Speaking and teaching

As my concerns about COVID have risen (again), it would be easy to decide to safely avoid church. Instead I keep getting pulled in more, teaching a lesson in Young Women's and giving a talk last Sunday. Those are things I enjoy, and where I hope I can contribute.

Dealing with that has mostly combined the precautions I mentioned last week, like wearing the KN95 masks and not getting too close to anyone. (I do take of the mask while speaking and teaching, but attempting to maintain a six foot distance.) 

Prayer doesn't hurt.

This post, however, will be more about my philosophy of teaching and speaking once I am there.

My primary goal is for people to feel the spirit. If that is present, people will be able to hear what they need, whether I say it or not. Regardless, I do not want to say anything that is not helpful.

One thing that I have accepted is that I can't really write talks. There was a time where I would really struggle; no matter how many thoughts I had, when I tried to put those thoughts onto paper they just wouldn't flow. Eventually, somewhat influenced by Elder Matthew Cowley, I stopped fighting it. 

(I also can't really write out stand up comedy routines, which is somewhat similar, but not exactly.)

I am not necessarily recommending my method to anyone else; it can be pretty stressful. However, I do recommend making the presence of the spirit your primary goal, and maybe some of the steps I do take can be helpful for that.

The first thing that I do is study the material. 

The lesson was Come Follow Me for July 10th: "Why Is It Important to Follow God's Living Prophets?"

I read over what was in the manual, and the related Old Testament selection, 2 Kings 2-7. I read different parts at different times, and more than once. 

Similarly, my talk was on "The Trek Continues!", a talk from Elder M. Russell Ballard at the October 2017 General Conference.

I had about two weeks to prepare for the talk. I did not read his talk every single day of preparation, but I read it at least five times, possibly more. I also remembered some other talks from Elder Ballard that seemed relevant, so I looked those up and read them as well.

(It probably was helpful that I finished teaching the lesson before I was asked to speak.)

Along with the studying, there was also extensive journal writing. For the lesson that primarily occurred the night before the lesson, but for the talk there was a solid week of journal writing on different areas of the talk. This included an initial session where I broke down what things I wanted to write about.

A big part of the journal writing is formulating the hints of thoughts I have into something more cohesive. A bigger part is getting out everything I want to say.

I have lots of thoughts that I think are interesting and relevant. Maybe they are for me, and maybe they would be for some people, but the people who are there at the time should be the priority during that delivery. I might be able to guess, but even if it is a congregation made of up mostly people that I know well (which is not the case), I don't know who will be there that day.

The journal writing is in case I need to express something that does not need to be expressed to those listening.

It can also be helpful for not speaking for 45 minutes when you are supposed to speak for 12.

The journal session the night before the talk brought in the other sessions and how they built on each other to sort out the order they should go in. 

Once speaking, obviously some of the things that I wrote about came up. Many didn't, and that was fine. Memorization is not the only way that memory can be a benefit.

There are some things where I cannot rely on memory.

Some time ago, when I was asked to give a talk in the singles' ward, I was advised to use three scriptures and mention the Savior at least once. That is a rough guideline, but I held to it. Having markers in the scriptures I might need and pulling them up at the time worked.

With the subject being a conference talk, I felt I needed to pull from that. Having the whole talk up there didn't seem helpful either. 

One of the journal sessions was going through all three Ballard talks and pulling quotes, then pulling a Brigham Young quote that I kept thinking of, and also four different scriptures. That came to two pages.

I ended up reading quotes from two of the Ballard talks and one scripture, and I think that was okay. I had more than I needed, but I had what I needed.

I am at peace with what I said. Sure, there are nerves, but a talk can be overwritten. I will never forget when one man's talk - years ago - was him reading a story he had written about a girl who heard Samuel the Lamanite preach, and then was widowed and had a blind son at the time the Savior visited the Americas, and her bonding with a man whose (dead) wife had persecuted the prophets. I will never forget how inappropriate and not-spiritual and how egotistical it was, but also proud he was of his story, that was not an appropriate church talk.

I have a more inspiring story. 

Once when I was helping throw a bridal shower, I interviewed the groom for a game. He told me what he first noticed about his fiancee, but also that it happened during a talk by David A. Bednar, who was visiting our stake conference. He started thinking he should really get married. He looked around, saw her, and asked her out.

Some time later I was visiting teaching at the family history library, and Elder Bednar there that night. He was speaking to the youth about college, as he was still over Ricks College/BYU-Idaho at the time. I ran into him and mentioned that, which I thought he would find interesting. 

He did, but he also did not remember saying anything about marriage. I hadn't remembered that either, but we gave the credit to the spirit. 

Later, I remembered Elder Bednar pointing out that our stake president had spoken in two sessions, and his talks were slightly different in each. He knew that was due to different people needing to hear different things, which Elder Bednar used to stress the importance of listening to local leaders. 

Well, our bishop at the time was urging the men of the singles ward to pursue marriage pretty consistently. I am not sure that it helped that much, honestly, but that time, maybe it did.

Beyond masking up...

Last week I reiterated the need for continued masking, but I focused on "why" instead of "how", which I think can use some attention. I have changed how I am doing things.

The first change is that I have given up cloth masks in favor of KN95 masks. 

I am very lucky in working from home, so when I need to wear a mask that is usually for shopping or leisure activities, and then church. Previously I had felt comfortable with a cloth mask in those situations.

Based on the apparently higher transmissability of some of the more recent variants, I feel the need for the greater security of the KN95 masks. I still own the cloth masks; but right now they feel insufficient.

Part of that is there was a time when it could be reasonable to hope that you would not actually encounter anyone infected. That seems more and more unlikely, especially with so many people having given up.

That is not going to me.

It has also affected the type of leisure I am willing to seek. A few months ago we spent a few days in Los Angeles, and flew to get there. I wore cloth masks on the trip, and they were mainly outside activities, but for the plane and airport, I wore KN95. We also attended a concert as part of that, masked, but did spend time around people unmasked outdoors.

Even with a KN95 mask, I would not get on a plane right now, and I would not attend an indoor concert. In fact, we canceled a trip. Part of that was that air travel is starting to have an awful lot of delays and cancellations, but those are related to the increase infection rate, and the amounts of those infections that are happening on planes where many choose not to mask. We did not want to risk getting stranded, but we also did not want to risk getting sick.

I am reusing KN95 masks, within reason. Fortunately, the signs of needing replacement are fairly noticeable. If it is becoming harder to breathe, that indicates more air particles are being trapped, meaning that the electrostatic charge is weakening. That means it is time to dispose of it.

In addition, if the seal is no longer tight -- which can mean the straps are getting looser or that the nose bridge is broken or there is a tear -- then it is time to replace it. 

If it is dirty, that is also a reason.

I am still doing outdoor activities, though being more mindful of crowd size.

I fully admit that it sucks, but there are good reasons for taking care of each others' health, and our own, as gone over last week.

And our problems have extended beyond COVID.

If you had gotten in the habit of extra hand sanitizing for COVID, even when being told it is only transmitted via respiration, that hand sanitizing may pay off now, because Monkeypox can survive on surfaces.

A new thing that I will not do? Trying on clothes in stores, or wearing new clothes without washing them.

It is important to pay attention here, because the media on the resurgence has focused on sexual transmission between gay men. Well, that sort of body contact can transmit it, but it is not the only way, and it spreads much like the chicken pox that was so contagious among children before the vaccine. Expect rapid spreading among children once school starts.

Also -- and this should be fought rather than merely expected -- expect conservatives who are trying to frame any admission that gay people exist as "grooming" to try and inflame homophobia and fears of child molestation. Speak out against that.

Also, now polio is coming back, and given the local measles outbreak of 2019, whooping cough cases, the environmental havoc of global warming and the pandemic(s?)... well, there are just a lot of reasons to exercise caution.

Are you caught up on shots?

Do you practice good hygiene?

Do you do medically foolish things to prove your superiority to everyone else and your loyalty to absolutely terrible people? (Yes, I phrased that in a way that may irritate some, but they irritated me first.)

And are you masking appropriately?

If you haven't started you still can.

 

https://www.verywellhealth.com/how-many-times-rewear-mask-5217510

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg6296

Mask up!

That exclamation point should be read as anger.

I know I haven't spent as much time blogging against capitalism as I would have liked, partly because I still have a lot of work to do on improving my own knowledge. 

Regardless, it should be pretty clear that there are decisions that get made that have more basis in a desire for profit than science. Switching isolation time from 14 days to 5 days was done by the CDC but it happened at the request of the airlines:

https://www.npr.org/2021/12/29/1068731487/delta-ceo-asks-cdc-to-cut-quarantine

I know that is relatively old news, but it's part of a pattern, and it's relevant.

I will acknowledge that most people who contract COVID are going to show symptoms within five days of exposure. There are outliers, and that is one concern, but the bigger concern is that if we keep cutting corners because we are prioritizing corporate profits over public health, that is not a good way of decision-making, and it is not good for public health.

It does not end up being great for capitalism either. We keep hearing more about canceled flights due to crew shortages.  How much of that is due to illness? How much of that has gotten worse because of shorter isolation times and the removal of mask mandates?

That's not just airlines. My job is currently understaffed, and unexpected closures and reduces hours are happening at many places due to worker shortages.

The WHO's last update for U.S. Coronavirus deaths was 1,012,816; 6,358,899. 

Some people will tell you that those were only old, retired people, so it doesn't affect the labor force.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/02/jobs-where-workers-have-the-highest-risk-of-dying-from-covid-study.html

Line cooks had a 60% increase in mortality during the pandemic. That restaurant on reduced hours? It may not be just the front of the house.

The next four job types most affected were warehouse line workers, agricultural workers, bakers, and construction laborers. 

That could affect some things.

Also, we know some people lost child care. They may be out of the work force because of that.

And, one in five COVID cases ends up with long terms symptoms:

https://health.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/covid-19-information/covid-19-long-haulers

That's not just the adults, many of whom are ending up with symptoms similar to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which can have dramatic effects on their ability to work. Common complications in children include diabetes and hepatitis.

I don't think the most important thing about these illnesses is potential future productivity, but there should be a realization that the denial will eventually implode. We shouldn't want that. Even if many captains of industry are not willing to risk their profits, collectively we should be resisting their will.

Instead, what we seem to get is a fatalism that "we are all going to get COVID so we might as well accept it."

Screw that!

I haven't gotten it. My sisters haven't gotten. Yes we have gotten our vaccines, but we are also wearing masks. We do avoid some things. We gave up on a vacation that we had been planning for a long time because the improvements we were sure would come didn't, but we are still uninfected.

It is wonderful that children can get the vaccines now. People who still refuse to act at all responsibly means that variants keep happening, some vaccine resistant. 

It's not enough.

We can improve ventilation, but that requires collective effort. 

We can all wear masks.

Put on your mask!

Garden fails and travails

When thinking about food storage, it is natural to think about gardening. Yes, the two have been long associated with emergency preparedness (along with 72-hour kits), but also you naturally think of how growing some things could augment your available food stores.

I keep trying.

My issues are not all related to growing food; I have also been trying to move away from the lawn to something more natural and environmentally friendly.

I had successfully killed the lawn two years ago, and was going to start putting in some trees and shrubbery. The "call before you dig" marks made that look like a bad idea, so I was not sure what to do, but I had gotten in a nice crop of clover, which I had started to really like.

The heat dome last year seared the clover to death, and then the grass grew back. I had a lawn again, though it looked worse than before.

I was looking for solutions and decided I was going to try sheet mulching. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get it all done at once, but I got some cardboard and some mulch and started.

It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Okay, after some re-evaluating, I was just going to have to hire someone to till it. That is disruptive to the soil, but that will get the front done all at once. I calculated when I wanted to plant, and counted back three weeks to when it should be tilled.

In a twist opposite of the heat dome, we have had cool rains. They did attempt to till, but the soil was still too wet, and then it rained some more.

I am not sure when it will be completed, but I know my growing schedule is off.

I need to regroup again, and I do not have a new plan. I may just end up planting creeping thyme, and not get any crops this year. I have thought about starting plants indoors, but nothing seems quite right yet.

I have at times done container gardening, and I have had a community garden bed, and I have grown potatoes in a patch in the back yard. Everything I have tried has had some failures, though I have learned from them.

I guess I am continuing to learn.

I do not deny that it is discouraging, and I certainly wish I had started learning earlier or faster.

The main factor that remains is faith. My attempts to grow food (and also to be in harmony with nature) have not gone well. I would not say that I have had success.

I do believe that efforts can be rewarded in different ways. I might add more canned fruit to the food storage this year, but maybe I be growing food next year.

Maybe as global climate change worsens, being able to adapt on the fly will be more important.

As important it is to not give up, it may be equally important to be able to accept failure, at least temporarily.

I wish you well in your endeavors.

Getting in food storage

Apologies for the long delay. I truly cannot do it all, and that means I cannot always blog.

I have been feeling more concern about food storage for some time. I have written about food storage many times before, but it has been a while.

We had a fair amount stored, but the years of unemployment put a dent into it. As we saw pandemic-related supply chain issues, we became more aware of the need to at least stock up on something when it was available. 

You may be aware that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is affecting gas prices. What may not yet be obvious is that with Ukraine as a major world wheat supplier, continued conflict is likely to result in a wheat shortage. Here is a recent thread:

https://twitter.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/1543326461737803776

Add to this that labor shortages are getting worse and fuel prices affect transport... this is a good time to lay in supplies, even if it is not as good a time as last year or before.

It can be intimidating. I am going to go over my latest plans, and how some of the fine-tuning has happened, hoping that helps generate ideas for others. It does not have to be any one way. Remember, in the 70s it was common to have large containers of wheat where you needed a special tool to get the lid off, and then you would still have to mill the wheat yourself. That is only one option, and probably not the best for most people.

I came up with this:

30 boxes of pasta
60 cans
8 cooking oils
6 salts
4 baking powders
4 baking sodas
bin of bulk (flour, sugar, rice)
2 cases of ramen
4 tubs peanut butter
some stuffing and gravy and things

My first note here is that this starting plan is essentially dinner for three months. This is not a plan where there are three square meals a day for an entire year; I would be hopelessly flummoxed trying to do that.

Thinking about only three months and wanting some variety, I thought about one month's worth of pasta, one month's worth of soup, and one month's worth of things requiring more cooking but not necessarily complicated, so like rice or pancakes or casseroles. I envisioned getting those big Costco bags of sugar, flour, and rice, one each.

The "cans" initially included some Chef Boyardee products, but after getting some I realized they didn't taste that good, and hey, we already have pasta. However, we periodically like to eat Spaghettios (Franco-American) with Ritz crackers (because of the movie Overboard), so those are still part of it. Otherwise it is mainly Progresso soups and similar.

Notice that one box of pasta is sufficient for a meal, but one can of soup is not. Honestly, the can totals probably need to be upped, to where it is somewhere between 90 and 120 cans, and those are for main courses. A later stage is going to be adding canned fruits and vegetables for variety.

The can number also does not include cans of cream of chicken or mushroom soup, which will be part of some rice preparation. It is important to think about seasonings. You can eat plain rice, but if sometimes you can make it with broth, or cream of chicken, or saffron, or tomato sauce and Mexican spices, that is going to help.

There was another stop and wait moment. I can make lots of things with shelf stable flour, sugar, and baking soda/powder, but there is usually something perishable needed, like eggs or sour cream or butter. This made me think that perhaps I should be thinking about mixes that are add water only. 

I am often irritated when I look for recipes and keep getting results that use Bisquick instead of telling me how much flour and soda to mix in. Suddenly I started to see the value of those types of mixes. 

That also reminded me that you can make cakes with just cake mixes and soda... no eggs:

https://www.allrecipes.com/article/soda-cake-mix/

I also remembered that you can substitute apple sauce for cooking oil, but the cooking oil has a good shelf life and is already part of the plan.

There will continue to be adjustments.

One thing that has also come up is rotation, which is partly a matter of remembering to do it, but that can be aided by how you store your components. One cupboard in our kitchen has generally held one box of baking soda and one can of baking powder. The full supply can fit, and be in a row where replacements go in the back. Not everything will be that easy, but when something is easy, it's nice.

The most important point, though, has been that starting with some ideas has led to others. We learn by doing. Part of that comes from discovering flaws, but you can find the solutions with the flaws.

If you are at a point where you eat out (or order in) a lot, food storage may seem impossible. You could get one of those kits, available from Costco or Amazon or lots of other places, just to have. Occasionally eating from the kit instead of ordering, maybe you will find that you hate it, but then you will know. Obviously, it makes more sense to start with the kit that has 120 or 150 meals than the one with 2160 servings. 

Maybe instead you will realize that some of the things that you are ordering are things that you could reasonably cook yourself, and you buy some of those foods too. That can also be fine.

It takes time to work out what works best for you and your needs. Needing that time -- along with the current state of the world -- is exactly why you should be thinking now.