Earlier this month, M Russell Ballard and Jeffrey R Holland became the first Apostles in the history of Apostles to post tweets on the inexplicably bird-themed micro-blogging site, Twitter. I’m not sure if even they, as prophets, seers and revelators, realize exactly what they’re getting themselves into, so I took it upon myself to write them a handy list that might help with their unusual transition to personalized social media.

The First Epistle of Mike to the Apostles of Twitter:

So you’ve come to be an Apostle in the LDS Church… Congratulations! You are now part of the second-highest governing body of the church of the Lord! From now on, not a single General Conference will go by without your inspired Apostolic input. (Speaking of which, you had better get to work on your next discourse, you’ve got less than 6 months until your next time to shine!)

But hold the phone! Twice a year is great for longer-form pre-pondered-upon material, but what about the 6 months between General Conferences? What do you do with those little daily tidbits of wisdom and revelation that you receive on a regular basis? Will they go unacknowledged until they are inevitably forgotten only to slip unnoticed into the past? Not anymore, thanks to Twitter! But there are a few things I think you should know as you dive headfirst into the 21st century:

1. Twitter, like the internet that spawned it, is the worst, most vile, most annoying and terrible place imaginable.

2. Also like the internet that spawned it, Twitter can be a pretty good place if you know your way around. It’s essentially a little, miniature, 140-character version of the world we live in as a whole. As long as you stand in holy places and be not moved, you shouldn’t have any problems. I don’t foresee any of you having any issues with standing in holy places, but it never hurts to follow this next tip…

3. To avoid stumbling across anything unsavory, just do what I always do: each time you’re about to log in to Twitter, say a prayer for guidance!

…Okay, so maybe I don’t really do that. Who am I trying to fool? You’re Apostles, you definitely saw right through that one. I have to say, I’m a little intimidated writing to you Bretheren like this, and I was trying to impress you. Did it work? No, of course it didn’t.

4. Find some good accounts and follow them. I can’t stress the importance of following good Twitter accounts. Follow accounts with a good mix of humor and spirituality, to make sure your Twitter experience is balanced. I’d offer a suggestion, but I’m sure you’ll find us them on your own… somehow.

5. Keep in mind that Twitter allows everybody to communicate with you (or more accurately, it allows them to communicate AT you). From the scum of the Earth to the slightly less-scum of the Earth, everybody is free to voice their stupid, ridiculous opinions directly in your digital direction. You’ll receive lots of love, but you’ll also get the occasional troll. Never feed the trolls.

6. #Hashtags: These turn a word or phrase into a link that helps you find other tweets on the same topic, and helps others find your tweet. They can be handy at times, but allow me to use a simple comparison: hashtags are to tweeting as meat is to the Word of Wisdom: Go ahead and use them, but use them sparingly. They may seem like a lot of fun at the time, but over-use can make your Twitter profile seem bloated and chubby, and eventually you’ll find that your Twitter-arteries are full of Twitter-cholesterol, and you’ll require a Twitter-bypass surgery to correct the problem. Nobody wants it to come to that.

Doing it right: “I saw a rainbow today. Such a beautiful reminder of the delicate care that our Heavenly Father took while creating this world for us. #GodLovesUs”

Doing it wrong: “I saw a #DoubleRainbowAlltheWay today. Such a #beautiful reminder of #the delicate care that our #HeavenlyFather took while #creating this #world for us. #Blessed #TenderMercies #Hashtag

7. Retweets: Sometimes you’ll come across something that someone else has written, and you’ll think “I couldn’t have said it better myself!” Well then, don’t worry about trying! All you have to do is hit that retweet button. This is why it’s important to follow the right accounts, so you can share the best content available to your followers.

8. Brevity is key. The given 140 characters can make it difficult to convey a profound idea effectively. Just like Mormon himself, you have to be good at abridging (as Mormons, it’s practically our heritage). Sometimes you need to get creative with punctuation and wording and spelling to make things fit. Verily, the worth of characters is great in the sight of a Twitter-user.

9. As a great philosopher once noted: “Woah! Letters like ‘u’ and ‘r’ can mean words like ‘you’ and ‘are’!!!” While this statement is very exciting and true, be sure to only use them as such if there is an absolute necessity. Overuse of these “letter-words” can make you seem like a particularly dopey teenage girl.

10. LOL: I’m sure that in your über-holy social circles, LOL probably means something along the lines of “Lord of Lords,” but in the modern online lexicon it is used to convey humor and amusement. It’s an acronym for “Laugh(ing) out Loud.” Essentially it’s the same as saying “haha” while simultaneously saving one precious character and being 10x more annoying about it. I should also point out that you don’t actually have to be laughing out loud to use LOL. 95% of the time, the person who writes LOL is actually just staring blank-faced at a glowing screen, displaying no sign of laughter or any emotion at all.

11. Twitter Stake: From what I understand, the #TwitterStake is a collection of LDS personal/anonymous profiles who tweet about the church. Along with the #Twitterstake hashtag, #LDS and #Mormon and every other Mormon-related hashtag is going to be a mix of earnest LDS members, LDS blogs/podcasts/magazines etc who want to attract the attention of LDS people, and sad lonely anti-Mormon trolls who spend their time spreading garbage to anyone who will give them attention.

12. Selfies: Taking a picture of yourself and sharing it with your followers, then waiting for the retweets and “favorites” to roll in. I was about to discourage you from ever posting any selfies, then I realized how much I would love to see an Ellen DeGeneres at the Oscars-style selfie featuring the twelve Apostles, and I changed my mind. Please post selfies. That would make my day, and it would make me feel better about all the selfies I post all the time.

In closing, I would like to offer you a hearty welcome on behalf of the #TwitterStake. We look forward to your tweets, as long as they get more interesting than the tweets that you’ve tweeted so far. I mean, come on… Seriously.