for me, that is. Next week I’m traveling on business to Hong Kong. I plan on visiting the Hong Kong temple. I’ll report back to let you know how it goes.

I once had a bishop who traveled around the world and had been to a few dozen foreign temples during his trips. This will be only my third foreign (non-U.S.) temple (I’ve been to the Sao Paulo and Campinas temples in Brazil as well).

I’d be interested in hearing from anybody who has been to the Hong Kong temple. Also, please comment on some of the more exotic temples you’ve been to.

[No. I am not claiming Charlie Brown is LDS or something silly like that (though I always wondered about that Linus kid…..)]

Charles Schulz was the genius who created Peanuts. One of his daughters joined the church and served a mission in England. Did you know that? I have for awhile, and didn’t think much of it beyond “hmm, that’s interesting.”

However –

I was reading reviews of the recent Schulz biography, when I stumbled across a blog post at Cartoon Brew. The ensuing discussion has Schulz’s children and other friends chiming in about the inaccuracies in the book. However, I found myself absolutely moved by his daughter’s description of her relationship to her dad and his reaction to her becoming Mormon:

Check it out here, and then return and report (or comment, anyway).

[You can read the whole amazing discussion if you’re a Peanuts fan, but I figured this one comment would appeal to Mormons of all types, even ones without any particular affection for the classic comic strip].

One of the more distressing political trends of recent years is the ascent of the Lou Dobbs voter. If you want a highly favorable view of who the Lou Dobbs voter is, take a look at this article. I was astounded to turn on CNN during a trip two weeks ago and listen to Dobbs’ assault on immigration and globalization. I thought I was back in early 1930 listening to Sen. Smoot discuss the Smoot-Hawley tariffs.

My personal opinion is that the rising tide against globalization in the United States will hurt the Church and hurt its growth. On the economic front, it might drag us into another Depression.

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What happens when you get some of the world’s smartest people together to ponder whether or not the universe has a purpose? Some of them sound pretty lost, whereas others appear to be on the right track. It is fascinating to consider that these really smart people could read the scriptures, which would answer many of their questions, yet without the benefit of the Holy Ghost they still wouldn’t have a clue. Another great idea: read “Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith.”

In July, 1999, twenty-one relatively young people with nothing better to do decided to try writing novels in a month. Six of them actually did it. Eight years later, in November, 2006, nearly 13,000 crossed that same finish line (almost 80,000 gave it a shot.) Last year (2006) the participants logged a total of over 982,000,000 words — the expectation is that we’ll break 1,000,000,000 this year. I’ll be contributing my 50,000 this year, as I did in 2004, 2005, and 2006. (Promo: You can do it too!)

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