Today, after spending most of the day in Soda Springs helping out mother and dad, I was cold. I needed to warm up my bones! My first choice would be somewhere on the Caribbean, like my favorite brother and his wife who are currently sound asleep in their huge rental waterbed. A somewhat reasonable substitute is our hot tub in the back yard.

So, I turned it up to 105°, waited for it to get to temperature, and Nina and I spent some quality time getting watching the stars and getting toasty warm. That’s the fun part!

The other part is getting out in 25° temps in the snow, putting the top down and securing it, followed by a dash to the house. As I was gingerly walking on the snow drifted up alongside the hot tub, I thought of the lyrics to a song from my early teen years: Ooh-ee-ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang (repeated). Then I had to think about where the words came from.

The first thought was Sheb Wooley’s fun song: Purple People Eater (hence the title of this post). However, after getting dry and dressed and searching out the lyrics on the Internet, I found to my dismay that those words are not any part of Sheb Wooley’s song. Further searching found the lyrics were to David Seville’s Witch Doctor, of Alvin and the Chipmunks fame. A little snow = a quick trip down a faulty memory lane. Thank goodness for the Internet!

Sail safe and fun, Perry and Chris!

I signed up for Facebook almost two years ago just because I could. I sent a few friend requests to some people I knew and accepted a couple of others. I configured it so that my blog would also post to Facebook and that my Twitter stream would update my Facebook status. I’d check Facebook every once in a while, but there was very little going on. I’d tell people about Facebook, but that was about it, until a couple of weeks ago.

Now Facebook has become a happening place. My brother and one of my sisters has a Facebook page. Quite a few nephews and nieces are on there as well. A couple of my children and their spouses have Facebook pages. I’m enjoying the connection. In fact Facebook is getting enough of a play in our family that my mother now has a Facebook page. She doesn’t know what to do with it, yet, but that’s coming soon. Facebook has finally become fun.

This week was another smooth transition of the President of the United States. It seems that a transition of power in most countries doesn’t go well. They seem to be accompanied by by violence, assassinations, and military coups, with the citizens always being the ones getting the short shrift. In our case, the past president kind of slips out of town while the new president takes the oath of office and the whole affair being celebrated. I’m very happy to live where we have this blessing.

President Obama takes office with a country holding extraordinarily high expectations of him and what he can do. He’s in the middle of a very serious economic situation that will definitely continue to get worse. Anything that he or his administration can do will take six months to a year before it can have any effect. I’m hoping that Americans will have sufficient patience.

We’re also up to our necks in two wars … Iraq and Afghanistan. The war in Iraq has turned the corner, but President Obama has announced that we’ll pull out within 18 months or thereabouts. Unfortunately, I think that’s too quickly and will leave the job unfinished. That has two problems. First, it reaffirms to our enemies that they can just wait us out. All they need to do is just inflict enough pain so that we get tired and quit. Secondly, unfinished business always comes back, often in horrific ways.

Afghanistan requires direct and massive attention. The problem there is Pakistan which is providing safe haven for the Taleban. The government there is fragile and there is a very restive India on the other side. President Obama has appointed Richard Holbrooke to handle diplomatic relations in that area. He’s a fine statesman and he has my prayers. However, this whole area is a powder keg and has the possibility to blow up, probably on our own soil. The American people won’t have much patience with that, either.

And then there’s the middle east. Israel has just withdrawn from Gaza where they have been waging a war with the militant Palestinian Hamas regime. One big problem is that the Palestinians have been launching Ossam rockets into Israel … thousands of them. When Israel finally had enough of this, they crossed into Gaza to close the tunnels from Egypt being used to supply the arms to Hamas and to stop the rocket launches. However, because Israel hasn’t done a very good job of publicizing the incoming rockets, they get roundly chastised by the international community for invading Gaza. Some of the information about the rockets is making its way to YouTube … here’s an example … watching the kids run to bomb shelters (they’ve 15 seconds to get there) is heart-rending. The middle east will be a serious thorn in the new administration’s side and again, there are no short-term answers.

Although I didn’t vote for our new President, and I’m very concerned about the slippery socialism slope where we seem to be headed, I will pray for him, and support him in all ways possible. He’s also on a honeymoon here with me as he is with the rest of America. God bless him and his staff. He seems to have put some good people into place (as well as a few he better keep a close eye on!) to advise him and run the various departments.

The blog software we’re using (WordPress) has a new release of software available. I’ve installed it on my blogs as well as on my favorite brother’s blog (perry.rnsmith.com). The look is different, but I’m liking the new interface. It seems to be quite a bit faster, as well. Next week I’ll roll it out to the rest of the blogs that I support.

Each month I have a High Council speaking assignment in one of the ten wards and branches (congregations) in our Stake (diocese). The topic for the speaking assignment is set by the Stake Presidency. The topic assigned for this month was “provident living”. Several resources were suggested to be used to prepare for the talk, with www.providentliving.org, a website operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the Mormons), as a primary resource. While my talk was directed at a Mormon audience, provident living is certainly a timely and appropriate topic, regardless of one’s faith or religion. So, with that background, here’s what I talked about this afternoon.

Provident living is a very wide-ranging subject. A good definition of provident living will help set the background.

As we strive to care for ourselves and our families, one of our greatest challenges is to find peace in the midst of an uncertain future. We may have the basic necessities of life today, but what about tomorrow? The prophets have urged us to live providently — in other words, to live in a way that will provide the necessities of life not only today, but tomorrow as well.

But living providently … encompasses all areas of life. If we want to face the future with confidence and peace of mind, we must prepare ourselves in six areas:

• literacy and education,
• career development,
• financial and resource management,
• home production and storage,
• physical health,
• social-emotional and spiritual strength.

When we strive to prepare in these areas, we can enjoy peace of mind as we face the uncertainties of the future.

Sister Barbara W. Winder, general president of the Relief Society, says that “provident living includes the prudent, frugal use of one’s resources, making provision for the future as well as providing wisely for current needs.” (The Visiting Teacher: Provident Living: A Way of Life, Ensign, August 1987, p. 35)

We could spend a long time talking about the areas of provident living, but today I wanted to focus more specifically on the areas of financial and resource management.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been in the news fairly often recently. Some articles have talked about the Church’s welfare program, the Bishop’s Storehouses, and Welfare Square in Salt Lake City. Other pieces have dealt with home food storage and what members of the Church are doing to prepare for possible future uncertainties. For instance, an article in the Hampton Roads, Virginia Daily Press on January 3rd, 2009 talked about one young family in law school:

JAMES CITY – Brian Wall, a first-year student at the College of William and Mary Law School, isn’t being pinched as painfully as other Americans by the plummeting economy.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a basic tenet of his faith is economic preparedness. The Mormon church teaches its members to put away food and funds during times of plenty, so they’re in a position to help themselves and others during times of want.

“In the current economic climate, lessons found in the Book of Mormon can be helpful to those outside the church as basic principles of self-sufficiency,” said Wall, a member of the church’s Williamsburg Ward. “When things are good, we save up for when times are bad because that’s inevitably going to happen,” he said last week.

But financial preparedness is one element of a two-pronged preparedness doctrine, according to Heather Oman, a coordinator of emergency preparedness for the church’s Jamestown Ward. Oman specializes in teaching food storage, a principle that runs parallel to financial independence within the church. She starts by helping families amass enough food and supplies to last 72 hours, then helps them work up to storing a year’s worth of food.

But helping others is at the core of the program….

“My little sister was living in Houston during Hurricane Ike,” Wall said. “She and her friends had some food stocked up, and after the storm hit, they were able to share it with neighborhood kids who were basically starving because they didn’t have any food.”

We have been counseled for more than 70 years to become prepared, put our houses in order, and get out of debt. About ten years ago, President Gordon B. Hinckley talked to the men of the church about this specific subject:

I wish to speak to you about temporal matters.

Now, brethren, I want to make it very clear that I am not prophesying, that I am not predicting years of famine in the future. But I am suggesting that the time has come to get our houses in order. So many of our people are living on the very edge of their incomes. In fact, some are living on borrowings…. Everyone knows that every dollar borrowed carries with it the penalty of paying interest. When money cannot be repaid, then bankruptcy follows.

President Hinckley then went on to quote an earlier President of the Church:

President J. Reuben Clark Jr., in the April 1938 general conference, said from this pulpit: “Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation; it never visits nor travels; it takes no pleasure; it is never laid off work nor discharged from employment; it never works on reduced hours; it never has short crops nor droughts; it never pays taxes; it buys no food; it wears no clothes; it is unhoused and without home and so has no repairs, no replacements, no shingling, plumbing, painting, or whitewashing; it has neither wife, children, father, mother, nor kinfolk to watch over and care for; it has no expense of living; it has neither weddings nor births nor deaths; it has no love, no sympathy; it is as hard and soulless as a granite cliff. Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.” (in Conference Report, Apr., 1938, p. 103.)

He concluded his address as follows:

We are carrying a message of self-reliance throughout the Church. Self-reliance cannot obtain when there is serious debt hanging over a household. One has neither independence nor freedom from bondage when he is obligated to others.

I urge you, brethren, to look to the condition of your finances. I urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt to the extent possible. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from bondage.

This is a part of the temporal gospel in which we believe. May the Lord bless you, my beloved brethren, to set your houses in order. If you have paid your debts, if you have a reserve, even though it be small, then should storms howl about your head, you will have shelter for your wives and children and peace in your hearts. That’s all I have to say about it, but I wish to say it with all the emphasis of which I am capable. (President Gordon B. Hinckley, “To the Boys and to the Men,” Priesthood Session, General Conference, October 1998)

Elder James E. Faust, another General Authority of the Church provided a five-step prescription that would enable us to better control our destinies in an address to the Church in 1986.

First prescription: Practice thrift and frugality. There is a wise old saying: “Eat it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” Thrift is a practice of not wasting anything. Some people are able to get by because of the absence of expense. They have their shoes resoled, they patch, they mend, they sew, and they save money. They avoid installment buying, and make purchases only after saving enough to pay cash, thus avoiding interest charges. Frugality means to practice careful economy. (See Webster’s New World Dictionary, 2d. college edition.)

Second prescription: Seek to be independent. The Lord said that it is important for the Church to “stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world.” (D&C 78:14.) Members of the Church are also counseled to be independent. Independence means many things. It means being free of drugs that addict, habits that bind, and diseases that curse. It also means being free of personal debt and of the interest and carrying charges required by debt the world over.

Third prescription: Be industrious. To be industrious involves energetically managing our circumstances to our advantage. It also means to be enterprising and to take advantage of opportunities. Industry requires resourcefulness. A good idea can be worth years of struggle.
To be industrious involves work. It involves creativity. It also involves rest. It includes both aspects of Sabbath day observance. On the one hand, we are to labor six days. On the other hand, we are to rest one day. This rest will leave us with more energy and resources to make the rest of the week more productive and fruitful.

Fourth prescription: Become self-reliant. I have always admired those who have the ability and skills to make things with their hands. When those skills were passed out in the previous world, I must have been out to lunch. The ability to make repairs around the home, to improvise, to take care of our own machinery, to keep our automobiles running, is not only an economic advantage, but it also provides much emotional resilience.

Fifth prescription: Strive to have a year’s supply of food and clothing. The counsel to have a year’s supply of basic food, clothing, and commodities was given [more than seventy] years ago and has been repeated many times since. Every father and mother are the family’s storekeepers. They should store whatever their own family would like to have in the case of an emergency. (Elder James E. Faust, “The Responsibility for Welfare Rests with Me and My Family,” General Conference, April 1986)

Many have followed this prescription. A few weeks ago I was talking with a good friend who told me the following:

I have a year’s supply of food, clothing, and other necessities and am virtually debt free. Despite several economic downturns and setbacks, I’ve never had to depend on our food storage, probably because I had it. I’ve not had to worry about the next meal and consequently could confidently go about my business.

Preparation drives out fear and replaces it with confidence.

Today’s circumstances are difficult for many people. Some of my very good friends here in Pocatello lost their jobs last week. On Wednesday they had good paying jobs. By Thursday afternoon they were unemployed and are now evaluating what to do with their lives. Some are worriedly scrambling while others who had prepared are able to confidently face the future. The rest of us can take steps now to prepare:

1. Begin now to live on less than you earn. Put some of the excess away for the future and use the rest to pay down current debt starting with the most problematic debt first:
   • Credit Cards, starting with the highest interest cards
   • Student loans
   • Installment loans, such as for automobiles and “toys”
   • Long-term debt such as a mortgage
2. Postpone expenditures until you can pay cash
3. Invest in your future
   • Savings
   • Food and necessities storage
   • Education
   • Skills

For those already on this pathway, you are commended and encouraged to continue as you have started. For the rest, let us begin now to live providently … to live in a way that will provide the necessities of life not only today, but tomorrow as well.

We’re in North Salt Lake, Utah tonight and will go back home around mid-day tomorrow. The reason for coming down (besides spending time with family) was to go to the Draper, UT Temple open house. The open house process was very well set up. When the tickets were obtained online, the information described which chapel in the area of the temple you should go to. After arriving at the assigned chapel, we watched a short ten-minute video about Draper and temples. Then we boarded a very comfortable bus to ride to the Temple. We went into the Temple through the baptistry, made our way through the baptistry, up to the chapel and dressing rooms, then up to the session rooms, the Celestial Room, and into one of the Sealing Rooms. From there we went outside and over to an adjacent chapel for refreshments and to catch a bus back to where we started.

The entire process took about an hour and a half. The Draper Temple is beautiful (as expected). I would describe it as being elegantly beautiful. The murals in the session rooms are exquisite. The feeling in the Temple was very peaceful and those around us also seemed to be very impressed with not only the building, but the spirit that was there as well.

We’ll go back home around mid-day tomorrow. I’m going to have breakfast with some people in Salt Lake who I’ve met over the past year or so. Then it’s back home. I have to be at the Alameda Stake Center in Pocatello at 7:50 p.m. to get set up for the Regional Single Adult Dance for January. My Stake has the responsibility for the dance this month. Then I won’t have the assignment again until December. My Arizona daughter wondered if I was needed there to verify that couples weren’t dancing too close. The rules at the youth dances when she was growing up were that if you could not put a hymnal or a Book of Mormon between the dancing partners, they were dancing too close. Fortunately for me, no such rule exists for folks over 30 years old. My job is to dish out refreshments, pay the disk jockey, and lock up the building after the event is over, which will be about 11:30 p.m. That makes for a short night before my meetings start a 7 a.m. Sunday morning!

Click on the door picture to see what that’s all about.

We’ve been going through a major January thaw with temperatures well above freezing for the past week. The result has been thick fog in the early morning hours and scenes like the one on the left. The forecast says this trend will continue for the next several days. The snow is melting fast and not much replacement in sight.

Nina and I drove (actually, Nina drove and I snoozed) to Idaho Falls in the fog yesterday to do a couple of sessions at the Idaho Falls Temple. We left here about 7:15 a.m. and saw little along the way! We did the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. sessions. The Temple was very busy and the 11 a.m. session completely full. It was very nice to be with so many people in the Temple.

I’ve been busy making the first models of the raised garden/flower beds. The first one I built is the corner model to be put in a corner of a balcony or deck. This one is 30″ tall, specifically for people who want to sit down while gardening or want a smaller bed. The normal height would be about 37 inches tall.

I’ve also got the standard model almost finished. I should have it done tomorrow morning before we leave to go south for a couple of days. It can also be built in two heights. This model is two feet wide and four feet long. Lots of vegetables and/or flowers can be grown in that garden bed. The final model will be a mini model of the standard size … 15″ wide and three feet long.

When the models are finished, I’m going to put up a new website to feature them as I intend to sell them this spring. That website will have pictures and video.

This morning was also our monthly IT Professional Breakfast. We get together once a month for breakfast and conversation at the local Perkins restaurant. They have good breakfasts there and we always have great discussions. A lot of today’s discussion had to do with fraud and transparency … or rather the amount of fraud and lack of transparency in many businesses today.

Tomorrow we’re going to Heather’s. She has tickets for the Draper Temple Open House tomorrow afternoon and we’re looking forward to seeing this beautiful new Temple. We’ll spend the night and come home on Saturday. Life is good and is very busy!

I’ve got to start scheduling time to write in this blog! For some reason this new year is very busy and I haven’t yet got the schedules sorted out. I’ve already missed one meeting I wanted to attend but forgot to put it on my calendar. There are excuses, though, as I’m definitely getting older.

My sister, who turned 60 a few days ago, cheerfully reminded me on several occasions that I was older than her and always would be. She doesn’t celebrate birthdays anymore, though. Only anniversaries of good birthdays. That sounds like a reasonable tactic to me as well.

We’ve made several trips to Soda Springs recently, including a late night trip last Friday night as dad went to the emergency room. His health continues to deteriorate and Friday was not one of his better days in recent memory. He’s having trouble standing up, particularly getting out of his lift chair in the family room. He has a significant weakness in his legs that comes and goes. Friday it came in style. Mother talked with us and with her Home Teachers (who had come over to help dad get up and into the bedroom). We had him transported to the emergency room in Pocatello. Nina and I drove over and met her there. The tests all came up normal; nothing that would indicate a reason to admit him to the hospital. So, he went back home.

Nina and I spent the night there in Soda Springs and came home Saturday afternoon. Saturday he had a very good day and experienced no problems getting up and down or around. He was just slow, but that’s the normal circumstance these days.

Today was not quite so good. He made his way through the shower, to breakfast, and finally to his chair in the family room. He was then in the chair for the rest of the day with no desire to get up or do anything else.

Nina and I will go over to Soda Springs tomorrow to understand some options related to the nursing home, should that become necessary, and arranging for some help from Home Health Care. We’ll be taking my car over and back because Nina’s Toyota has gotten sick.

When we were ready to leave Soda Springs on Saturday to come home, her car wouldn’t start. A couple of hours earlier it was running just fine. Using a battery boost, the car started and drove home without incident. This morning it wouldn’t start again. Nina used the battery boost again and went to her Church meeting at the Stake Center. An hour later it wouldn’t start. After she was finished at the prison, she used the battery boost to start the car again, but coming home it acted even more sick. So, tomorrow morning it goes into the shop for repair. I don’t know what the problem is, but I’m sure the garage can figure it out. They’ve taken good care of the vehicle for the past several years.

Today I had the usual set of Church meetings for the 2nd Sunday of the month:

• High Council meeting from 7 a.m. until 8:30 a.m.
• Meeting block at the Cedar Hills Ward from 9:00 a.m. until noon
• Priesthood Executive Meeting at the Cedar Hills Ward from 12:45 p.m. until 1:15 p.m.
• Ward Council Meeting at the Cedar Hills Ward from 1:15 p.m. until 2 p.m.
• Area Single Adult Fireside at the Alameda Stake Center from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m.

My High Council assignments are to the Cedar Hills Ward and for the Single Adults. I really enjoy both of these assignments. Tonight’s fireside was particularly good and very pertinent for the Single Adults. Judge Randy Smith from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals spoke about doing something with your life. You may not have the cards dealt you wanted, but we are all accountable for our specific situation. So, where is your faith? What is the purpose you are working towards? What are you doing to improve your neighborhood, community, nation, and world? Very apropos for those in attendance (including me) and there was a very good group there.

Good night all!