Wishful Thinking

Today while I was out cleaning up the yard and trying to remove weeds, I was feeling a little nostalgic for my home state of Washington.  It was feeling like a forest in my yard.  We have had a lot of rain lately and it has made the weeds grow to be as big as bushes and it has made grass grow everywhere it shouldn't.  The ground is still wet from having rained yesterday.  The ground never stays wet that long.  All the rain has also made all the plants and bushes that I usually have to coax and beg to grow finally decide to grow out of control.  On my side yard these trumpet vines have tried to take over the entire walkway....which was fine by me because I got to use my favorite power tool for trimming bushes.  It was super fun.   Although Nate scolded me for wearing my new tennis shoes while working in the yard.  

I've got stuff growing where it wasn't even planted.  ok, I know the below left pic doesn't look like much, but it was just so cool how wet the ground was and how many weeds and grass popped up literally overnight.  It could be a forest in a matter of days at this rate.  As we drive around and what used to look like dirt everywhere is now covered in green....well, it's mostly tumbleweeds, but they are green and there is some grass mixed with the weeds....and did I mention that they were green?!  Look at those vines that just decided that they liked that side of the house so they made their way over there and started climbing the wall!  Admiring my plants that are finally growing and the grass that is trying to take over the world (well, this state) got me thinking about something an area authority said while he was here for our stake conference.  

He said that he could see all the people moving into our state and how large the church was going to grow here.  We all just kinda looked around at each other and thought, "here?  are you sure?"  We have had the worst couple of years with wind and drought.  It has made me hate living here and I'm pro here.....even with the arm pit of America status we have.  I mean, come on.  We are the poster child state for democrats being in control nonstop for the last -nearly- seventy years and we come in just shy of last place for everything.  We are the biggest small town ever.  We are the land of mañana. No one here wants to work, no one knows how to reply to an email, no one knows what dressing up looks like....I could go on.  On the plus side, everyone knows how to drink and drive and drop out of high school in this state.  It's awesome. So, when you add the craptastic weather on top of all those other things......people don't want to move here and when they do, they leave as soon as they can.  

I figured that if we were going to pull off getting lots of people moving here, we were going to need a miracle.  We were going to need this state to change it's weather patterns (and it's taxing structure for businesses)   We were going to have to become a tropical climate.  I figured that if Heavenly Father wanted to, he could.  All this rain is getting me excited thinking that we might get to change climates here.  That would be so awesome.  A girl can dream, can't she?  

As I was pondering such a miracle while out pulling up weeds and hacking down bushes, I thought of what something like that would do to the environmental pontificators.  Oh that would be awesome.  Apparently.  Did you know?  The climate "change" (cause they had to stop using warming) folks are now saying "it's not warming, it's dying."  Yeah, that whole warming thing wasn't really working out....and apparently not the change thing either, so now we can be even more vague and just say it's dying.....that'll get em!  

I am seriously waiting for a moment like Elijah had with the wicked priests of Baal.  Oh man.  That is one of the best bible stories ever.  As the world moves closer and closer to the second coming and we start seeing some of the natural disasters that were prophesied to accompany it, it will be fun to see the "globe is dying" people try to explain the events and call for more sacrifices to their earth god.  Hopefully we will get to have a showdown like Elijah had.  We can both make burnt offerings to our God and see who wins.  Dude, Elijah had a wicked awesome sense of humor and God totally backed him up.  What I want to know is if he was able to keep a straight face while he kept goading the priests into dumping more and more water on the sacrifices before they got lit on fire.   

Speaking of awesome things he did, let's not forget that Elijah conferred the keys of sealing to Joseph Smith.  Russell M Nelson talked about him in a talk from 1994

“I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

“And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn ⁸ to their fathers.

“If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted.” ⁹

Joseph compared Moroni’s teaching to a similar prophecy by Malachi—that Elijah would come again. ¹⁰ We know that Elijah did return—at least twice—after Malachi’s promise. At Christ’s transfiguration, Elijah appeared on the mount to Peter, James, and John. ¹¹ At the Kirtland Temple, April 3, 1836, Elijah appeared to the Prophet and Oliver Cowdery and said, “The keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands.”¹²

He went on to talk about what that means to us.  Check it out, it's called "The Spirit of Elijah."

Whether or not my state can transform itself into a desirable climate is not up to me.  If it does happen, I'm sure the wicked priests will try to blame it on not appeasing their earth god.  This may or may not lead to a big showdown over who's God has power.  But!  We do know that we have work to do to prepare for the second coming.  I also know that my personal second coming will most likely happen before the one meant for the entire earth and I had better be ready to report on my mission here.....and I better not have "utterly wasted" it....no matter what my physical surroundings are.