We sat around last night swapping our favorite stories from conference while eating my experimental dessert.  Conference was great, the dessert was not.

Elder Holland’s story of Easton, the deacon with muscular dystrophy bringing the sacrament to his father.  It made a huge impression on my Teacher.

The three-year old and the five-year old who bit each other.  A huge hit with many different family members.

Brother Lund’s story of Alan and his deacons.

Elder Soares burying his second child.

Brother Tai’s kids wondering if it was the same sky as the one they lived under.

Elder Kearon’s car was also a huge hit with our numerous Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang fans.

Brother Palmer’s fallen willow.

Elder Uchtdorf’s embarrassing branch.

Brother Theodoris-boom (not his actual name I’m sure, just what I heard) telling a pioneer story about his parents slowly winning back their family and friends.

By the way, did you catch that Brother McClune’s mother is still alive and has 200 descendants?  What a winner!

A certain man found a pearl of great price in a field and he went and sold all he had and bought the field.

The pearl was indeed a great treasure.

It turned out that the the field was also.  Rich, fertile soil that brought prosperity to his family for generations to come.

There may be pearls for you in this General Conference.  Beautiful treasures of layered wisdom that will remain with you forever.  Go and get rid of all your other time commitments  to find them.

But don’t neglect the field.  Even the talks that don’t stick with you for the rest of your life, which will be most of them in the ordinary course of things, are fertile soil for growth and fruits to come.

This month’s Going Against the Grain Award recognizes newly called Seventy Motoshige Karino and his Wife Merei.

“Motoshige Karino, 52, Togane, Japan; Representative Director, Modere Japan GK; currently serving as president of the Chiba Japan Stake; former bishop, mission presidency counselor and stake presidency counselor; wife: Mirei; seven children.”

Only such as those two ignore the scorn of the world, set aside fear, and realize the happiness and fullness available to those who want it.

You have heard of someone who is land-poor or house-poor.  They  have a great, big shiny asset, the kind that fulfills every dream of riches, but the owner neither feels rich nor always lives rich because the mortgage and maintenance eat up all their income.

Almost all the stately homes of England are open to the public or even owned by the public and its not because the British aristocracy is just that generous.  Maybe a bit, but mostly because the stately homes were stately millstones about their necks.

Blenheim Palace — the seat of what was one of Britain’s richest and most successful families — open to the public to help pay costs

Same with power.  All power costs something to maintain and someone can be objectively quite powerful but not feel it because almost all their power goes to maintaining their power.

In the New Testament  there is a centurion who gives us a very vivid image of power.   “I say go, and he goest.”  To the one going, its pretty obvious that the centurion is very powerful.  It may not feel the same way to the centurion.  He more or less *has* to tell the soldier where to go or he quickly loses the ability and its not exciting to give the soldier his orders.  It doesn’t feel like power.  It feels like responsibility.  Even delegation is hard and in some ways requires more effort than just doing it yourself or micromanaging.

So with power as with wealth, we might say that how it feels depends not on the total amount but how much you have left to use when all your obligations and debts and maintenance costs are accounted for.  Delta power or net power.

(Stick with us on this one until the end, the end is where they payout is).

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I accidentally came across this old draft post.  It was the title and nothing else.  The subject was interesting but I couldn’t tell whether I was for it or against it.

I guess it depends on what kinds of attacks we are talking about, and also and extremely importantly, whether the person doing the attacking is in fact more Christian.

Christ can attack me all he wants for being less Christian than He is (and He sometimes does, though not usually) and its all for the good.

People tied up in knots that I don’t have opinions about whether Christ broke his eggs at the big end or the little end, not so much.

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

Milton’s Satan got it wrong.  These were not his choices.

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It is to be understood, as per the most current edition of the Junior Ganymede Style Guide, that when undertaking the noble task of stylistic transformation—particularly in the visual arts—priority must be given to the Fribergian School, whose muscular brushwork and reverent realism do credit to both subject and sitter.

Where Arnold Friberg is momentarily unavailable, or detained in the act of rendering prophets in granite-like repose, one may with confidence defer to Fantasy Realism—provided, of course, that dragons are held in check and the lighting remains tasteful.

By contrast, the Studio Ghibli mode—with its wide-eyed countenances and dubious dietary assumptions—is reserved strictly for the amusement of unbaptized children, itinerant pagans, and those who consider tofu a protein.

Any infraction of these boundaries shall be met with the same severity reserved for bow ties before six o’clock and the serving of red wine with fish.

The earliest General Conference reference is 2007, in a talk by Elaine Dalton.  She is quoting an article Elder Holland wrote for the 2006 Ensign.

2007 Sis. Dalton was quoting Elder Holland
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2007/04/stay-on-the-path?lang=eng

2006 Elder Holland https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2006/10/what-i-wish-every-new-member-knew-and-every-longtime-member-remembered?lang=eng#p16

References to the covenant path seem to pick up around then.

Google Ngram

The earliest reference in BYU speeches is to Sister Wixom in 2013
The Covenant Path | Rosemary M. Wixom | BYU Speeches

A date-limited google search suggests a bunch of results prior to 2006, but at least the first page of results were actually from dates much later.

The phrase doesn’t appear in the Journal of Discourses that I can tell.

I have a weird  hobby.  You could call my hobby political theory or political philosophy if you wanted to make it sound classy.   I am interested in what power actually is in a simple, fundamental level.  No brilliant theories to announce yet, but what I have concluded is that Joseph Smith had some intense level of insight that the modern world, and even me and the church, haven’t caught up to yet.  The way love interacts with power.  Everyone else goes wrong by separating them.

The Savior spoke in parables, so that only those who were ready would understand.

The Savior had Isaiah write in complicated prophet-talk, so that only those who took the time would understand.

In our day, the Savior speaks in understatement. So that only those who take him very seriously, will understand Him.

One of the brethren at a recent stake conference made an interesting connection between Mary and Martha–and snowballs–and social media.  Of course we all remember Martha being busy about needful things, but neglecting the most important thing.    He then told a story about snowball fighting with his young son.  His son was a small and very energetic target.  Hard to hit.  So the man decided to pick up two snowballs.  One he lobbed in a high, slow arc.  His boy stood transfixed, eyes on the snowball, making sure he was edged out of the way–but meanwhile, the man threw a snowball directly at him.  Smack!  The boy was only 6, so the tactic worked over and over and over.  He did a funny little gesture on the stand, bobbing his head up and down as if repeatedly watching the arc of the snowball.  And when he had all our attention with the gesture, he suddenly added swiping his finger up and down along with the head, as if scrolling.  Social media does the same, he said.  It fixates our attention on what outside forces want us to be fixated on.

Instead, look to Christ.

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Tolkien had the One Ring destroyed on March 25th.

This is also the Feast of the Annunciation and the traditional date for the Crucifixion.

Thank you to our Catholic brothers.

https://www.ncregister.com/blog/pearce-tolkien-and-march-25?amp

I have two kids who have got into a contentious mode with each other.  They fight a lot, and when they do their personality falls away.  All that is left for the time being is the contention.  They cease to be fully-realized humans.

For them, contention is a chain.

And what I’m wondering is, is that just because they are kids, or is it just easier to see in them because they are kids.

This is the beginning to two great sections.
44:24- ch.48  is our temporal deliverance / salvation
49-53 is our spiritual salvation

(A1) Cyrus: Rebuild Zion (44:24-28)

(A2) Cyrus: Irresistible Conqueror (45:1-8)

(B1) Israel: Despite complaints, Lord asserts his right to rule, has Cyrus as builder (45:9-13)

(B2) Israel still at center of Lord’s plans (45:14-25)

(B1′) Israel: Despite complaints, Lord asserts his constant care, Cyrus as Savior (46)

(A2′) Babylon: Conquered  (47)

(A1′) Babylon: Captives Liberated  (48)

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I will frankly admit that I was in the stickiest of wickets.  I was dashed tight around the collar, if you take my meaning.  But it’s always darkest before Jeeves solves the problem, as the poet guy says.

Due to an unfortunate concatentation of circs, I found myself engaged to a female specimen and was much afeared that my, ah, existing fiancee would take objection were the tea to be spilled to her about the fiancee of the second part.  But just when the good ship Bertram was being tossed like nothing on this sea of troubles, out pops good ol’ Jeeves who explained to the young person that his Master was a dashing young man about town, gallant, handsome, and always inadvertently getting engaged to the opposite sex, merely as deep cover for being an incel.  One can scarcely credit it, but apparently the gal in question was led to believe that my chic W1 flat is located in my mother’s basement.  Dashed improbable, it seems to me, but Jeeves assures me that this particular fiction was the crowning fiction, the fiction that broke the engagement’s back and set me free.

These incel chappies seem to be rather disliked.