“An Enemy Hath Done This”
By Lois Kullberg 2-5-15

The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a computer which had good words written in it, and good emails sent from it. They were likened unto the good wheat seeds that a writer wrote about. But while men slept, his enemy came from cyber space and sowed bad words into the writer’s computer.

There was a Trojan Horse virus and 36-thousand spam advertisements. They were like unto tares sown into a wheat field. The writer had seen many rolling hills covered with growing wheat as he drove his car along a route from The Dalles to Maupin. He wondered how in the world he could ever extract 36-thousand spam emails from such a large field of words??

He went to his Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) website. The writer thought he would have to go into the field of words and delete the tares, even though he could only pull out 15 at a time. He went to work slowly performing the task but the huge rolling hills containing the tares seemed endless. In an hour he had only removed one-thousand tares, because the subject lines had to be examined to make sure they were not wheat emails. And the Trojan Horse kept interrupting the work telling the writer to purchase a program to cleanup the virus. Then the owner of the ISP said, “Gather ye together first the tares and bind them into bundles, but gather the wheat into my Inbox.” So the ISP provider told the writer to gather the tares under the title of “show all” followed by “toggle all.” This put a checkmark before each tare. Then the ISP told the writer to remove the checkmark of each subject he wanted to keep, which was much fewer than even one-hundred. Then the ISP clicked on “delete” and all 35-thousand tares were removed except for the wheat words the writer wanted to keep. Then the ISP provider was able to locate the trojan horse virus and delete it. He even tuned up the computer to work better and faster and set the security program so it could protect the computer in the future.

Elder James E Talmage, in his book Jesus the Christ, explains the parable of the wheat and the tares:

“...the sower was Himself (Jesus) the Son of Man; and, as the condition of wheat and tares growing together was one that shall continue until ‘the end of the world,’ those who were ordained to carry on the ministry after Him are by direct implication also sowers. The seed as here represented” is not ...the gospel itself, but the children of men, the good seed typifying the honest in heart, righteous-minded children of the kingdom; while the tares are those souls who have given themselves up to evil and are counted as children of the wicked one. Inspired by zeal for the Master’s profit, the servants would have forcibly rooted up the tares, but were restrained, for their unwise but well-intended course would have endangered the wheat while yet tender, since in the early stages of growth it would have been difficult to distinguish the one from the other, and the intertwining of the roots would have caused much destruction of the precious grain.” Matthew 13:24-30

In the case of the computer, the good words are written and sent by the writer who was not expecting an enemy to sabotage his computer. The tares are those souls who caused the disruption of the writer’s work and represent evil people who extort money from their victims. As we carry on the ministry of our Savior, we can become sowers of good seeds, but we may expect evil persons, either intentionally or unintentionally, to disrupt our work because it is part of Satan’s plan. We know too that this interference will continue until ‘the end of the world.’

The story is true as a modern-day parable, but the method is as old as the world itself, and before.

Books I have read in 2014 - that I liked well enough to recommend:

The Best of Me - Nicholas Sparks
Good love story, surprise ending
Two Runs of Stone Vol. 4 “Wagons West”
Kindle ran out of time before I could finish but seems to leave enough untied strings for a 5th novel.
Windsong - story about Russian spies, good suspense, romance set in Oregon
Skipping Christmas -John Grissom
Story about a materialistic family with good ending
What Would a Holy Woman Do? - Wendy Watson Nelson
Motivational, goal setting and keeping
Walking on Water - Richard Paul Evans
Last of 5 book series - disappointing ending
First Phone Call From Heaven - Mitch Albom
Interesting premise - reasonable ending
Infinite Atonement - Tad R. Callister
Informative reference
Inevitable Apostacy - Tad R. Callister
Informative reference
Cornerstones of the Restoration - M. Garfield Cook
Complicated but understandable, the gospel explained in mathematical terms
The End from the Beginning - Avraham Gileadi
Based on passages from Isaiah and other Bible prophets
Symbols and Shadows - Jay A. Parry
Good reference on Bible Symbols
Living in the Eleventh Hour - Robert L. Millet
Prophecies about the “last days” before the Millenium
Living in the Millenium - Robert L.Millet
Continuation of book one
One Summer - David Baldacci
Nice love story and good character study
The Undaunted - Gerald N. Lund
I’ve only begun the first 100 pages but it keeps my interest

Our Gilbert Temple Experience

Three weeks ago Merle and I and my son Mark and his wife, Sherri, and 11-year old son,Nathan, visiting us from Vancouver, went through the new Gilbert Temple Open House. I had to reserve a wheel chair since I can’t do that much walking, so we got a V.I.P.tour. It was the last day of the Open House and they had 25,000 people go through in one day, or over 400,000 for the whole period.

It was very well organized and nothing was left out. The beautiful theme carried out in the temple decorations was the lotus blossom. The temple had a feature I had not expected, a 3rd floor waiting room for wedding guests. The sealing rooms themselves were much larger had than those in Portland. You could seat large families or half a ward in one such room or 30 chairs on one side times 4 sides.

Last Saturday we had an outdoor cultural event put on by the youth in that temple district but shown in all the valley stake centers and on TV. We also had rain–lots of rain–sheets of rain but the show went on. My son Mike had three daughters in it. All the youth were smiling and you could say, singing in the rain. His oldest daughter, Chelsea, who has received her mission call to Puerto Rico was part of a group of 45 young women who have their mission calls but haven’t left yet, who performed in a flag waving part of the celebration. [I stayed home and watched it on TV]

The next day all the stake centers in east and west valleys were turned into temples, as those baptized members eight years and older were admitted by ticket to watch the cornerstone ceremony and temple dedication. No other meetings were held in any of the church buildings all day. It was so peaceful and reverent as we listened to the music of the Tabernacle Choir before the meeting started. There was no whispering, no babies crying. It was very sacred. Sisters, if you ever get this experience please don’t wear 4 or 5 inch heels on the gym floors.

Merle and I have been reading Tad R. Callister’s books, The Inevitable Apostacy and The Infinite Atonement, so we were thrilled to hear Elder Callister as one of the dedicatory speakers . President Eyring gave the dedicatory prayer which was marvelous. I recalled other temple dedications I have been to. The first one was at Los Angeles in 1956. Merle and I have been to both Seattle and Portland in person, and to the Winter Quarters, Palmyra, Nauvoo II, and now Gilbert, AZ temples via television. Within the year the Phoenix Temple will be dedicated and we hope it will be when we are back in Arizona next time. How blessed we are!

For now, we look forward to coming back home to our friends and family in Washington, about the last part of April. Sunshine is nice, but it gets boring too.

February, A Time for Love

February is kind of a bittersweet month for me. Gleindale, the next town over, is holding, a chocolate festival this week and I hope I get to visit those vendors and choose a yummy treat! The reason February is bittersweet is because February 10th is the anniversary of my mother’s death and February 14th is the anniversary of my dad’s death. They died nine years apart, my mother being nine years younger than my dad .

Today I choose to remember one of each of their best attributes. My dad held several accounting or banking jobs during the Great Depression. I have a box of letters he saved from these employers stating that he was an honest man and a good employee. I have never known him to do a dishonest thing.

My mother’s best asset was her ability to make friends. Even during her nine years as a widow her friends always seemed to be around. One gave her a surprise 80th birthday party. Another did Twelve Days of Christmas with her. She shared her garden with them. Even when she lived at a senior care center she was encouraging the staff to listen to General Conference on TV, sharing her Ensign magazines with her neighbors, and inviting the visiting teachers to visit her.

Today’s theme on the Tabernacle Choir program on TV was also about love. Charity is the pure love of Christ. Love One Another was one of the hymns they sang. The Spoken Word ended with the thought: Love is Time, meaning that the time we give to others shows our love for them.

One other event of this day came up when we learned that a man who lives across the street from us, had his mother pass away about 3 a.m. Helping him through the early days of mourning is something we can do to show our love. Just letting people know you care helps them recover.

Give someone you love a hug today.

Just Think

This message was on a calendar I just bought, written by Roy Lessin of DaySpring products.

Just think,
you're here not by chance,but by God's choosing,
His hand formed you
and made you
the person you are.
He compares you to no one else --
you are one of a kind.
You lack nothing
that His grace can't give you.
He has allowed you to be here
at this time in history,
to fulfill His special purpose
for this generation.

Roy then quotes Ecclesiastes 3:1
To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under
heaven.

Thank you Roy!