The Package the Cathedral Came In
After a couple of weeks of almost cloudless, warm-for-January weather, I decided to play tourist and walk up the street from work with my camera, past the plaza and on up to St. Francis Cathedral. As we're winding down toward retirement, I decided that I had better get out and start taking pictures of places that I have been familiar with for years. Imagine my surprise when I turned the corner to see the entire Cathedral wrapped in plastic sheeting. I think that scaffolding is on the "inside" of the sheeting with men working on the Cathedral exterior out of the cold and wind. So there probably won't be an opportunity to replicate the fine winter photo of the Cathedral that I saw in the Santa Fe Poster Store. But there are lots of other places to take pictures and plenty of ideas in the poster shop.

An Apostle Speaks to Albuquerque
Apostle Russell M. Nelson spoke in a special Albuquerque East Stake conference here this morning. We only learned of the upcoming conference in mid-December and rumors were flying about the iminent release of our Stake President who has served for at least 10 years. But that was not to be (and was so-predicted by the older hands who said that it has been many years since an Apostle had visited this area and that the conference was fitted into the schedules of the Apostles).

In fact this is the first time since 1980 that an Apostle has visited and spoken in a meeting in Albuquerque. Of course the President of the Church attended the ground breaking and dedication of the Albuquerque temple in 2000. There was only one meeting for the Stake in our local meetinghouse. We got there a bit early but opted to view the coneference on a TV feed in the warm, soft-chaired Relief Society room instead of on hard metal chairs in a much colder cultural hall.

Elder Nelson is in his 85th year but looks much younger and spoke with a strong voice. He gave a fine talk on appreciating the hand of the Lord in dealing with his servants. I didn't know that he was a Physician - "I know the brethern in the quorum very well; I've operated on a couple of them. You could say that I know them inside and out." It was the kind of talk that gets one's compass bearings back in the right direction - to understand how Christ operates with those whom he has called and inspires his servants to call to the many positions at all levels in the Church.

By the way, Jonathan found some very interesting film footage of Church leaders taken in 1910-1920. Click on the reference to the right to view it.

Western Winter
It has been cold in the west as this picture of Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast can attest. Carrie emailed it to me just before she came to Utah for Christmas. Although the Northwest coast is now under the influence of the "pineapple express" from Hawaii and the snow is melting with resultant floods, Alaska remains super cold. Fairbanks has been 40 degrees below zero almost every day since Christmas; the minimum so far being -47 on Wednesday. For those who were on the cruise last summer, Skagway is relatively mild at 9 above, but the train stop on white pass is 20 below with a 50 below zero wind chill. As long as that pile of cold air remains over the western continent, it has the potential to swing out around a Pacific storm and back onto the Oregon Coast to return snow to that region.