to italicize something instead of control-I (which is pesky on a mac). Yay for progress!

My Senior Thesis is DONE

After hundreds of hours of machining, wiring, troubleshooting, programming, fiddling, head scratching, fixing, typing, agonizing, and banging my head against the optical table...


It's done! And aaaaalllliiiiiiivvve!


My senior thesis. (<--- see that period? My thesis is as done as that period! Uhmph!) ..... I just noticed a typo.

Controlled Attenuation of Laser-generated High-order Harmonics for Extreme Ultraviolet Polarimetry

Abstract:
We constructed an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) polarimeter which utilizes laser- induced high harmonics as the light source. This device is capable of making absolute reflectance measurements as low as 0.2% over a wavelength range of 8-89 nm. The polarimetry positioning system allows incident reflectance angles of 0–40◦. In order to increase the dynamic range of our EUV detector we introduced a low-pressure gas downstream from the harmonic generation region to predictably attenuate EUV flux during incident measurements. We also used the gas cell to measure the photoabsorption cross sections of hydro- gen and oxygen compared to that of water vapor, revealing the influence of chemical bonds on EUV absorption.

If you still wanna read it, then click here (.pdf) . It has pretty pictures, I promise!