NeedleinA

Wonderful for you both!! Do you live close to a temple?

"Did Joseph Smith reinvent the temple by putting all the fragments -- Jewish, Orthodox, Masonic, Gnostic, Hindu, Egyptian, and so forth -- together again? No, that is not how it is done. Very few of the fragments were available in his day, and the job of putting them together was begun, as we have seen, only in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Even when they are available, those poor fragments do not come together of themselves to make a whole; to this day the scholars who collect them do not know what to make of them. The temple is not to be derived from them, but the other way around. . . . That anything of such fulness, consistency, ingenuity, and perfection could have been brought forth at a single time and place -- overnight, as it were -- is quite adequate proof of a special dispensation." (Ensign, February 2007).

I wondered about this before...BUT... I'm just a little too weirded out by a guy. I know my personal hurdle to get over. I have had 3 types of woman massages:
1. Light and fluffy (pretty much a waste of time) poor girl probably weighed 90lbs, no force/pressure
2. Mid-range pressure - good(ish)
3. Hard (elbows in my back, crying for my momma) A Scandinavian lady with about 100lbs on me. I was a rag doll and "Helga" (I don't know her name, Helga seems to fit) was in charge. 

This OP's question gives each of us a little reason to squirm.  We know ourselves, with all our shortcomings and personal failings, and we rely upon Christ's grace to save us.  I've never known a serious latter-day saint who walks around saying, "When I become a god, I'm going to do things like this and this."  We don't really think about what exaltation will be like, except perhaps having our family relations forever.
We don't tend to dwell upon what our relationship with future spirit children and what our knowledge, power, and character will be like in a million years or a billion years into eternal life.  We anticipate that we will be like our Heavenly Parents, but it seems unimaginable that our mortal spirit children will look up to us worshipfully.  Nevertheless, that's how it may be.
I imagine that my earthly relationship with my own father could be a likeness.  I looked up to my father when I was a child and eventually he treated me like I was his peer when I became an adult.  Nevertheless, my admiration and devotion to him never diminished, even when I was grown up.  I suppose, a zillion years from now, our Father will regard us as "adult" children who can do everything he can do now, but I expect that our devotion and worship of him will be even greater and more perfect than now.  
It's just too overwhelmingly glorious to contemplate for long.  The celestial heavens are likely filled with exalted beings that are bound in eternal families, working together to exalt us lower beings.  It's a more glorious heaven than we can imagine.  It makes heaven all the more personal and connected.  Meanwhile, we tend to focus on the day-to-day challenges of living life in faith, seeking grace, and trying to love one another.  

I wrote a book several years ago titled, "Building the Ark: Preparing Today to Live in the United Order."  I was interested in a quote I read by Pres. Lorenzo Snow, who said that living in that inspired economic system would be as necessary to our survival one day as the Ark was for Noah and his family.  As I did research on that book, I found a lot of information about food storage and preparedness.  It made me think of food storage differently.
Consider that Noah and his family spent slightly over a year on the ark--they had to have a year's supply of food, not only for themselves, but the animals, too.  Regardless of however literal of figurative the Ark story is, there is a clear message that obedience to principles of temporal salvation helped Noah survive and deliver his family into a new dispensation.
In our family, the first time we had our "year's supply" of food, we built it up gradually using the "pantry" concept.  Like our great-grandparents had done, we set up a pantry and, when we went to the store, we stocked it up over time.  After a while, we ate what we stored and restocked the pantry when we shopped.  Adding just a little extra each time, we had a nice reserve built up with very little effort.  We ordered some wheat from the storehouse, learned how to grind it and use it.  Additionally, we learned how to garden and cultivate fruit trees.  
In short, we learned to live like regular people did almost a century ago.  If there was a crisis of some kind, like a hurricane, loss of a job, or a civil emergency, we were prepared.  It gave us a lot of peace.  Some time later, we relocated to a different state for a job change.  We knew we'd be living in an apartment and we wouldn't have room for everything.  We gave away most of what we had and downsized to a smaller pantry.  A few years later, we bought a new home and now we're building up the pantry again.  We are on track to have most of of a year's worth of staple items by year's end.  
This mode of having a year's supply doesn't make you feel like you're preparing for the end of the world.  It's just a provident way of living so you can be secure when life's challenges pop up from time to time.  If you're prepared, you don't fear (as much).  Instead of preparing for the end of the world, I think the Lord wants us to live in a way that will help us have as much security and peace as possible.  

"Did Joseph Smith reinvent the temple by putting all the fragments -- Jewish, Orthodox, Masonic, Gnostic, Hindu, Egyptian, and so forth -- together again? No, that is not how it is done. Very few of the fragments were available in his day, and the job of putting them together was begun, as we have seen, only in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Even when they are available, those poor fragments do not come together of themselves to make a whole; to this day the scholars who collect them do not know what to make of them. The temple is not to be derived from them, but the other way around. . . . That anything of such fulness, consistency, ingenuity, and perfection could have been brought forth at a single time and place -- overnight, as it were -- is quite adequate proof of a special dispensation." (Ensign, February 2007).

Woeber's hot and spicy mustard. We use this on sandwiches, hot dogs or just dip pretzels in it. Soooo good!

I believe the symbols in the temple predate masonry. There is good evidence, for many things, that this is the case too.

IMO, eternal truths can be found scattered (and distorted or corrupted) through myth, religion, ritual, and ceremony the world over.  Nearly every time I learn about a new one of these, I see bits and think, "ah, that came from [some eternal truth here]."

Great job on the drinking and keep on trucking along fighting the nicotine. Our current bishop shares with us: "Always better to smell like smoke at church than to not be at church at all." - I agree. 

Havarti cheese. 
A good Havarti is so soft that it can be warmed up and spread like butter. 

Noodle/chicken pot pie stuff/dumplings
2 cups flour 2 eggs enough cream to make a nice ddough. Drop in simmering broth.

IMO, this is only valid when dealing with finite quantities.  The attributes of God are infinite, but increase-able. If I love someone and you love someone does that mean I sudden love them less and that if you would just stop loving them, I could love them more?  Better example: If I know something, and share it with you, do I know less?  Do you have less than all the knowledge (about that thing) which I have?  Both of us can have all of that particular knowledge at once; neither is diminished.  All does not have to be exclusive, indeed, by its nature, it's inclusive; only in finite things are we forced to use it in an exclusionary fashion.
Are you so sure?  Been to the edges have you?  What's on the other side of those edges?
To me, it's either this universe, in which God and his truth rules; or it's a universe where God is not.  In other words, I cannot imagine this universe without God, nor a (significantly) different universe with God.  This is why my fiction is set in a different universe - if it weren't, the gospel of Jesus Christ would have to be central to everything, and I could not use things which I know are totally fictional and incompatible with that reality (call it a mental problem for Zil).  To me, fiction is first entertainment, and second a means of exploring human behavior.
When I want to increase my understanding of God, I turn to the scriptures, not to fiction.
I just pasted the URL, as if it were text.  The system converted it into an embedded video automatically.  Now I need to go listen to Ella, again!

I see lds.org still has a billion active and relevant links on the matter.
Food Storage
Emergency Preparadness
https://providentliving.lds.org
And I see this:  Are We Prepared? - First Presidency Message - September 2014
But yeah, the most recent general conference talk on the matter I can find is from 2007.
I'm one of the more preparadness-minded folks in my ward, and they've asked me to speak in church a couple of times, but the ward is mainly in the trees, and the emphasis was Colorado forest fires.  To be sure, they asked me to give a lesson on "let's think about what will happen if we've got a forest fire", and within a year, the entire ward got evacuated due to fire and lots of members lost homes.  But yeah, there wasn't much talk on food storage, other than "how you gonna move all that wheat if the evacuation order comes?"

I would definitely agree with you that’s there’s been a great de-emphasis on food storage.  However, the greater principle of food storage is preparedness and stewardship over our Earthly things.  That principle has NOT been abandoned at all, is anything it’s talked about more- in the form of money management, avoiding debt, living within our means, having a savings fund, etc.   Why the switch in focus?  It's what's needed.

This has crossed my mind too and would be an unfortunate reason.
Did they happen to suggest/say a reason that the GAs gave for not doing this any longer?
Not hearing about it, honestly is helping me personally become more complacent. I have a whole heap of food storage that needs to be used/ditched and restocked again. Not hearing about food storage gets my brain wondering what is/isn't going on?
 

Piggybacking on what Vort shared... From lds.org: link: DOCTRINES OF THE GOSPEL TEACHER MANUAL : CHAPTER 3: GOD THE ETERNAL FATHER "1. Does God progress in attributes and characteristics? (No. He is perfect in these things. See Matthew 5:48, Alma 7:20) 2. Does God progress in knowledge, light, and truth? (No. He has a fulness of knowledge, light, and truth. See D&C 66:12, 2 Nephi 2:24)
3. Does God progress in power or in his ability to accomplish his work? (No. He has all power, though he will not violate eternal law nor the agency of man. See Alma 26:35, Luke 1:37, 1 Nephi 7:12, Mosiah 4:9)
Yet God does progress."
Speaking on the progression of Heavenly Father, Joseph Fielding Smith (link: Doctrines of Salvation) gave his opinion: 
"PROGRESSION BY INCREASING HIS CREATIONS. The Book of Moses informs us that the great work of the Father is in creating worlds and peopling them, and "there is no end to my works, neither to my words," he says, "For behold, this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man,"7.22 and in this is his progression."

Sister Vort made something absolutely marvelous last week. I think she's doing it again. It was called something like "English potato something-or-other". If you pretend you have French fries made in bacon grease, that's pretty much it.
Cube (or dice, or whatever the term is) the potatoes into, I don't know, maybe 1/2" chunks or so and soak them in water. Then I think she boiled them for a bit. Then you just take your leftover bacon grease, melted in a pan in the oven, and put the potato chunks in it. The grease did not cover the potato chunks, if I remember correctly, so she coated them. Then she added a little salt, possibly some other spice, and baked them for, I think, 45 minutes at 425 or 450 degrees. (That would be Fahrenheit. If you bake them at 450 Celsius, good luck with that.) She may or may not have covered it in aluminum foil, and that may or may not have made any difference in the taste.
I realize have done a very poor job of describing this. But it was simply delicious. My wife is a fabulous cook, so this was a bit more mundane-sounding than most of her creations, But it was just great. Probably not particularly healthy, but when we're talking bacon, the flavor is its own eternal reward.

We had a preparedness fair five or six years ago and one of the points the speakers made was that the General Authorities were not speaking about temporal preparedness any more under the direct influence of the Lord. That they would no longer preach His word on the matter, as they had been doing for more than a century and a half, but that "the Lord will begin to preach His own sermons."
That, sir, is scary. Scary to the extreme.
Lehi

I agree with your observation and with your wondering question. I also wonder if our failure as a people to get our houses in order might have something to do with it.

Great job on the drinking and keep on trucking along fighting the nicotine. Our current bishop shares with us: "Always better to smell like smoke at church than to not be at church at all." - I agree. 

Great job on the drinking and keep on trucking along fighting the nicotine. Our current bishop shares with us: "Always better to smell like smoke at church than to not be at church at all." - I agree. 

Watched a great little TED talk regarding the power of sleep. Here is my caveman version of it:
1. Every part of your body produces waste as it works, including your brain.
2. Every part of your body has a system for flushing/disposing of that waste during the day.
3. Unlike the rest of your body, your brain does not flush waste during activity (awake).
4. The build up of this waste in your brain is what slows you down, drains your thoughts, ideas, reflexes, energy, memory, etc.
5. Only time your brain will allow itself to flush this waste is during your sleep. 
6. Less sleep, less flushing. Less flushing, less functioning at full capacity. 
7. Ugh, Ugh... caveman says "get sleep, we all need sleep!"
Video - if anyone cares

I'm just a couple weeks past the three years sober mark, but coming up on four years since my baptism.  I still struggle with nicotine cravings often as well, and that one has gone from fully back at a pack a day to none for a couple of weeks in a fairly random cycle.

Makes sense. I answer calls in CA and up in Dallas since I have family in both. I have received calls from my brother from different phones in CA depending on where he is working. Other than those two, I don't bother picking up. I guess if it was an urgent item and I did know them, they would leave a voicemail.