[hymnsfm]

I doubt this comment will go over well, but I'll mention this small but important cultural fact anyway: Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints no longer refer to themselves as Mormons or Latter-Day Saints. Only Saints.

It may seem like minutia, but Saints (of whom I am one of them) worship Christ. Mormon, on the other hand, is one of many mortal prophets from ancient Americas and also the editor/compiler of the Book of Mormon.

If you know just that alone, it'll probably score you points with the Saints that you meet. :)

[gjm11]

The trouble is that "saints" or "Saints" already has a meaning, which is not "members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints".

(In fact, it has multiple long-standing meanings, of which that is not one.)

I'm not saying you aren't entitled to call yourself that: of course you are. But you shouldn't expect other people to go along with it, any more than if you decided to call yourselves "Good People" or "Scientists" or "Turks".

Of course this problem occurs over and over, because groups of people love to give themselves self-congratulatory names. Sometimes they succeed: consider "Democrat[ic]" (in US politics) and "Orthodox" (in Christianity and in Judaism), for instance. But it makes me sad every time.

[desert_boi]

Recently LDS was still the endonym. The exonym is almost universal for non-Mormons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exonym_and_endonym

[hymnsfm]

Here's the new style guide for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/style-guide

[gjm11]

The style guide says:

> When referring to Church members, the terms "members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," "Latter-day Saints,” "members of the Church of Jesus Christ" and "members of the restored Church of Jesus Christ" are preferred. We ask that the term "Mormons" and "LDS" not be used.

... so in fact "Latter-Day Saints" is apparently perfectly OK, and "Saints" simpliciter isn't even one of the options they mention.

(But of course this is a guide for those associated with the CoJCoLDS, not an attempt to legislate what language others should use. I don't think you're likely to have much luck getting anyone else to refer to the doctrine and practices of the CoJCoLDS as "the restored gospel of Jesus Christ", for instance.)