The Mountain of Aslan's Country

I wrote previously about how the move to Texas affected my mental health. Thankfully things have improved for me emotionally since I wrote that post, but I still take Anna’s words to heart, “Stumbling toward the light.” One place I have found that light and peace: the temple. 

Living in Utah for twelve years, I got accustomed to living near temples. Even when COVID hit and I couldn’t attend the temple, it was still possible to visit the grounds. Now living in Texas, I have to be very intentional to make time to drive into Dallas for the temple. 

Sometime after a particular temple trip last year, I was driving to work, listening to my audiobooks. I came across a portion of The Silver Chair that struck me:

“Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters.”

It’s interesting that CS Lewis would use the mountain of Aslan’s Country as the setting for Aslan to give instructions to Jill Pole, who has stumbled into Narnia for the first time. In the church, we use “mountain of the Lord” synonymously with the temple. That’s literally what we’re looking at here in The Silver Chair!

Once we leave the temple, life gets complicated again and it’s instantly harder to stay focused on the covenants and impressions from the temple. Just like Aslan’s signs, if we don’t keep the gospel and the Celestial perspective in our minds, we will lose our focus and forget. The moment Jill stopped reciting the signs and keeping them forefront in her mind, they started being forgotten. 

In the temple, we can find “strength beyond [our] own” as we meditate and ponder on the experiences there. It’s so much easier to feel the “quiet and calm in my heart” with the outside world shut out. We can “feel heaven here” as we serve in the temple. And as we keep our covenants in focus, we can bring that feeling of heaven into the world as well. (lyrics from "Strength Beyond My Own" and "I Feel Heaven Here")

And if you can believe it, Aslan’s Country in The Silver Chair was even a poor representation of the final Aslan’s Country in The Last Battle. So if the temple is heaven on Earth, imagine the peace of real heaven!

If you live in the Washington DC area, check out the temple open house between now and June 11

Check out the virtual tour of the Washington DC temple by Elder Renlund and Elder Stevenson

List to "Follow Him" by John Bytheway and Hank Smith for their recent podcast episode (episode 19) about the Biblical Israelite temple/tabernacle

10 Delightful Things that Happened In 2021

 This year hasn't been the year everyone wanted. We emerged from the pandemic only to find ourselves... Well, still in the pandemic, and the complications from events have not helped the overall situation. Despite this, some roses have managed to peak out through the gloom of 2021 and today I want to focus on those, because what we focus on is what will grow.

10: Disney's Animated Encanto and Luca

Disney did not slouch this year with it's animated fare. First giving us Luca, the touching story about a sea monster who wants to be human told through a beautiful friendship and impressive visuals (Does anyone remember when Pixar cut a scene from The Incredibles because they didn't want to mess with hair underwater?). Following it for the holidays was the musical Encanto, an enchanting film about a magical family with music by Lin Manuel-Miranda, the talent that brought us Hamilton. Despite having no children of our own, the Encanto soundtrack has been all but on loop at our house. 

9: Marvelous World of Marvel

I don't want this post to be Top 10 Things that Came Out on Disney+ This Year, unless they're going to start kicking over some sponsorship money, so I'm just going to say that Marvel had an excellent year and take a chance to plug my two favorites: Wandavision and What If? The fact that Marvel can cater even to my esoteric nerddoms like all-powerful magic beings and multiverse-level threats shows that Marvel truly does have something for everyone. 

Before I move past Disney let me also just mention: 

Cruella 

Olaf Presents

Muppet's Haunted Mansion

and 

Star Wars: Visions

8: Pokemon Games

This year we got three great Pokemon games (Two if you count Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl as the same game), and each one gave hardcore nostalgia fans something we wanted. For fans of the fourth generation we got the afforementioned Brilliant Diamond and Shiny Pearl, and for N64 fans we got New Pokemon Snap , a remake of the classic game with about a billion new Pokemon. The franchise is alive and well, and any lingering doubts will probably burn away next month with the new Zelda: Breath of the Wild inspired Pokemon Legends: Arceus. 

7: The Snyder Cut

As a DC fan it's been hard watching Marvel clock my favorite heroes in the box office, but this year we saw DC make one of its strongest strikes with The Justice League: Snyder Cut. A cinematic masterpiece featuring the original superhero team up. The film is rivaled only by Joker and The Dark Knight (I might be a Joker fan) in quality. It's no wonder cries of #RestoreTheSnyderverse can still be heard throughout the internet. 

6: Animal Crossing: New Horizons: Happy Home Paradise

Animal Crossing: New Horizons got a lot of us through the roughest part of the pandemic, and became the 15th best selling game in history according to Wikipedia.  As a farewell to the game Nintendo released a $30 DLC which was basically an entirely new game with all the cute animals our little gamer hearts could take. Most importantly: Wardell. 

5: Loop Hero

It's hard to review games on our blog, since they tend to take 40+ hours these days and we have jobs and families, but they're are a few games, including the several already mentioned and the ones that will be mentioned, that just had to be played. Loop Hero is an indie darling that absolutely needs to be played to be understood. You rebuild a destroyed world almost down to one molecule at a time, all while running around a constant loop of ever increasing intensity. Play it, if for nothing else so then you can be like the cool kids. 

4: The Suicide Squad

Controversial opinion I know since this movie is a hard R, but anything that releases with Harley Quinn or an adorable CG monster is my jam, and this had both. The film was a fun anarcic ride through a little slice of the DC universe and I rewatched it more times than I care to admit before it left HBO Max. Also if anyone knows where to get a King Shark Funko Pop that's not ridiculously priced hit me up. 

3: Rick and Morty Season 5

Another controversial show, but one that needs to be discussed: 

SPOILER

Season 5 gave us a complete picture of Rick's backstory, the reason that he's the angry antisocial drunk that we've all come to love to hate. We had a hint in season 3 that Rick watched his world's Beth and Diane killed by another Rick in order for him to be motivated to invent the portal gun. We then get Rick going on a multiverse killing spree, at first for vengeance but later out of nothing else to live for. It broke our hearts and explained everything. 

Wubba lubba dub dub. 

2: Monster Hunter: Rise

That wasn't an order sit down. 

The latest in the long running Monster Hunter franchise was as usual a delight to play, with even more giant monsters to battle and turn into fashion accessories. It's odd how the gameplay loop of "Kill giant monster, skin giant monster, go after next monster wearing the last monster's skin" never gets old. Plus in this one you can have a cat and a dog as your companions. MULTIPLAYER IS DEAD IF YOU HAVE THEM! 

1: More Temples Reopening

Oh, did you think they would all be geek related? 

Nothing has warmed my heart more than stopping at my local ice cream place to find it packed with young people in white shirts and modest dresses. It always puts a smile on my face as I get back in the car and look for somewhere less crowded (I'm not waiting in that line!). It means that temple work is resuming in earnest. One of the darkest moments in the pandemic for me was the closing of the temples, a sure sign that things were very much not okay. But now the work of God is happening again and the world can start to truly come back to life. We may not be back to normal yet, but we're slowly but surely moving that way. 

-JOE

Minecraft Temples

Minecraft users have created some incredibly cool builds, from Minas Tirith to a scale replica of Westeros. For the Mormon crowd though, an innovative fan has built several temples for geeks and the faithful to enjoy. I could say more, but honestly, the artist Justin Tate is far better at explaining it than I am.
Take it away, Justin!

Well ever since Elder Bednar challenged us to share the Gospel on Social media I have felt that is important since that is the direction the world is headed.  I have wanted to think of a creative untraditional way to share the gospel.  Since I have many hobbies such as BMX, flute music, and gaming, I wanted to somehow reach people who are interested in the same hobbies as me.  I only recently thought of this as a way to do that while playing Minecraft with my kids.  It's a game we enjoy playing together because it is very family friendly compared to many of the games out there.  Since we play together creating our own digital world, I decided to build a temple so that we could always have a beautiful temple in view while we are playing.   The first one was the Bountiful Temple, where my wife and I were married.  That was when we only played on The mobile version, Minecraft Pocket Edition.  Then after we started playing the Xbox One edition I needed to build a new temple in that world so we could still always have a temple in sight while we play.  This time I made the Washington DC temple since that is our home temple in real life.
After this, I thought why keep this hidden for only my family to see, when other people could enjoy it too?  The scripture that came to mind was..........

Matthew 5:14-16 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven.

So I decided to make a Facebook page where I could collect all my LDS themed Minecraft creations together in one place and hope that some other people may enjoy seeing it.  I also hope that other people will contribute their own LDS themed Minecraft creations so they can be shared with other people too.  I have always thought that if my efforts can at least uplift one person than it is worth it because "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;" (D&C 18:10).
So anyway, it may not change the world, but I'm just happy to see that several people have enjoyed my work so far, and a couple people have said how it has uplifted them already and that makes me happy to know.  Hopefully I will be able to reach some people within the gaming community who may have not otherwise heard of the church.

(When I asked what mode he used...)

As for what mode, definitely creative mode haha.  As impressive as it would be to gather all the materials in Survival mode, I simply don't have the time for that.

It's hard to say how long it takes because so far they have been very different.  To be honest, the DC temple was actually very easy to make and only took me about a week of working whenever I had a little spare time here and there.  So it only took a few hours.  The Preston and Mesa Temples on the other hand proved to be much more technical and time consuming.  As I practice, I am naturally learning little techniques to speed up he process.  With my next two temples, I have done a lot more planning and measuring before hand, which I think will help to speed up the process even more.  We shall see how that goes. But as of now, I think it's safe to say that they take roughly a month or so to complete.  My life schedule is very busy so I spread these projects out over an extended period of time.


Since Temples come in several general styles, I want to do one from each style, so they don't blend together and look the same.  I also want to feature some lesser known temples.  You know the big ones like Salt Lake, DC, and Hawaii for example get a lot of attention so I want to surprise people by featuring their temple that maybe wouldn't be the first to come to mind when thinking about temples.  Because they are all beautiful to me.  The first three were significant to me because of my marriage(Bountiful),where we live now(DC/Maryland), and where my full time mission was(England), but after that, I'm wanting to do them for other people.

What do you think?
-JOE