Fulness of Times

Mid-June, severed storms ripped through France, devastating crops. The country declared a natural disaster. Many farmers in the disaster area lost 80 to 100% of their crops. https://agroinsurance.com/en/france-to-declare-natural-disaster-after-storms-rip-through-crops/ The third wettest year in history is stressing Michigan farmers. The wet fields have delayed planting a month or more. Early June should have more than 90 percent of the corn planted, but only 68% was planted. Of those, only a third have sprouted where the average is 93%. That means if a normal planting had been done, only about 22% of those seeds have sprouted (a third of 68% is 22.44). https://agroinsurance.com/en/usa-michigan-farmers-are-hit-from-all-directions/ Heavy and constant rains have affected the entire corn belt. In other parts of the world, drought, heat, storms, hail, insects, disease are all making their mark on crop production. I have not seen the agroinsurance.com website before, but some o...

A few months ago, in one of my graduate classes, someone asked how long the abstract of our individual projects should be. In the process of explanation, the professor shared with us a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of The Little Prince. It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove. (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint_Exup%C3%A9ry) That quote really struck me, mostly because it is applicable to how we work towards becoming perfect in this life. A couple of weeks ago in the Come Follow Me--For Individuals and Families (the Feb 18-24 week, Matthew 5; Luke 6 chapter), there was a quote from President Russell M. Nelson. “The term perfect was translated from the Greek teleios, which means ‘complete.’ … The infinitive form of the verb is teleiono, which means ‘to reach a distant end, to be fully developed, to consummate, or to finish.’ Please note that the word does not imply ‘free...

This is a sensitive topic because, unless you fully and completely support the LGBT+ community and their agenda you are labeled as biased, hateful, bigoted, and a number of other negative labels. Those who are least willing to allow for free speech and freedom of religion seem to be many of the LGBT+ supporters. You can express your opinion, but if it's contrary to theirs it's labeled as mentioned. And, they're entitled to their freedom of speech and expression, but too many are unwilling to allow others the same right and respect. God allows us to choose who we will serve. If we choose to serve God, he has given us instructions to become better. We typically call these instructions "commandments", but they are really designed to help us treat each other better, and to help us become better children of God, and followers of Christ. While many view the rules God gives as restrictive, the reality is they lead us from captivity into freedom. If someone chooses to...

--updated 7 October 2019-- Almost a month ago [from the original post date of May 24, 2019] , the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that the Salt Lake Temple will be closing December 29, 2019 for major structural and seismic renovation. The renovations will be completed sometime in 2024 when there will be a public open house, and then the temple will be rededicated. https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/plans-unveiled-salt-lake-temple-renovation 2024... If you've read my blog, you've seen that year come up before. I'm going to guess the Church will want to have the temple rededicated before the April General Conference, which would should be on April 6 and 7 of that year. Part of the renovations will be adding a seismic base isolation system, and strengthening the walls and towers. The maximum-strength earthquake expected in the Salt Lake City area is a 7.3. With the isolation system, that temple will only be feeling the equivalent of a 5....

In the last six months my wife and I have attended four funerals. Her grandfather, one of my uncles, an elderly neighbor, and one of my wife's uncles are those who have passed on. The differences and similarities have been intriguing, and humbling. My wife's father was an only child, and he passed away when my wife was a young child. My wife's grandmother passed away long before our marriage, and her mother passed on to the next life a few years ago. At her grandfather's funeral (he was in his mid-90's) the only family descendants were my wife and her siblings. There were some friends and a few extended family, but overall the funeral had few in attendance. The other notable difference was her grandfather was not a member of the Church, and so the funeral had a different feel to it. I had the impression the minister was a very good man, who was doing all he could, as well as he could, with the limited light and knowledge he had in his life. In stark contrast, th...

The Democrat controlled House of Representatives passed the Equality Act last week. It will be close in the Senate. I suspect it will likely not pass. If it does, hopefully President Trump will veto it. I've read a few articles about it. One of the more interesting ones is an opinion piece in USA Today, whose author is a gay conservative https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/05/20/lgbtq-equality-act-fails-fair-religious-freedom-provisions-accommodation-column/3731197002/ The article states: The bill purports to protect LGBT Americans like me by prohibiting discrimination “based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity in areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit and the jury system.” On the surface, this sounds unobjectionable — after all, no one deserves to face discrimination. Yet the bill defined “public accommodations” so loosely and called for regulations so sweeping that it would crush rel...

I read this article a few weeks ago, but I was too busy finishing my last semester of a masters program to comment on it. "Warren unveils $640 billion college debt forgiveness plan" https://www.ksl.com/article/46536747/warren-unveils-640-billion-college-debt-forgiveness-plan On the surface it sounds great. 42 million Americans would have college debt up to $50,000 cancelled for those whose annual household income is less than $100,000. But, there is no mention (either because of ignorance or intent) of how that debt forgiveness will come back to bite those individuals when tax filing is due. To the IRS, debt forgiveness is seen as income. That means it's taxable. There are some ways to minimize or possibly eliminate having to pay taxes on the debt forgiveness, but a tax advisor would need to guide the person as to what should be done. And, it would likely need to happen BEFORE the debt was forgiven. Most of those who would have their debts forgi...