February 13th, 2025, 8:58am MST
On Thursday, February 13th, 15 more songs were added to the new Church of Jesus Christ hymn catalogue of Latter-day Saints. This third batch of published songs is the biggest release of the project so far. The church has now released 37 new songs that may be sung in church meetings, at home and other settings.
Some songs are new to the church’s general song collections approved for use in various church settings, but may already be familiar to Latter-day Saints.
“This Little Light of Light” was sung at church events like the 2023 Church Music Festival, and was featured in September 2023 by a friend at a friend’s event.
Church members in the 1990s may recognize the hymns that were regularly sung as part of a commemorative event for the 150th anniversary of the arrival of pioneers in Salt Lake Valley. “Faith in All Footprints” was sung by the Tabernacle Choir, including the 2014 Pioneer Day Concert. This hymn has already been featured in non-English hymns of churches published since 1997, including Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian and Romanian.
The other 22 songs released in 2024 are available in “Hymns – Hymns for the House and the Church,” the section at Churchofjesuschrist.org, the Gospel Library, and the Sacred Music app, respectively. Initially, new batches of songs are available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French.
“My Savior Loves Me” was first published in 2002 on Friend Magazine. My friend released a Singalong music video on his Facebook page in September 2022. The song was also sung.
Available in more languages
The first song, released in May 2024 as part of a new music project, is now available in additional languages. These first 13 hymns are now available in German, Korean and Tagalog. Later this year, it will also be available in Mandarin and Japanese.
This is especially exciting for members of the vast team of employees and volunteers who have worked hard over the past few years to make these songs available in more and more languages.
Jinhee Kim, a Korean translation team member for the Hymnbook project, said he understands how powerful it is to have this music in a personal language.
“Singing makes us feel that we can worship God more enjoyable and easier,” Kim said. “So what I hope other saints around the world will feel is to know that our Heavenly Father speaks to us through song.”
Kayla Decker is the translation manager for the new hymns. Her team’s responsibility is more than a simple translation of the lyrics of each song. They employ a process called transcription. The church’s transcription team has professional linguists, poets and musicians who work with them all.
“What we want from our team is to help us film source text, source poems and resonate culturally, to help us to resonate linguistically and for the community that receives our products. That’s it,” she said.
Elder Matthew L. Carpenter, 70 Directorate advisers who are the Hymnbook Project, said that the entire process plays a role in building faith in the Savior.
“The Lord is accelerating his work. Part of this project is to coordinate our hymns and bring in more worship songs when we prepare for His Second Coming. , helps accelerate that powerful work,” he said.
The church will continue to release several groups of songs multiple times each year until the project is completed in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French in 2026.
