A little bit of cold

It was 28° when Charlie and I left to walk this morning.  It is nice to see sub-freezing, even if just barely sub-freezing.  Doesn't look like the forecast is giving me much hope, either.  One low of 32° in the next couple of days, then all above freezing for the next week and a half.  With rain forecast for a week from today.  I know that a forecast a week out is pretty meaningless, but it is disappointing to see rain instead of snow in March.

That reminds me of when we moved to Colorado.  Delkys and I were on a house-hunting trip about this time of the month, and it got up to 90° one day.  We were coming from Southern California, where Spring was a distant memory, so I didn't think much about it.  My first day of work was the 20th or thereabouts.  As I sat in orientation I looked out the window at the big fluffy flakes of snow falling, and thought "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas any more."  Then I enjoyed snow for the novelty of it, now I'm addicted to cold and snow.  What a difference 20 years can make.

Temple Day

Yesterday's work in the temple reinforced something that I have observed before - time in the temple can have a great softening effect on me.  The temple provides a holy atmosphere, where I feel closer to the presence of God.  The ordinances emphasize the role of the Savior in our salvation, and bind us to him through holy covenants.  And the people in the temple, both workers and patrons, are among the best that you can hope to meet anywhere.  So I came home last night with a great feeling of peace and joy, and that has persisted this morning.  I am grateful for the temple, and for being able to work and attend there.

Agency

We widely recognize the truth sung in the hymn, "God will force no man to heaven."  But I have heard people wonder (and I have wondered myself) why the Lord intervened so mightily in the cases of Saul of Tarsus and Alma the Younger.  He may not have forced them to heaven, but he certainly slapped them back from their hell-bent behavior.  Why those two, and not so many others?

This morning something in Mosiah 27:13 struck me differently than it ever has before:

For the Lord hath said: This is my church, and I will establish it, and nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgressions of my people. (Italics mine)

It occurred to me in that context that Alma may have been so effective in his persecution of the church members that he may have been able to completely destroy the church.  Since God had promised that the destruction of the church could only come from within it was necessary to stop this external threat.  In this connection the end of Verse 16 makes even more sense:

...seek to destroy the church no more, ... and this even if thou wilt of thyself be cast off.

It sounds to me like the heavenly intervention was not primarily for Alma's benefit, but for the benefit of the Church.

In Saul's case there it seems pretty safe to conclude that the Lord's visit was inspired by a desire to save Saul, since the Lord immediately tells him what he should be doing.  Also, there is no evidence that Alma immediately recognized the Lord, but Saul did as soon as the Lord spoke to him.  But I also feel that Saul's persecutions may have been organized well enough that he could have destroyed the church from without.

You Can't Have Too Many Walks

This morning I was in kind of a rotten mood, so I decided we would walk farther than usual to see if that would help me shake it.  So we walked for about an hour and a half (somewhere over 5 miles).  It didn't help shake the mood, but I certainly did feel like I had walked some.

After a shower and breakfast I sat down to work on some code I am building to support my online class.  I left my shoes off because for some reason all of my shoes have started pinching my little toe.  Just a couple of minutes ago I decided I had better get going on construction (well, technically destruction), so I started to put my shoes on.  Charlie immediately jumped out of his bed and started getting excited for the upcoming walk.  A veterinarian told me that an unconstrained boxer would walk something like 80 miles per day, so I guess from Charlie's point of view it makes sense, but I told him he was dreaming.

Incidentally, working on the code got rid of the funk.  Who knew?

The Future

Last night I found the phone number for some friends we haven't talked to in a long time.  I talked for a while, then handed the phone to Delkys.  Then I was going to go sit down and read my scriptures, but I realized Delkys was talking on my scriptures.  The future is weird.

It snowed for about three minutes this morning.  Although it was falling pretty hard, that wasn't enough even to cover the ground.  Still, it was pretty, and certainly better than no snow at all.

Windy

Normally there is very little wind around my house, but it seems like the last few weeks there has been more than usual.  This morning when we started out on our walk it was about 34° with a good stiff breeze blowing.  I was starting to think about cutting the walk short - I realized I really don't enjoy walking with the wind when it is cold.  However, I persevered.

Charlie stopped to roll in something this morning in the same place he did a couple of days ago, but today I saw what he was rolling on.  It was a little garter snake.  It must have come out on one of our warm days and then frozen to death at night.  Curiously I felt no desire to roll on it.

I got the heating duct all connected up where the stove is going to go.  Today I resume removing the soffit.

Warning Messages

So, I bought these little candles in a jar from Walmart - they were 10¢ each on the clearance rack, and I like candles.  I don't know if you have ever paid attention to the warnings on these little beasties, but I include a shot of the bottom of the jar for your reading pleasure.

You can see the large warning at the top, but the fine print also contains other warnings.  If you look carefully about three lines under the barcode, you can see a warning about not allowing them to burn for more than 3 hours.  I'd seen that before and never thought about it much, but consider the second picture below, including the one I took the picture of above, plus the (cleaned up) jar from one I let burn for more than three hours.  I'm a believer!