Every once in a while I will run across an interesting book on this subject. Here is one from Google books that addresses the fair-skinned ones who used to inhabit the northern part of the Americas before their destruction:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Obgdz8auwkMC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=white+skinned+indians+Guatemala&source=web&ots=c45IyUyY13&sig=9DE0eyWBJCbJaWvr5wtCvrCmKfo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result#v=onepage&q=white%20skinned%20indians%20Guatemala&f=false
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Friday, August 24, 2012
ANOTHER NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE
http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/48229599#48229599
THIS IS A FANTASTIC TESTIMONY OF WHAT IS OVER THERE.
GO DEEP, YOUNG MAN. GO DEEP
Well, we just finished plinking and gassing our gophers that had set up shop in the horse pasture. It was quite an effort. As it turns out, they may have been onto something. According to John Koyle and the Alberta Temple prophecy by Sols Guardisto, there may be a need to get underground after some point - after the great earthquake. Here is a quote in the notes on the Dream Mine in Spanish Fork, Utah:
According to Guardisto, the mining district in the Crows Nest Pass area north and west of Cardston will be developed for purposes of underground storage and preservation. I would not be caught dead underground during the great earthquake. That will be the means of killing off the "elite" who were prepared against that event - but there will be another time after that when the underground refuges will be required. People will be guided to know when those times are.
"During that time this dugway will serve as a means to refuge for many of our people with their supplies. We take cover in the safety of the tunnels until that army is destroyed together with all who surrender.
"Following this, we will also have the Russians to fight, and they will get half way across this country before they are put down." (--To the Missouri River.)
I noticed that he was somewhat shaken by this experience, and that he had to sit down to recover his strength. Later when I had discovered the Bulkley and Farnsworth visions about the U.S. Army coming against Zion, I learned that Bishop Koyle had never heard of them, and that he had no previous knowledge of the "U.S. Army worse than Johnston's coming against Utah."
When he had recovered enough to talk about it, I then pointed out that the tunnels would not offer much protection against an army. He then told me that the importance of the tunnels would be understood when this time came. Of course, I did not know in 1934, as I know today, that we would be taking refuge from the wrath of God upon the army and all who would surrender to it, when "the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." (II Peter, 3:12) And "the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold." (See Isaiah, 30:26.)
According to Guardisto, the mining district in the Crows Nest Pass area north and west of Cardston will be developed for purposes of underground storage and preservation. I would not be caught dead underground during the great earthquake. That will be the means of killing off the "elite" who were prepared against that event - but there will be another time after that when the underground refuges will be required. People will be guided to know when those times are.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
REASON FOR ROMNEY'S FUTURE ASSASSINATION
Well, folks. Just reading the tea leaves here - not trying to provoke a response by the secret service.....
Lets see. Every major attempt to change our monetary system from the existing fiat paper currency has resulted in the sitting president either being assassinated or an attempt made on his life - except the attempt on President Reagan's life didn't fit my pattern when I was taking stock of the kill list.
According to this article, Reagan DID initiate a Gold Commission (probably in order to get the 70's runaway inflation under wraps) - so he now falls under that rule that was applied to the data. He fell under the sub-set of assassination attempt, but survived. Jackson did not receive the two balls during the attempt on his life. Lincoln, McKinley and Kennedy were all taken out successfully for their challenge of the status quo of the international banksters.
Now, we have an article that says that Romney plans on challenging the system in order to head off (what will become) runaway inflation off at the pass. We also have several (prophetic) intersecting data points that indicate that the next prez will be killed between the first and the third years in office. Things will be so bad that there will be no one who will step up to the reigns after the assassination and the national government will be most likely operating out of Colorado due to the three great shakings that will occur in DC around the same time (whatever was meant by that statement....). All this stuff is contained in the blog archives (search box in the upper left corner).
Things are shaping up to be very interesting indeed...... Very interesting indeed......
Here is the article that got me spun up:
Lets see. Every major attempt to change our monetary system from the existing fiat paper currency has resulted in the sitting president either being assassinated or an attempt made on his life - except the attempt on President Reagan's life didn't fit my pattern when I was taking stock of the kill list.
According to this article, Reagan DID initiate a Gold Commission (probably in order to get the 70's runaway inflation under wraps) - so he now falls under that rule that was applied to the data. He fell under the sub-set of assassination attempt, but survived. Jackson did not receive the two balls during the attempt on his life. Lincoln, McKinley and Kennedy were all taken out successfully for their challenge of the status quo of the international banksters.
Now, we have an article that says that Romney plans on challenging the system in order to head off (what will become) runaway inflation off at the pass. We also have several (prophetic) intersecting data points that indicate that the next prez will be killed between the first and the third years in office. Things will be so bad that there will be no one who will step up to the reigns after the assassination and the national government will be most likely operating out of Colorado due to the three great shakings that will occur in DC around the same time (whatever was meant by that statement....). All this stuff is contained in the blog archives (search box in the upper left corner).
Things are shaping up to be very interesting indeed...... Very interesting indeed......
Here is the article that got me spun up:
The gold standard has returned to mainstream U.S. politics for the first time in 30 years, with a “gold commission” set to become part of official Republican party policy.
Drafts of the party platform, which it will adopt at a convention in Tampa Bay, Florida, next week, call for an audit of Federal Reserve monetary policy and a commission to look at restoring the link between the dollar and gold.
The move shows how five years of easy monetary policy — and the efforts of congressman Ron Paul — have made the once-fringe idea of returning to gold-as-money a legitimate part of Republican debate.Marsha Blackburn, a Republican congresswoman from Tennessee and co-chair of the platform committee, said the issues were not adopted merely to placate Paul and the delegates that he picked up during his campaign for the party’s nomination.“These were adopted because they are things that Republicans agree on,” Blackburn told the Financial Times. “The House recently passed a bill on this, and this is something that we think needs to be done.”The proposal is reminiscent of the Gold Commission created by former president Ronald Reagan in 1981, 10 years after Richard Nixon broke the link between gold and the dollar during the 1971 oil crisis. That commission ultimately supported the status quo.“There is a growing recognition within the Republican party and in America more generally that we’re not going to be able to print our way to prosperity,” said Sean Fieler, chairman of the American Principles Project, a conservative group that has pushed for a return to the gold standard.A commission would have no power except to make recommendations, but Fieler said it would provide a chance to educate politicians and the public about the merits of a return to gold. “We’re not going to go from a standing start to the gold standard,” he said.The Republican platform in 1980 referred to “restoration of a dependable monetary standard," while the 1984 platform said that “the gold standard may be a useful mechanism”. More recent platforms did not mention.Any commission on a return to the gold standard would have to address a host of theoretical, empirical and practical issues.Inflation has remained under control in recent years, despite claims that expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet would lead to runaway price rises, while gold has been highly volatile. The price of the metal is up by more than 500 per cent in dollar terms over the past decade.A return to a fixed money supply would also remove the central bank’s ability to offset demand shocks by varying interest rates. That could mean a more volatile economy and higher average unemployment over time.Copyright 2011 The Financial Times Limited
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
DUAL TRACK THINKING
As previously mentioned, I am starting to devote more time to my thought processes on preparedness. Many of you will have had some event in your past that will have prepared you to begin preparing - such as a job loss, observing someone close to you going thru it, or another spiritual warning. The first thing preparedness-minded people should do is seek to obtain the Spirit. Once you have the Spirit, you will have that Heavenly help in order to properly prioritize. Also, it will lead you to seek that Spirit of Prophecy and personal revelation - which all faithful members of Christ's church should have - as it is the Testimony of Jesus. This is not taught openly along with many other crucial doctrines - such as seeking the Second Comforter once we have received our Baptism by Fire in a post-Baptism by Water setting. Truly, few be that find that gate and enter in at it......in my assessment; because they are not even looking for that gate, not because its hard to find. In fact, if I were the Father, I would have flashing neon signs and all sorts of signs steering people to it - if they would but open their eyes and see it. I have to throw a few things in here and a plug for a guy who is awake to our awful situation - the realization that we (members of the Church) are the ones who are astray (as taught in the final chapters of 2 Nephi), finally occurred to me about two years ago. We are the ones that Nephi was shredding and warning over - not the Catholics, or the Baptists, or anyone else - its you and I, silly!! Shortly after the Spirit witnessed that to me, I began to open my eyes and then read Denver Snuffer (after I originally ordered his book on receiving my calling and election from Amazon), then stalked him (did a Google scour on him - to see if I could find fault with the man) and then bumped into his blog - which propounded the same thing the Spirit had independently witnessed to me. In doing the Google search, I found a picture of him and his countenance was radiant - mortal, but radiant, and I knew I had a genuine article who was on the right path. You can't photoshop a radiant countenance- nor imitate one in real life. The eyes are truly the window to the soul.
So off the rambling and back on topic. You will need to have dual path line of thinking in order to move forward effectively. You will need to prepare as if the big event were tomorrow - but live for today and enjoy life. Not in an "EAT, DRINK, BE MERRY" kind of way - but, do get out and smell the roses.
So, for those of you who have a bunch of cash just sitting around in the bank, wouldn't that give you so much more comfort if it were converted to food and sitting on your shelves and under your beds in boxes, buckets and cans? With all that is going on in the world financially speaking, I always ask myself, could I eat that ten dollar bill? The answer is NO. So I do the right thing. If I have the food and need the money, I can always begin eating my food storage now, can I not? Not spending the money I would have spent on food, can I not free up cash at that time to meet my other hard cash obligations? I think YES. If I had alot, could I not pray over where a good place to live to weather the storms would be - and begin preparing for that and maybe have a nice vacation home to boot that could be used by the entire family and taxed couples (your children) for a weekend getaway for just the two of them? I am an engineer in aerospace, so my job is to forecast down to the 1x10 to the eighth probabilities that something will, or will not go wrong. That is my world, professionally. It does not take a rocket scientist to know that things are now on the order of probabilities of failure of 1 in 10 or 1 in100 when we compare our awful situation against other failed societies and scenarios found in scripture. Those odds are not good to me. When the failure does occur, its usually gradual; then catastrophic when initially undetected. I have been in a class all week and will have spent 40 hours in training; just scratching the surface on the mechanics of crack growth in aluminum. Once a crack nucleates about an existing or introduced defect (in our case, society degrading due to sin and lack of attention to things of God), it starts very slow - could be hidden or non-observable for years, and then wham. The stresses that accumulate from failures in various areas congregate upon each other, worsening the existing problem until a sudden, massive failure occurs. Most of the time - you do not see it coming unless you are looking for it. So it is with our failure - we should be hyper vigilant and even studying the existing manuals looking for ways that the cracks will be initiated in our own lives, in our families, and in our society. When we see the problems, we must act immediately to avoid the inevitable catastrophic failure.
As a side note, for the flying public - know that you are in good hands - a part failure can be predicted while an airplane is still on the drawing board to a 95% reliability and confidence factor, twenty years before failure is predicted to occur. Its mind boggling - really it is. If we desire a 100% confidence factor (which we design some parts to such as landing gear, etc), we just design to that level of confidence and take the hit on total airframe weight, build and design cost and fuel inefficiency while in service.
So back on topic - have a dual track in your thinking. Prepare (and I say, with some level of urgency) and may you have the Holy Spirit as your guide. You will be led aright. If you have not done a deep dive into the archives, I recommend doing so. I have about one person a day doing that according to the blog stats - and I cannot recommend it enough. It will paint a picture of many brushstrokes that each article provides. You can act based on what picture emerges from the data in your mind.
So off the rambling and back on topic. You will need to have dual path line of thinking in order to move forward effectively. You will need to prepare as if the big event were tomorrow - but live for today and enjoy life. Not in an "EAT, DRINK, BE MERRY" kind of way - but, do get out and smell the roses.
So, for those of you who have a bunch of cash just sitting around in the bank, wouldn't that give you so much more comfort if it were converted to food and sitting on your shelves and under your beds in boxes, buckets and cans? With all that is going on in the world financially speaking, I always ask myself, could I eat that ten dollar bill? The answer is NO. So I do the right thing. If I have the food and need the money, I can always begin eating my food storage now, can I not? Not spending the money I would have spent on food, can I not free up cash at that time to meet my other hard cash obligations? I think YES. If I had alot, could I not pray over where a good place to live to weather the storms would be - and begin preparing for that and maybe have a nice vacation home to boot that could be used by the entire family and taxed couples (your children) for a weekend getaway for just the two of them? I am an engineer in aerospace, so my job is to forecast down to the 1x10 to the eighth probabilities that something will, or will not go wrong. That is my world, professionally. It does not take a rocket scientist to know that things are now on the order of probabilities of failure of 1 in 10 or 1 in100 when we compare our awful situation against other failed societies and scenarios found in scripture. Those odds are not good to me. When the failure does occur, its usually gradual; then catastrophic when initially undetected. I have been in a class all week and will have spent 40 hours in training; just scratching the surface on the mechanics of crack growth in aluminum. Once a crack nucleates about an existing or introduced defect (in our case, society degrading due to sin and lack of attention to things of God), it starts very slow - could be hidden or non-observable for years, and then wham. The stresses that accumulate from failures in various areas congregate upon each other, worsening the existing problem until a sudden, massive failure occurs. Most of the time - you do not see it coming unless you are looking for it. So it is with our failure - we should be hyper vigilant and even studying the existing manuals looking for ways that the cracks will be initiated in our own lives, in our families, and in our society. When we see the problems, we must act immediately to avoid the inevitable catastrophic failure.
As a side note, for the flying public - know that you are in good hands - a part failure can be predicted while an airplane is still on the drawing board to a 95% reliability and confidence factor, twenty years before failure is predicted to occur. Its mind boggling - really it is. If we desire a 100% confidence factor (which we design some parts to such as landing gear, etc), we just design to that level of confidence and take the hit on total airframe weight, build and design cost and fuel inefficiency while in service.
So back on topic - have a dual track in your thinking. Prepare (and I say, with some level of urgency) and may you have the Holy Spirit as your guide. You will be led aright. If you have not done a deep dive into the archives, I recommend doing so. I have about one person a day doing that according to the blog stats - and I cannot recommend it enough. It will paint a picture of many brushstrokes that each article provides. You can act based on what picture emerges from the data in your mind.
Monday, August 20, 2012
A GREAT DIVISION IS COMING
I posted this over a year ago and its in the archives - and I sometimes feel impressed to break stuff back out for consideration or for review if you are new. When the great cleansing and division (they are related) come about, there literally will be a line in the sand, armies, and a heavenly salvation right at the exciting conclusion - very similar to what will happen in Jerusalem with Judah. Our destinies are tied to theirs with crazy similarities - including a freshwater lake draining through the Jordan River into a salty sea with no outlet.
Some day, I feel like the puss is coming to the surface and the boil is about to erupt at the surface when I look around at the contention, division and apostasy. Lord come quickly!
I hope you enjoy this as much as I did:
Some day, I feel like the puss is coming to the surface and the boil is about to erupt at the surface when I look around at the contention, division and apostasy. Lord come quickly!
I hope you enjoy this as much as I did:
A VISION
A VISION by Bro Thomas Caidon of Logan 7 or 8 years ago which he reported and Bro. B Riches wrote down March 28, 1885.
I seemed to stand away north beyond all the settlements that have since been made and looking towards the south, I saw many settlements that had been made even as far as the vision of my mind could gage.
The people seemed to be in trouble and many were leaving their homes to get out of the way of being persecuted. After this had been going on for sometime I saw a small thread like line lying on the ground and it was drawn from the north to the south, beyond any of the settlements that were then made. I also saw many of the settlements of the saints that have since been made and the line extended south beyond them all.
It seemed that but few persons noticed it at the time, but as the thread grew larger more persons began to see it and began to choose for themselves on which side of the line they chose to live. Some preferred the east and others the west, and others preferred standing over the line with one foot on each side and seemed undecided as to which side they would go. As they seemed to want to wait to see which would be the safest side to be on. While others again would stand on one side for awhile and then cross over back and forth for some time and seemed to want to keep friends with both sides in order to insure their safety.
As the trouble increased and the people were looking for more difficulty to come along as though they expected some great calamity to come upon them. The line constantly increased in size until it was difficult to cross and then they who stood with a foot on each side found it impossible to remain so. The most part seemed to go to the east side. I then wondered why this separation took place and found those who stood on the west side were those who chose to keep all the Commandments of God. While those on the east side were those who had been accustomed to finding fault with the brethren and the presiding officers of the Church. Those who did not have a testimony for themselves that this was the work of God, and were afraid of the finger of scorn and the words of Calumny* of the unbelieving world. They seemed to wonder if this was the work of God, why He did not come and deliver them from the destruction that seemed to await them.
Those on the west side seemed to stand further away from the line than those on the east side and they also seemed to anticipate danger and retreated further away into the mountains and other places of safety.
I then heard a great noise and looked to the southeast and saw great black clouds that rested upon the earth. Under the clouds there appeared to be an immense mob like army and they seemed to be rolling west toward the line. They came with the clashing of arms and other war like demonstrations, and with great threatening against the people on the west side of the line with full determination to destroy them. When they were within a few miles of the line those people who were on the east side with a hope of saving themselves from being destroyed started towards the army and even a few who were on the west side came up to the line and threw themselves over and started towards the army also. When they met the army they were all utterly destroyed by their advancing columns. This scene seemed to cause me much trouble of mind to see so much suffering and destruction of lives of men, women and children who had once identified themselves with the people of God. I prayed to the Lord that he would stay this great army lest the LDS would be destroyed also.
After much prayer and supplication I saw a bright light in the heavens in a southeasterly direction. Under the light was a beautiful white cloud and the light and cloud moved towards the earth. Then I saw two personages on top of the cloud who were surrounded by the light. These came down and stopped within about 20 feet of the line. One of them seemed much older than the other and pointed to the one on His right hand side, then I knew it was our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ.
Then I looked towards the army and I saw the black clouds entirely gone and those who composed the army fought with each other until they were utterly destroyed. After which, I looked towards the west and saw the saints coming toward the personages who still remained above the line with cheerful countenances. I felt to rejoice at the deliverance and I cried out with my heart full of gratitude for this deliverance. I wondered if I was asleep or awake, I stretched out my hand to pinch my arm to make sure which it was, but this I know, my eyes were open. I was much fatigued in body but buoyant in spirit.
Copied from J H ? Nov 3, 1892
G Windous
*Calumny The act of uttering false charges or misrepresentations maliciciously calculated to damage another's reputation.
Websters Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary
BEING PREPARED IN ADVANCE
In a recent post, I mentioned how a fire in an apartment in Brazil was somewhat instrumental in preparing me for fighting a small house fire just a week ago. No life or limb was in danger during the recent episode, but the quick thinking (due to the previous experience) may well have preserved a structure a saved alot of hassle.
The opposite was true of a very serious event that occurred in Brazil that I am certain would have taken my life. I was prepared to react to that one by a previous non-life threatening event that occurred a year before my mission.
I was working in Belllingham, WA for the local city water and sewer department as a summer job reserved for those who were attending college. I had just finished my first year in engineering and was actually saving and preparing for my mission. It was the best paying job in the entire town - nearly double minimum wage. I was working three jobs (one full, two part-time) and was just wiped out most days. My job for the city was to paint and maintain all sorts of equipment and infrastructure. I really enjoyed that job. Every day was different and new. I have to have new experiences or I get bored easily and my mind wanders to other engaging pursuits. My favorite day was going up to a pipeline area where our potable water came from, high up near Mt Baker, and deconstructed a beaver dam that was threatening the pipeline. Other fun chores were going to the fresh water intake on a large lake that supplied the potable filtration plant and looking for dead bodies of water skiers, etc that would die, submerge, bloat, surface and then float to the intake at the lake's outflow. Gross! The veteran employees called them DBs. Thankfully, I was never a witness to one of those that summer although they averaged around 1 a year that they would find there. One thing that was close to that - but never left me in danger was one of the few days when I did not make it out with the rest of the crew. I was asked to stay behind and accomplish some task for the manager. It was just he and I behind that day besides a few other folks managing the computers for plant systems. All of a sudden we had a code red (probably should have been a code yellow or brown, now that I think of it...) - one of the sewage pump stations was down. That might not seem like a big deal, but it was. If we did not get out there in the next 30 mins and get it back on line, there would be black goo bubbling out of peoples' basement toilets - or overflowing into a waterway - and bad publicity for the city. We hopped in the nearest truck and headed out to the pump 20 mins away. When we got there, we noticed the fiberglass lid was open. We put in our CO/CO2 meter and got some bad readings so we put down our air pumps and evacuated the area - giving it a fresh charge of air. It soon was safe to enter. My manager went down the hole, with me on watch (radio with direct contact to emergency personnel if things went bad and we needed a rescue). I was under strict orders and training to not attempt a one man rescue - those situations often end in two DB's when the responders are finally called in to haul corpses out. As my manager headed down to the bottom of the 30 foot shaft, he noticed the rungs had soot on them near the bottom. He got to the pump chamber at the bottom and noticed some of the glass on the guage faces had been broken out. I had zero previous experience in this situation, but I yelled down the hole, "Bomb!! Get out of there now! My manager must have believed me or was just coming to the conclusion himself. He didn't say anything to me - he just came flying up the shaft in about 3 seconds without a rest on the way up. He asked me what I meant - I did not know why I had said what I said and convinced him this was serious. He was shaking while he radioed on our emergency equipment for Fire and Bomb Squad. Later, over the next couple of weeks, there was one or two other similar incidents that we did not even respond to and we just sent the emergency services out to investigate - and they had their suspect on a watch. They caught him and put him away for felony vandalism - a former city employee who had been let loose for anger management issues.... The black residue was a partially combusted explosive device that he had dropped down the hole attempting to make the city look bad. Nobody's lives were ever in any real danger - we followed protocol.
Fast forward to Natal, Brazil in 1988. I had been there about four months and was just made a District Leader in a remote area outside the city. Every Monday night, after P-day, we would phone the ZLs to let them know of our District's weekly activities. We had no phone in our house, so we walked to the phone down at the corner store. They were called an "orelhao" or "big ear" that provided a place for the phone to be out of the elements - but were not enclosed like our North American phone booths are. We used little lead tokens called fichas (kind of like our "Forever" stamps that do not change value) in the telephone, since inflation was always changing the value of the money. You would buy the fichas at the current exchange rate and you always had a few on you for emergencies since money did not work in the phones. As we approached the phone, I noticed someone loitering and frantically doing something by it in the dusk - but I paid no particular attention to what it was. I was talking to my companion, Elder Pereira. Elder Pereira was my Companion for around 4 months. There is nothing remarkable about that - other than Elder Pereira had 19 or 20 companions during the 23 months he was in the field. His average tenure with a companion was around 3 weeks. Sometimes it was just days. Other tenures were on the order of several weeks. I did not know about his history until later when word got around that I had survived that long - beyond the odds. I always say this is what led the President to call me as an assistant in the Mission Office - I just took whatever difficult situation was thrown at me and just dealt with it....
This Elder was unusual. Very diminuitive build - he ate like a mouse and the other Elders' food would often go missing - not that I cared other than for planning purposes and it was hard to keep the peace when a filcher was afoot. Twelve eggs divided by six days = 2 eggs per day in our fridge. Some days my breakfast would come up short. I really don't care about that kind of stuff. If someone is truly hungry, they can have whatever is mine. We will go hungry together if there is really a need. Elder Pereira raised himself on the streets of Rio - and as a young kid would sniff model glue to get high and escape the horror and pain of not having parents and a loving support structure. It really put any of my own problems in perspective - which were virtually nil compared. He joined the Church a few years before his mission and had no real depth of gospel experience - although I thought he was fine enough. He had emotions and needs just like everyone else - but it was hard relating to him. I was patient - just as I always am when people get weird on me. I just slog on when others would walk away or complain (oddly I am far less patient on far less important things....). Anyway, the thing that would drive his comps crazy about him, were falling asleep in the middle of discussions, food disappearing, just general lack of engagement in the work that we were engaged in. I am a very driven person - so we were on opposite ends of the spectrum. When I began to understand his story - and that he was not buying food in order to send the saved money home to support his indigent family - I had much compassion for him and I was able to stay my tongue much more. His home ward was sending the $110/month stipend to him so he could be on the mission.
Back on track - so we got to the phone as the person that had been there previously was disappearing around the darkened side of the store. I walked up to the phone, picked up the receiver and, as I was raising it to my ear, I noticed something glistening in the light from the street lamp. I immediately went to put the receiver back on the catch it rested on and stepped back and out of the way as I announced to my companion, "Its a bomb - step back". I had no comprehension of what I was saying - but placing the phone back on the catch (and not dropping it - or pulling it fully up to my ear), saved my life. I am certain of it. I had never heard of a bomb being attached to a phone, had not thought about the experience the summer before in Bellingham - it was not my thought and impulse. I am sure there was an intervention from heaven - an impulse that was not from me. After I settled down - we approached it and examined it from the side. It was a device that used a 4" diameter speaker magnet to attach it to the steel base of the phone. A 2" pipe was brazed to a 1/8" thick plate that the magnet was dually glued and magnetized to. One end of the 2" pipe was threaded and capped. In the capped end of the pipe was drilled a 1/4" hole with a short thin-wall pipe attached. On the end of the short piece of pipe was attached a blasting cap. On the base plate, a rat trap had been brazed.
When the phone receiver was picked up, there was some heavy duty fishing line that went to an exacto blade that was on a pivot. When the exacto grazed the line that held the rat trap back (resisted the strong spring), the line would fail, sending the rat trap (that had a 1/2" square plate brazed onto it) smashing into the blasting cap. That explosion would then ignite (through the short tube) about 1/2 cup of blasting powder that was in the end of the 2" capped pipe. That was behind some tamped/waxed toilet paper that acted as some wadding. Directly forward of the wadding were 7, 1/2" diameter ball bearings, followed by some more waxed wadding. Had I not had that impulse to call it a bomb and not raise it to my ear fully - it most likely would have ignited and send those balls ripping through my lower abdomen. It would have taken around 1 hour to get to the nearest hospital in downtown Natal which probably would not have had the resources to treat me - and I expect I would have died. At that point (a month previous) - I had just gone through a week of hell where I had lost 35 pounds as my body slowly succombed to e-coli (I will blog that one later). This was the second serious attempt on my life in Brazil - and I began to wonder if I would make it back alive. This was a raw, mysterious land where life was not as valued as it was back in the worst of conditions in the States. I had to learn to operate on faith or I would never know the joys of being a married man - or of having kids and all those adventures. I HAD to survive this experience in order to accomplish the rest of my non-mission, mission.
So how did we find out how the bomb was constructed - and what the guts of the bomb contained? Well, Elder Pereira was enthralled with it and decided to put his fingerprints on it. Brazil was then a police state - everyone is fingerprinted including Elders (like me and Elder Pereira). If it were not dismantled properly and disposed of, he might be implicated as the one who had built it. I was very irritated with him for not listening to me to leave it alone. As dumb 19 year olds go, we did the best we could and removed it from the phone and I took it back to the house and we carefully took it apart and buried the remains in the back yard - after we ignited the powder on the kitchen floor and smashed the blasting cap between two large rocks, of course..... Redneck fireworks! We locked our slatted shutters the best we could for weeks after that - in an area where we had had garments and t-shirts stolen off our drying lines by people who had penetrated our fenced compound - we did not want whoever it was trying to do further mayhem. We never did come to a firm conclusion as to whether that was intended for us (by a pastor of a church we had shut down by baptizing all their members) or whether it was intended for a drug dealer or someone that used this phone regularly. Or for us - who used that phone religiously around 9:30pm every Monday night. Was that person I saw working on it frantically trying to get it hooked up for us - or was he trying to frantically remove it when he saw we were coming and its intended victim was not the next one to use the phone. I saw no evidence that it was in a partially discombobulated state and it appeared fully functional - so I lean towards it being for me or my companion in order to stop the work in that area. We were building a new chapel across the neighborhood for Ramo Potengi - so there was some opposition to the "new guys".
No doubt, some dog will confuse the stuffing out of his owner when he digs the rusting bomb remains up in the back yard sometime in the future.....
So the moral of this wild (and true) tale is: God will sometimes prepare you in unusual ways for future events in life so that you are able to react properly and avert disaster. That includes physical, as well as spiritual events.
The opposite was true of a very serious event that occurred in Brazil that I am certain would have taken my life. I was prepared to react to that one by a previous non-life threatening event that occurred a year before my mission.
I was working in Belllingham, WA for the local city water and sewer department as a summer job reserved for those who were attending college. I had just finished my first year in engineering and was actually saving and preparing for my mission. It was the best paying job in the entire town - nearly double minimum wage. I was working three jobs (one full, two part-time) and was just wiped out most days. My job for the city was to paint and maintain all sorts of equipment and infrastructure. I really enjoyed that job. Every day was different and new. I have to have new experiences or I get bored easily and my mind wanders to other engaging pursuits. My favorite day was going up to a pipeline area where our potable water came from, high up near Mt Baker, and deconstructed a beaver dam that was threatening the pipeline. Other fun chores were going to the fresh water intake on a large lake that supplied the potable filtration plant and looking for dead bodies of water skiers, etc that would die, submerge, bloat, surface and then float to the intake at the lake's outflow. Gross! The veteran employees called them DBs. Thankfully, I was never a witness to one of those that summer although they averaged around 1 a year that they would find there. One thing that was close to that - but never left me in danger was one of the few days when I did not make it out with the rest of the crew. I was asked to stay behind and accomplish some task for the manager. It was just he and I behind that day besides a few other folks managing the computers for plant systems. All of a sudden we had a code red (probably should have been a code yellow or brown, now that I think of it...) - one of the sewage pump stations was down. That might not seem like a big deal, but it was. If we did not get out there in the next 30 mins and get it back on line, there would be black goo bubbling out of peoples' basement toilets - or overflowing into a waterway - and bad publicity for the city. We hopped in the nearest truck and headed out to the pump 20 mins away. When we got there, we noticed the fiberglass lid was open. We put in our CO/CO2 meter and got some bad readings so we put down our air pumps and evacuated the area - giving it a fresh charge of air. It soon was safe to enter. My manager went down the hole, with me on watch (radio with direct contact to emergency personnel if things went bad and we needed a rescue). I was under strict orders and training to not attempt a one man rescue - those situations often end in two DB's when the responders are finally called in to haul corpses out. As my manager headed down to the bottom of the 30 foot shaft, he noticed the rungs had soot on them near the bottom. He got to the pump chamber at the bottom and noticed some of the glass on the guage faces had been broken out. I had zero previous experience in this situation, but I yelled down the hole, "Bomb!! Get out of there now! My manager must have believed me or was just coming to the conclusion himself. He didn't say anything to me - he just came flying up the shaft in about 3 seconds without a rest on the way up. He asked me what I meant - I did not know why I had said what I said and convinced him this was serious. He was shaking while he radioed on our emergency equipment for Fire and Bomb Squad. Later, over the next couple of weeks, there was one or two other similar incidents that we did not even respond to and we just sent the emergency services out to investigate - and they had their suspect on a watch. They caught him and put him away for felony vandalism - a former city employee who had been let loose for anger management issues.... The black residue was a partially combusted explosive device that he had dropped down the hole attempting to make the city look bad. Nobody's lives were ever in any real danger - we followed protocol.
Fast forward to Natal, Brazil in 1988. I had been there about four months and was just made a District Leader in a remote area outside the city. Every Monday night, after P-day, we would phone the ZLs to let them know of our District's weekly activities. We had no phone in our house, so we walked to the phone down at the corner store. They were called an "orelhao" or "big ear" that provided a place for the phone to be out of the elements - but were not enclosed like our North American phone booths are. We used little lead tokens called fichas (kind of like our "Forever" stamps that do not change value) in the telephone, since inflation was always changing the value of the money. You would buy the fichas at the current exchange rate and you always had a few on you for emergencies since money did not work in the phones. As we approached the phone, I noticed someone loitering and frantically doing something by it in the dusk - but I paid no particular attention to what it was. I was talking to my companion, Elder Pereira. Elder Pereira was my Companion for around 4 months. There is nothing remarkable about that - other than Elder Pereira had 19 or 20 companions during the 23 months he was in the field. His average tenure with a companion was around 3 weeks. Sometimes it was just days. Other tenures were on the order of several weeks. I did not know about his history until later when word got around that I had survived that long - beyond the odds. I always say this is what led the President to call me as an assistant in the Mission Office - I just took whatever difficult situation was thrown at me and just dealt with it....
This Elder was unusual. Very diminuitive build - he ate like a mouse and the other Elders' food would often go missing - not that I cared other than for planning purposes and it was hard to keep the peace when a filcher was afoot. Twelve eggs divided by six days = 2 eggs per day in our fridge. Some days my breakfast would come up short. I really don't care about that kind of stuff. If someone is truly hungry, they can have whatever is mine. We will go hungry together if there is really a need. Elder Pereira raised himself on the streets of Rio - and as a young kid would sniff model glue to get high and escape the horror and pain of not having parents and a loving support structure. It really put any of my own problems in perspective - which were virtually nil compared. He joined the Church a few years before his mission and had no real depth of gospel experience - although I thought he was fine enough. He had emotions and needs just like everyone else - but it was hard relating to him. I was patient - just as I always am when people get weird on me. I just slog on when others would walk away or complain (oddly I am far less patient on far less important things....). Anyway, the thing that would drive his comps crazy about him, were falling asleep in the middle of discussions, food disappearing, just general lack of engagement in the work that we were engaged in. I am a very driven person - so we were on opposite ends of the spectrum. When I began to understand his story - and that he was not buying food in order to send the saved money home to support his indigent family - I had much compassion for him and I was able to stay my tongue much more. His home ward was sending the $110/month stipend to him so he could be on the mission.
Back on track - so we got to the phone as the person that had been there previously was disappearing around the darkened side of the store. I walked up to the phone, picked up the receiver and, as I was raising it to my ear, I noticed something glistening in the light from the street lamp. I immediately went to put the receiver back on the catch it rested on and stepped back and out of the way as I announced to my companion, "Its a bomb - step back". I had no comprehension of what I was saying - but placing the phone back on the catch (and not dropping it - or pulling it fully up to my ear), saved my life. I am certain of it. I had never heard of a bomb being attached to a phone, had not thought about the experience the summer before in Bellingham - it was not my thought and impulse. I am sure there was an intervention from heaven - an impulse that was not from me. After I settled down - we approached it and examined it from the side. It was a device that used a 4" diameter speaker magnet to attach it to the steel base of the phone. A 2" pipe was brazed to a 1/8" thick plate that the magnet was dually glued and magnetized to. One end of the 2" pipe was threaded and capped. In the capped end of the pipe was drilled a 1/4" hole with a short thin-wall pipe attached. On the end of the short piece of pipe was attached a blasting cap. On the base plate, a rat trap had been brazed.
When the phone receiver was picked up, there was some heavy duty fishing line that went to an exacto blade that was on a pivot. When the exacto grazed the line that held the rat trap back (resisted the strong spring), the line would fail, sending the rat trap (that had a 1/2" square plate brazed onto it) smashing into the blasting cap. That explosion would then ignite (through the short tube) about 1/2 cup of blasting powder that was in the end of the 2" capped pipe. That was behind some tamped/waxed toilet paper that acted as some wadding. Directly forward of the wadding were 7, 1/2" diameter ball bearings, followed by some more waxed wadding. Had I not had that impulse to call it a bomb and not raise it to my ear fully - it most likely would have ignited and send those balls ripping through my lower abdomen. It would have taken around 1 hour to get to the nearest hospital in downtown Natal which probably would not have had the resources to treat me - and I expect I would have died. At that point (a month previous) - I had just gone through a week of hell where I had lost 35 pounds as my body slowly succombed to e-coli (I will blog that one later). This was the second serious attempt on my life in Brazil - and I began to wonder if I would make it back alive. This was a raw, mysterious land where life was not as valued as it was back in the worst of conditions in the States. I had to learn to operate on faith or I would never know the joys of being a married man - or of having kids and all those adventures. I HAD to survive this experience in order to accomplish the rest of my non-mission, mission.
So how did we find out how the bomb was constructed - and what the guts of the bomb contained? Well, Elder Pereira was enthralled with it and decided to put his fingerprints on it. Brazil was then a police state - everyone is fingerprinted including Elders (like me and Elder Pereira). If it were not dismantled properly and disposed of, he might be implicated as the one who had built it. I was very irritated with him for not listening to me to leave it alone. As dumb 19 year olds go, we did the best we could and removed it from the phone and I took it back to the house and we carefully took it apart and buried the remains in the back yard - after we ignited the powder on the kitchen floor and smashed the blasting cap between two large rocks, of course..... Redneck fireworks! We locked our slatted shutters the best we could for weeks after that - in an area where we had had garments and t-shirts stolen off our drying lines by people who had penetrated our fenced compound - we did not want whoever it was trying to do further mayhem. We never did come to a firm conclusion as to whether that was intended for us (by a pastor of a church we had shut down by baptizing all their members) or whether it was intended for a drug dealer or someone that used this phone regularly. Or for us - who used that phone religiously around 9:30pm every Monday night. Was that person I saw working on it frantically trying to get it hooked up for us - or was he trying to frantically remove it when he saw we were coming and its intended victim was not the next one to use the phone. I saw no evidence that it was in a partially discombobulated state and it appeared fully functional - so I lean towards it being for me or my companion in order to stop the work in that area. We were building a new chapel across the neighborhood for Ramo Potengi - so there was some opposition to the "new guys".
No doubt, some dog will confuse the stuffing out of his owner when he digs the rusting bomb remains up in the back yard sometime in the future.....
So the moral of this wild (and true) tale is: God will sometimes prepare you in unusual ways for future events in life so that you are able to react properly and avert disaster. That includes physical, as well as spiritual events.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
TEMPLE IMAGERY
Wow - some people are just crazy smart and have amassed huge amounts of information.
Here is a site that specializes in Temple Imagery. VERY WELL DONE!
Here is a taste of what is one this site:
“And I saw seven men in white clothing, who were saying to me, "Arise, put on the vestments of the priesthood, the crown of righteousness, the oracle of understanding, the robe of truth, the breastplate of faith, the miter for the head, and the apron for prophetic power." Each carried one of these and put them on me and said, "From now on be a priest, you and all your posterity." The first anointed me with holy oil and gave me a staff. The second washed me with pure water, fed me by hand with bread and holy wine, and put on me a holy and glorious vestment. The third put on me something made of linen, like an ephod. The fourth placed . . . around me a girdle which was like purple. The fifth gave me a branch of rich olive wood. The sixth placed a wreath on my head. The seventh placed the priestly diadem on me and filled my hands with incense, in order that I might serve as priest for the Lord God.” (Testament of Levi 8:2-10)
ENJOY!!:
http://washings-anointings.blogspot.com/
Here is a site that specializes in Temple Imagery. VERY WELL DONE!
Here is a taste of what is one this site:
“And I saw seven men in white clothing, who were saying to me, "Arise, put on the vestments of the priesthood, the crown of righteousness, the oracle of understanding, the robe of truth, the breastplate of faith, the miter for the head, and the apron for prophetic power." Each carried one of these and put them on me and said, "From now on be a priest, you and all your posterity." The first anointed me with holy oil and gave me a staff. The second washed me with pure water, fed me by hand with bread and holy wine, and put on me a holy and glorious vestment. The third put on me something made of linen, like an ephod. The fourth placed . . . around me a girdle which was like purple. The fifth gave me a branch of rich olive wood. The sixth placed a wreath on my head. The seventh placed the priestly diadem on me and filled my hands with incense, in order that I might serve as priest for the Lord God.” (Testament of Levi 8:2-10)
ENJOY!!:
http://washings-anointings.blogspot.com/
CHURCH FILM ON YOUTUBE
I just watched this while posting. I thought you might like this, as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9-2vPFtL_c&NR=1&feature=endscreen
THE TESTAMENTS: ONE FOLD, ONE SHEPHERD
Sure beats watching "the game" on the Sabbath.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9-2vPFtL_c&NR=1&feature=endscreen
THE TESTAMENTS: ONE FOLD, ONE SHEPHERD
Sure beats watching "the game" on the Sabbath.
SCATTERED UPON THE ISLANDS OF THE SEA
There are some who deny that ancient Israel existed. Some, though there is overwhelming physical proof to the contrary, would deny that the Temple once existed on Mt Moriah (I have attempted to display the physical evidence supporting that in this blog). For this, they will be heavily scourged as a people - for oppressing the covenant people of God, who also will be scourged prior to their receiving their gospel blessings at the hand of Ephraim/Judah and the Savior himself.
God's objective is not to punish or harm His children - but to save as many as He can; who will save themselves. Sometimes that is accomplished by difficult means. So when horrible things happen in our lives, each juncture is an opportunity to ponder and reflect on the state of standing before our Maker. What can I learn from this tragedy? How can I grow from this? Is this a growth experience that builds faith - or is this a chastisement given in order that I can make a course correction? <<< Which is also a form of growth - which takes you back to the null point - the place you were at before you departed the path God would have had you on originally.
One of my favorite people on this earth that I have had the joy of meeting is Elkanah Reuben. I always find the most fascinating people I can (then I stalk them....) and then mine them for all that they know. I usually will tell them up front my intentions..... Most everyone has a fascinating story - but I like to go for the best-sellers when I detect that I have stumbled across one. I first saw Elkan's name on a group roster at the large company that I work for - and, because of that exotic name, knew immediately that he was Jewish - and then inquired after him and found that he was from India. A Jewish guy from India - and I had heard about the lost Jews of India. Could he be one of that group? I was immediately excited to know his story - I knew there was something for me to learn. The Spirit let me know that I would have opportunity to interview him extensively - and I just needed to be patient. The Lord who works all things saw to it that we were directed to the same program, then to the same group two years later. We now sit across from each other - and have for the last several years. Because the role of our jobs is like that of a firefighter; some down-time when production is humming along with some periods of intense activity, we have time to discuss really cool things. We have become good friends and have broken bread together - literally (as I learned that it was common for those who lived in Lehi's time to prepare and partake of the emblems of the blood and body of Christ - and that ritual (cleansing) baptism was common in that day). How would I know such a thing? Personal revelation - no, but that would be cool. I went over to Elkan's house for Friday prayers and one week and witnessed it as we went through the family prayers. In a previous post, I described how a few hundred thousand Jews ended up over in India - intact as a people a few thousand years later. When his ancestors saw the writing on the wall in ~589BC, they hired two merchant ships to spirit several families away from the approaching destruction - very Lehi-esque. As was the custom of sea-faring peoples of the day, they hugged the coasts as they sailed eastward. A massive storm arose and drove both ships onto the shore about 70 miles apart. The survivors became two separate settlements of Nogauker and one other town that slips my mind (near modern-day Bombay). They have managed to remain relatively stable as a group practicing their customs in their banished state and recently applying to return to Israel as one of the lost tribes. In finding these lost pockets of God's chosen ones, many have perverted their original customs depending on how faithful they have been. Ephraim and his fellows, with their back-sliding ways was virtually unrecognizable as one of the groups who once practiced the faith in the Holy Land before their departure. In fact, sometimes the only way to recognize some of those folks is to look for signs of their barbarity - such as the sacrificing of children to idols as the Northern tribes did in the groves of Molech before they were cleansed from the land for their insolence. I have found an interesting person on LDSFF named Darren who propounds and successfully argues that many of the customs of the Israelites are imbedded in northern European culture, even today. So I am always fascinated with the journeys and epic sagas of these groups (see my previous post on Tamara Tephi - Irish princess and direct descendant of Hezekiah and Judah). God did a mighty work in hiding these folks up in various parts of the vineyard in preparation for the final grafting, nurturing and harvest.
The reason I like to get Elkanah's perspective is that he is a direct descendant of Aaron - and currently flies out to Toronto on all of the high holy days in order to blow the shofar and read from the Torah at a small congregation that he is the priest over there. Their style of worship is more like what you would see in the Book of Mormon, or more like that of that of Adam's day (patriarchal) with a more loose construct (family-based devotion) with larger group gatherings on important religious holidays. I have a feeling that our style of worship will mirror that patriarchal system once the wicked have been purged during the millennial glory.
He recently shared with me the custom of that prayer box that Jews wear above their forehead and I thought I would share this interesting information:
God's objective is not to punish or harm His children - but to save as many as He can; who will save themselves. Sometimes that is accomplished by difficult means. So when horrible things happen in our lives, each juncture is an opportunity to ponder and reflect on the state of standing before our Maker. What can I learn from this tragedy? How can I grow from this? Is this a growth experience that builds faith - or is this a chastisement given in order that I can make a course correction? <<< Which is also a form of growth - which takes you back to the null point - the place you were at before you departed the path God would have had you on originally.
One of my favorite people on this earth that I have had the joy of meeting is Elkanah Reuben. I always find the most fascinating people I can (then I stalk them....) and then mine them for all that they know. I usually will tell them up front my intentions..... Most everyone has a fascinating story - but I like to go for the best-sellers when I detect that I have stumbled across one. I first saw Elkan's name on a group roster at the large company that I work for - and, because of that exotic name, knew immediately that he was Jewish - and then inquired after him and found that he was from India. A Jewish guy from India - and I had heard about the lost Jews of India. Could he be one of that group? I was immediately excited to know his story - I knew there was something for me to learn. The Spirit let me know that I would have opportunity to interview him extensively - and I just needed to be patient. The Lord who works all things saw to it that we were directed to the same program, then to the same group two years later. We now sit across from each other - and have for the last several years. Because the role of our jobs is like that of a firefighter; some down-time when production is humming along with some periods of intense activity, we have time to discuss really cool things. We have become good friends and have broken bread together - literally (as I learned that it was common for those who lived in Lehi's time to prepare and partake of the emblems of the blood and body of Christ - and that ritual (cleansing) baptism was common in that day). How would I know such a thing? Personal revelation - no, but that would be cool. I went over to Elkan's house for Friday prayers and one week and witnessed it as we went through the family prayers. In a previous post, I described how a few hundred thousand Jews ended up over in India - intact as a people a few thousand years later. When his ancestors saw the writing on the wall in ~589BC, they hired two merchant ships to spirit several families away from the approaching destruction - very Lehi-esque. As was the custom of sea-faring peoples of the day, they hugged the coasts as they sailed eastward. A massive storm arose and drove both ships onto the shore about 70 miles apart. The survivors became two separate settlements of Nogauker and one other town that slips my mind (near modern-day Bombay). They have managed to remain relatively stable as a group practicing their customs in their banished state and recently applying to return to Israel as one of the lost tribes. In finding these lost pockets of God's chosen ones, many have perverted their original customs depending on how faithful they have been. Ephraim and his fellows, with their back-sliding ways was virtually unrecognizable as one of the groups who once practiced the faith in the Holy Land before their departure. In fact, sometimes the only way to recognize some of those folks is to look for signs of their barbarity - such as the sacrificing of children to idols as the Northern tribes did in the groves of Molech before they were cleansed from the land for their insolence. I have found an interesting person on LDSFF named Darren who propounds and successfully argues that many of the customs of the Israelites are imbedded in northern European culture, even today. So I am always fascinated with the journeys and epic sagas of these groups (see my previous post on Tamara Tephi - Irish princess and direct descendant of Hezekiah and Judah). God did a mighty work in hiding these folks up in various parts of the vineyard in preparation for the final grafting, nurturing and harvest.
The reason I like to get Elkanah's perspective is that he is a direct descendant of Aaron - and currently flies out to Toronto on all of the high holy days in order to blow the shofar and read from the Torah at a small congregation that he is the priest over there. Their style of worship is more like what you would see in the Book of Mormon, or more like that of that of Adam's day (patriarchal) with a more loose construct (family-based devotion) with larger group gatherings on important religious holidays. I have a feeling that our style of worship will mirror that patriarchal system once the wicked have been purged during the millennial glory.
He recently shared with me the custom of that prayer box that Jews wear above their forehead and I thought I would share this interesting information:
The Torah tells us "And you shall bind them as a sign on your arm, and they shall be as frontlets on your head between your eyes" (Deuteronomy 6:8). This is the Mitzvah of Tefillin, though of course the details are much more complex than that.The Mitzvah of Tefillin
The Torah tells us in four places that we should put on tefillin. (The four places are: Deut.6:4-9; Deut. 11:13-21; Exodus 13:1-10; and Exodus 13:11-16.) Each of these places is a separate chapter in the Torah (according to the original chapter and paragraph system, not according to the more popular one now in use, which was created by Christians and bears no relation or similarity to the original system).
Therefore, each of these chapters are written on small pieces of parchment and placed into leather housings, which a man places on the arm and the head, along with special leather straps.
The Rabbis say many great things about the Mitzvah of Tefillin. The Sefer Hachinuch (Book of Jewish Education) says that it is one of the Mitzvos that helps protects us against sin.
I think that the best way to understand the Mitzvah of Tefillin is to read the prayer that we recite each day before putting them on.
My intention in putting on tefillin is to fulfill the will of my Creator, Who has commanded us to put on tefillin, as it says in His Torah, "And you shall bind them as a sign on your arm, and they shall be as frontlets on your head between your eyes."We put tefillin on once a day, usually for the morning prayers.
They contain the four chapters from the Torah in which the Mitzvah of tefillin is stated....
Those chapters discuss how Hashem, Whose Name is blessed, is One, and only One, in the entire universe. Those chapters also discuss the miracles and wonders that Hashem did for us when He took us out of Egypt. They discuss how Hashem alone has the power and the dominion to do whatever He wants in the physical world and in the spiritual world.
Hashem commanded us to put tefillin on our arms to remember the "strong arm" (which refers to the powerful and cataclysmic changes in nature that Hashem performed for us when He took us out of Egypt).
The tefillin on our arms is near the heart to control the lusts and thoughts of our hearts and redirect them towards performing the Service we are commanded to perform for Hashem, Whose Name is blessed.
The tefillin on our heads is near the brain, so that the spiritual elements in our brains, as well as our senses and all our abilities, should should all be controlled and redirected towards performing the Service we are commanded to perform for Hashem, Whose Name is blessed.
May the performance of the Mitzvah of tefillin influence me and bestow upon me long life, Holy Influence, holy thoughts -- without even a moment's consideration of any sin or bad thing whatsoever -- and that our Evil Inclination should not be aroused, nor should it seduce us, and should let us serve Hashem the way our hearts truly desire to.
May it be Your will, Hashem our G-d, and G-d of our forefathers, that You value our performance of this Mitzvah of putting on tefillin as if we had done it absolutely perfectly, with every detail accurate, and with all the correct thoughts and intentions....
We may not wear tefillin at night.
The Laws of creating tefillin are very complex. It is impossible for a layperson to make them. They must be written with Halachically acceptable ink, on Halachically acceptable parchment. Each letter must be formed according to specific and exacting details. If only one point on one letter is slightly rounded off when it should be pointed, the entire pair of tefillin is invalid. The housings must be perfectly square when viewed from the top. Even the stitches that keep the housing closed must be square when viewed from above, and may be done only with Halachically acceptable kosher animal sinews.
The letters must all be written in order. If a letter has been written incorrectly, it cannot be fixed out of sequence. Sometimes one bad letter can invalidate an entire pair of tefillin.
Since there are so many Laws about tefillin, one should buy them only from an honest Jew who knows the Laws, and can be trusted to make them correctly. A dishonest man might find a problem, and fix it incorrectly, just to save money. Therefore we must be very careful from whom we buy our tefillin.
When you go to buy tefillin, be aware that there are various levels of quality in tefillin. This is not a scam. The more expensive ones are actually better, and they will also last longer. They are also more preferred, the Talmud says, because they are created with a greater adherence to various spiritual concepts. But you should get what you are ready, willing and able to buy.
Get your tefillin checked periodically -- at least once every four years, preferably once a year if possible. Any other time, if you see something wrong, such as the housings bending slightly, or paint chipping or cracking, get your tefillinchecked immediately.
Here are some of the Laws you should know about wearing tefillin.
If for some reason you have only one half of the set, whether it be only the one for the head, or only the one for the arm, put that one on and recite only the blessing for that one.
When putting on tefillin it is very important to have a clean body. In addition to general cleanliness, one must be especially careful to be clean after going to the bathroom.
Someone who has no control over what comes out of his body is forbidden to wear tefillin. Anyone in that situation should discuss it with his Rabbi to find out when and how he may wear tefillin.
One should go to the bathroom before putting on tefillin, or at least be absolutely sure he will not have to go while wearing the tefillin. If while wearing tefillin you feel the need to go to the bathroom, you must immediately remove the tefillin and go.
If you feel the need to pass gas while wearing tefillin, you must first remove your tefillin.
Never take tefillin or any holy item into a bathroom.
While wearing tefillin, one should think no thoughts at all except thoughts of Hashem, Torah or prayer. All the more so should he be careful about what he says out loud.
We may wear tefillin only during the day.
We do not put on tefillin on Shabbos.
Tefillin should be put on your weaker hand. If you are right-handed, use your right hand to put your tefillin on your left hand. If you are left-handed, use your left hand to put tefillin on your right hand. If you are ambidextrous, you must ask your Rabbi, because each case is different. If you are unable to contact a Rabbi for some reason, assume in the interim that the hand with which you write is your stronger hand (for this purpose, at least).
Always treat your tefillin with the greatest of respect and reverence. Do not remove them from the bag by shaking them out of the bag, for example. Always take them out carefully, and put them back carefully.
To show our love for the Mitzvah, we use our stronger hand to put the tefillin onto our weaker hand. We also use our stronger hand to put the tefillin on our head. When taking off the tefillin, we use our weaker hand, to show our reluctance to take off the Mitzvah.
Tefillin are made of leather. That means that you must keep them safe from things that hurt leather, like moisture and extreme temperatures.
This is a brief guide to putting on tefillin, but it will be much easier if you have a live person showing you and helping you your first time. Words and pictures cannot equal the real thing. You should be standing when putting on or taking off tefillin. While wearing them you may sit, but while putting them on or taking them off you should be standing.
How to Put on Your Tefillin
We start with the hand. We never start with the head, so if you accidentally take out the shel rosh (the one for the head) first, you must put it back and take out the shel yad (the one for the hand).
Unwrap the straps and take the shel yad out of the box.
Open the loop very wide, and slide back the shel yad until the bayis (the housing -- i.e., the black box) sits on the center of your biceps.
The knot should be tightly touching the bayis, and should be between you and the bayis.
Recite the first blessing:
Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, Who has made us holy through His commandments, and commanded us to put on tefillin.
Tighten the loop, and begin wrapping the strap around your hand. There are different customs about some of the minor details of the wrapping, so I will explain the custom that is shown in the pictures. In the picture I have included on this page, the man is wrapping the strap towards himself, but some have the custom to wrap away from themselves.
Wrap at least once around your biceps, and seven times around your lower arm. Stop at the palm, and wrap the remainder of the strap around your palm. Do not wrap the strap around your fingers just yet.
Remove the shel rosh from the bag, unwrap the straps, and take it out of the box.
Place the shel rosh on your head, with the bayis on your head just before the hairline.
The knot should be behind your head, just above your neck, and the strap should be lying loosely on your head.
Recite the blessing:
Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, Who has made us holy through His commandments, and commanded us concerning the Mitzvah of tefillin.
Tighten the straps around your head by pulling them down at the sides, front and back, as necessary.
This is how it should look.
This is wrong. The shel rosh is too far forward.
Recite:
Now resume wrapping the strap of the shel yad. Unwind the strap from your palm, and wrap the strap around your middle finger. There are various customs concerning this. If you have no one there to guide you, do it this way:Shine upon me some of Your wisdom, Hashem Who is supreme, and give me understanding from Your understanding. Do great things for me out of Your kindness. Destroy, with your power, my enemies and adversaries. Let the good oil pour down on the seven branches of the menorah, to influence all Your creation with Your goodness. You open Your hand to satisfy the desires of all living things.
As the strap comes from the wrist, pass it over the back of your hand. Wrapping around to the other side, pass it between your thumb and your first finger and take the strap down to the middle finger.
Wrap it once around the base of the middle finger, then once around the middle section of the middle finger. Then wrap it once around the base of the middle finger again. This should create something resembling an X around your finger.
Next, pass it again under your finger, over to the next finger down, and around that finger, and back and over the back of your hand to the area between your thumb and fingers again.
Now take the strap down under your hand across the palm, and around and over again to the area between your thumb and fingers. If there is any strap left, continue to wrap it around your palm and hand.
Tuck the end of the strap into the palm of your hand, around and beneath some of the strap that is already there. Do this at least twice, and pass the end of the strap through the final tuck to make a loop, and tighten it, to sort of tie off the end.
Look at the picture above to see how your hand should look when you you are finished. You will see that the straps sort of spell out the Three-Letter Name of Hashem, with a "shin," a "daled," and a "yud."
Now recite:
Now say the prayers.
I will betroth you to Me forever, and I will betroth you to Me with righteousness, justice, kindness, and mercy. I will betroth you to Me with faithfulness, and you shall know Me, Hashem.
When you take off the tefillin, first unwrap the strap from your fingers, wrapping it around your palm. Then take off the shel rosh. Wrap it up and put it away. then take off your shel yad, wrap it up and put it away.
When you wrap your tefillin to put them away, do not pull the straps tightly around the boxes. Leather can stretch a little, but the paint on the straps cannot stretch without cracking. The straps must be entirely black, according to Halachah, and if the paint on them cracks the straps could become invalid.
To buy a pair of tefillin, visit Tiferes Stam Judaica. Ask them also for a good beginner's book on tefillin. One good source is Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's booklet on Tefillin.
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