SOME SUGGESTIONS:

Happy Leap Day! An added day to our calendar that only comes around every four years.

It is almost as if we have an extra day today. So, how will you spend it?

Here is my to-do list today:

• Try to not take offense from others.
• Spend some time outside. 
• Tell your wife you love her
• Do a random act of kindness.
• Don't speak ill of someone.
• Forgive and /or tell someone you are so sorry. 
• Eat something healthy. 

Sidenote:

Last week I was able to spend some much needed alone time up at Bear Lake. Getting out in nature in the early morning hours is one way I can deal with problems and chaos that occurs in my day to day life. Below are a few photos I took one morning. Each photo holds an important personal message to me. Appreciate my friend who pointed out the significance of a lamppost from CS Lewis', Narnia.

"The lamp-post symbolized direction and finding their way home. Winter in Narnia symbolizes death, since it is always winter when the White Witch reigns. Then when the snow begins melting, it is clear that the spell is fading and Aslan has returned."

SADNESS

Photo taken yesterday, February 12, 2024.

Yesterday, I took my daughter to the Provo Temple. It was the very last Monday that the Provo Temple will ever be open. It will be demolished in the coming days. The last day that the Provo Temple officially closes is next Saturday on the 24th of February. 

The Provo Temple has alot significance for me. I am so sad that Church is going to demolish it. It was in this Temple that I memorized much of the Endowment during the long 2 month when I was in the Missionary Training Center. I went every week. 

After the completion of the Provo Temple in 1972, Hugh Nibley also made weekly temple attendance a priority, not out of a sense of duty, but out of a sincere desire to learn. I think it was Nibley who said that the Provo Temple was his favorite Temple. I read somewhere the following: 

In ancient times, God called a prophet named Moses to lead his people through the wilderness. They carried their temple with them and called it the tabernacle. Inside it, God spoke to Moses face to face. When Moses went in to speak to the Lord, "the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses" "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night."

Exodus 13:21. 

The Provo Temple was designed to refer to this symbolism, to represent both the cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night.

The top two floors have a corridor circling around the entire building, whose inspiration came from a park surrounded by an elliptical roadway in Copenhagen, Denmark. This design provides an easier flow of patrons and makes it almost impossible to get lost.

As I was leaving the Temple yesterday, the sun was coming up over the mountains. I appreciated the symbolism of the Angel Moroni on top of the Temple facing directly southeast at the rising sun. 

After the demolition of the Provo Temple, a new one will built. Not on the same foundation as the current Temple but on a whole new foundation that will be farther to the West closer to the street. The property will be flattened out, so the patrons will no longer have to ascend up a hill to get the Temple. It will be an easy, flat path. 

This a rendering of the new Provo Temple. We have lost so much symbolism, including the symbolic Angel Moroni pointing eastward to the rising sun.