Church Talk

Today I learned that it takes me about 14 minutes to deliver a 2300 word talk.

The Holy Temple Part Two

Today I finished reading The Holy Temple. Again, most of the stuff I knew pretty well. I did learn that at some point members of the church were instructed to keep and write the story of their lives, to gather important documents and whatnot about themselves, and that this is also a good way to start thinking about family history work.

I also got my temple recommend renewed today.

The Holy Temple

Today I read the first half of The Holy Temple by Boyd K. Packer. I already knew a lot of the stuff in there but I thought there was some interesting discussion about continuing revelation particularly in regard to temple work.

Cows, Pumpkins, Subway, and General Conference

Today I learned that cows really like pumpkins, that if I feed Henry subway he will vomit all over the kitchen floor when I get home (hopefully he's not really sick!) and that it's really hard to watch or listen to general conference with two small children running or crawling around the house and vying for attention.

Relief Society General Broadcast

Today I went to a Relief Society activity. They did a few crafts, which I did not participate in since I don't need more random crap in my house. Instead I re-learned how to do hairpin lace to make a scarf for Christmas for a friend. After the crafts, they had a dinner. I learned that chicken salad made with cream cheese is pretty darn good. The talks were good. In brief, we should keep our covenants, go to the temple, and pray.

Elder Hinckley

Today I was reading more of the biography of Gordon B. Hinckley. He served over the South American mission for only two years when he was assigned instead to the European mission. He served on an absurd number of committees and boards of directors, and went through two reorganization s of the first presidency in relatively short succession. He visited the holy land with president Harold b. lee, who was the first president of the church to go there during this dispensation. There were also a few good quotes about families and raising children. One of them compared children to a tree. It is easy to correct the growth of a tree when it is young and supple, but if neglected in its youth, it will take more serious measures at will undoubtedly leave scars. (A friend for every child, improvement era).

Teaching

Today I learned that I can teach a decent relief society lesson on short notice. I was asked a week ago to teach and then forgot all about it until we pulled into the church. Thankfully I had time during the first two meetings to prepare a little bit, and our RS ladies are good at contributing to the discussion.

Colonel Cornelius Gilliam

Colonel Gilliam served in both the Black Hawk and Seminole Indian wars on the East Coast, was a captain of State Militia of Missouri when they tried to expel the Mormons from the state, and then went on to fight the Cayuse war (and maybe more, I don't know yet) in Oregon territory. He was super anti-any-religion-except-his-own and was prepared to blame the Catholics for the Indian war, and even to go up against the Hudson's Bay Company, even though only one of their main leaders was Catholic.

President Hinckley

Today I learned that President Hinckley was assigned, I'm 1970 something, to oversee the work in South America, and was thus released from his duties to oversee the work in Asia. He will have the whole world covered before too long at this rate.

Baseball, Scripture Mastery, and Rowing

Today I learned that Jackie Robinson was the first black man to play major league baseball. I vaguely knew that he was a baseball player but I didn't realize that he was the first. His number, 42, was also the only number retired from all of baseball. Once a year, everyone wears 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson. His wife, Rachel, runs a foundation that provides scholarships. I learned all this from the movie 42.

I also learned that the LDS church changed their scripture mastery selections. For the most part, I think this is a good thing, but it's frustrating since I was almost done with all of the new testament scripture masteries and now will have a bunch of new ones to learn. I suppose I should be glad that one of the ones they replaced was the one I didn't have memorized yet. I hope they update the scripture mastery app soon since that's what I've been using to learn them. Maybe I'll switch to the articles of faith in the meantime.

I also finished reading The Boys in the Boat. Despite their stroke seat being ill to the point of having lost almost 20 pounds and nearly passing out while rowing, and despite the fact that the US team had the best qualifying time (breaking an Olympic record and a course record), they were given the worst lane assignment, which put them in a position that was estimated to be the equivalent of starting about two boat lengths behind, and despite the fact that the race was started so abruptly that the US and British teams did not even hear the start so they were behind by about a stroke and a half at the start of the race, they pulled off an astounding come from behind victory. It was so close that none of the spectators knew who had won and most of them were still shouting for the Germans (who came in third, Italy came in second) until the announcer broadcasted the results. The Germans won every other rowing event in that Olympics. I'd kind of like to watch the movie that Leni Riefenstahl (sp?) made about the Olympics that year. I think it was called Olympia.

Scriptures, carrots, and Lydia

Today I learned two scriptures from Revelation, which takes me to the end of the New Testament 25 scriptures for scripture mastery. Unfortunately, I didn't reinforce the work I did the last two weeks so I have eight or nine to relearn before I move on to Old Testament.

I also learned that finely grating carrots takes a lot longer than coarsely grating carrots. I made myself a (quite delicious) carrot cake for my birthday, which is tomorrow.

This is older news too, but on Saturday Adam and I took the color code test for Lydia. We learned that she's a red-yellow, with 21 red, 13 yellow, 7 blue, and 4 white. Adam and I are both whites. I'm a white-red with some blue but only one yellow and he's a white... kinda evenish everything else. So, I get along with Lydia pretty well but that 13 yellow is a little hard for me to deal with, that's why it's so great when Adam comes home and they let their yellows out together.

chess and scriptures

Today I learned how to get a checkmate if I have a queen and a king versus a king and if I have a rook and a king versus a king. Since I tend to lose endgames very very badly, this will be helpful in my chess endeavors. I need to learn more checkmates but it's a good start.

Also, since it's Sunday, I've been working on memorizing scriptures. The LDS church has what we call scripture mastery. Church leaders picked out 25 scriptures each from the old testament, new testament, book of mormon, and doctrine and covenants. LDS youth who go through seminary in high school learn all 100 scripture masteries. Since I never went through seminary, I never learned them, and have decided to learn a few each week during church, since, honestly, I barely ever pay attention to the lessons in Sunday school or relief society anyway. I only have a few more in the new testament section, though I need to work on solidifying some of the ones I've already learned. After that, I'm moving on to the old testament. My goal is to learn all 100 by the end of the year.