Mason Wheeler

Do what you can to get in shape. If you're in an area with no car, you're likely to be walking around 10 miles a day. Your first few months will be a lot easier if you can handle that before you go out into the mission field. (Go on, ask me how I know...)

It's so strange. A few days ago, I heard the news that the Church had announced he's suffering some health issues. And this random thought crossed my mind, "he's not going to make it to General Conference." And I thought, no, that's stupid, of course he will. And then this morning we get the news...

Relevant official Church policy: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/38-church-policies-and-guidelines?lang=eng&id=title_number118-p836#title_number118 https://assets.churchofjesuschrist.org/1d/76/1d76991533df11efbaeeeeeeac1ed7e66fbf94a7/general_handbook_guiding_principles_for_local_leaders.pdf

Or The Time Is Far Spent. I remember singing that one to the tune of The Spirit of God on my mission; it really messed with a few of my companions' heads!

Oh, lucky! I wish I could have gone to that!

That's the thing. There was plenty of darkness in earlier books, but the darkness gave the light something to shine in! Both The Final Empire and The Way of Kings were all about a hero facing horrible circumstances and triumphing and making things better. That was not what Wind And Truth was about, and this story tells us that all of that "making things better" comes to naught in the end, that Scadrial and Roshar do not improve in the long run but both turn into horrible places.

That was something that really bugged me about this story. It feels like a continuation of something very bad we saw hints of beginning in RoW and exploding onto the scene in full force in WaT: bleakness. Virtually everything about the wider milieu of this setting sucks. The Malwish have turned into evil imperialist overlords and conquered half the Cosmere. The Rosharans under Odium are conquering the other half and seem to legitimately consider it generous to tax their subjects at a rate of 99% and "let them keep" the last 1%. Nazh is dead. Frost is missing, presumed dead. Hoid is locked up, unable to help anyone. Though we don't know the exact details, it's clear that the dragons exiled Starling for something involving trying to be compassionate to mortals rather than lord over them as a draconic tyrant. The Evil overran Threnody and is now spreading anti-Investiture monsters throughout the Cosmere. And so on... It almost feels like Brandon is forgetting that so many of his fans read the Cosmere, and not trash like ASOIAF, because it is not trash like ASOIAF. Bleakness and "grimdark" have no legitimate place in epic fantasy, and the Cosmere was one of the best refuges from that ugly trend. Was.

Probably Manti. It's one of the oldest temples in the Church, and its design is just beautiful. I love the way it has multiple ordinance rooms for the different stages of the Endowment, that you progress through as you go. I wish we hadn't stopped building temples on that pattern.

Don't forget the mention of people from Vax who are a whole new race, not human or ShoDel.

Haven't finished it yet, but... apparently one of the leaders of the Arcanists at Silverlight is named Argent.

I'm honestly surprised that there are still so many people who aren't familiar with the whole DHMO joke. I remember it was making the rounds back when I was in high school, in the 1990s. Here we are 30 years later; how has everyone not heard of it?

I'll always remember one time when I was young, on our way back from a youth temple trip, our Bishop told us that he had once been doing baptisms and the name that came up was Ronald MacDonald. He said everyone there just couldn't help themselves and cracked up laughing, right there in the temple, for a good minute or two.

Twice. There's the big obvious one in 1940, of course. (Which largely came as a direct result of measures the French government set up in the Treaty of Versailles, which led to the economic instability in Germany that brought the Nazi Party into power.) After the war, the Fourth Republic was established, and didn't make it even 15 years before it collapsed into a violent crisis, with a military coup bringing the nation to the brink of civil war. In the end, about the only thing Parliament could agree upon was that they were unfit to handle the mess, so they voted to dissolve the entire system, put war hero Charles Du Galle in power to resolve the problems (a "dictator" in the classical sense!) and get someone else to set up a new constitution.