By that logic, we should have expected the Second Coming at both the beginning and the end of the Medieval Warm Period (about 1000-1500 AD) and of the Little Ice Age of 1600-1800. California had a series of wet years culminating in 1998, then a drought until last year, and now we're getting snowed and rained like it's going out of style. (Great snowboarding at Summit on New Year's, though.) Weather changes. Always has, always will. All I can say is; you'd better find a good rock to hide under just in case you are wrong. When the Prophet tells me to get to the temple and keep my head down, I'll perk up my ears. Until then, the only reaction the "we're in the last days" message gets from me is "well, yeah -- that's in the name of the Church. But 'last days' is a relative thing, and there's no more indication I'll see the Second Coming within my ordinary threescore and ten mortal years than there was that Joseph Smith's generation would." For Church leaders to keep pounding the "everything's going to hell in a handbasket" theme even when trends turn positive -- as they occasionally do; there are peaks even along the course of a long-term decline -- weakens their credibility, as it does when they make factually incorrect statements like Elder Oaks' about the frequency of earthquakes. You listen to the prophet but not to the apostles? 3 Ne. 29: 2 And ye may know that the words of the Lord, which have been spoken by the holy prophets, shall all be fulfilled; and ye need not say that the Lord delays his coming unto the children of Israel. Who are the children of Isreal? 12 tribes? Who peoples the earth?
