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⚠️ Please note that the information on this page may be outdated or is subject to change without notice, as updates and revisions may occur periodically. Our intent is to update as often as possible and ask you to help fix our mistakes. We welcome your input and updated information at [email protected]. Thanks!
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Sign language and accessibility resources for Deaf and hard-of-hearing friends and members and leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
This is v. 7 of a work-in-progress that compiles information to support Deaf/hard-of-hearing (D/HH) and sign language-using friends, members, families, and leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For almost 25 years, this information has been gathered to help members and leaders promote and provide accommodations and accessibility as well as give historical context to the D/HH experience within the at-large Church.
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💡 How might we create a resource that functions like a wiki or Member Tools or high-comment/participatory site like http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com for D/HH members but respects privacy and uses existing content and media?
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Where are you going with this?
- For decades, we've recognized there is a need to identify where other D/HH Latter-day Saints are located and worship and serve. People move around a lot and it’s not always clear where sign language- and family-friendly congregations are found.
- Connecting to one D/HH person is connecting to all (D&C 18).
- It’s also still clear that local leaders still struggle in understanding how to minister to D/HH Latter-day Saints, youth, and their families. We want to help leaders understand how to counsel together to create worship spaces that also enable and empower D/HH members and their families.
- We also want to normalize talking about ‘sign language’ (SL) resources and congregations and not just American Sign Language (ASL). Although many Church resources and congregations use ASL as their primary language, that has been changing for a long time now.
- There are also a lot of people who have information about this in their heads. We’d like to help get that information out where everyone can use it. We see a valuable resource like http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com as an inspiration: learning more about how D/HH members are being served by relying on member-based information.
- Not only does it take a lot of spare time and effort to gather information, but it's even harder to keep it updated. The church publishes little to no information about sign language or interpreter-supported congregations, missions that support sign language work, or resources for families with D/HH youth and children.
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🧭 Sacrament meeting and second-hour times will need to be updated for units in 2026; these change as we learn about them but rely on official church sites for exact times. deaflds.org does not have special access to local official start times.
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- We see you. We’re building this in real time and trying to keep it as updated as possible. Please help.
What are you doing with this information?
Giving it back to you. Helping leaders and D/HH members understand better how to counsel about family needs. No personal information (names, personal contact information, etc.) about living people will ever be shared on this site, only what is publicly available from other data sources.
What do other people want to know?
We have frequent conversations with members, families, friends, and leaders in the D/HH Latter-day Saint community, and here’s what they tell us they wish they had more information about: