Making the Most of Temple Time

On our way to the temple this morning, I imagined a superhero with a somewhat unique ability. He could create hoops in the air, then a pulling force (which he could charge up for greater effect) would then pull him through them. I realized that these hoops couldn't be stationary in space because, if they were, the earth's revolutions around the sun and our solar system's revolutions around the galaxy would cause the stationary hoops to immediately fly out into space (or so it would seem from our perspective). Instead, the hoops had to be anchored to fixed points relative to the earth. Then I figured that if the hoops could be fixed to points relative to the earth, perhaps they could be fixed to other objects instead. I also figured that since every action had an equal and opposite reaction, the same force that was pulling the superhero toward and through the hoop was also pulling the hoop toward and around the superhero, potentially bringing the object to which it was affixed with it.

As I played around with the physics of this superpower in my mind, I puzzled over the question of whether this power set could be used to push an object away from the superhero, which would be a useful ability to have. I decided that the hero could only pull on his hoops, not push himself away from them, and I thought of several convoluted methods of trying to push an object around by pulling on the hoop whose position is affixed to it.

Eventually, I solved the puzzle. If the object, the superhero, and the hoop formed a straight line in that order, with the superhero standing between the object and the hoop whose position is set to a point relative to the object, then the superhero could "push" the object away from him by pulling the hoop toward him while the hoop maintained a constant distance away from the object. Of course, for this to work, the superhero would have to be sufficiently anchored or the object sufficiently light, but I figured that the hero could anchor himself with a strong pulling force to a point affixed to a sufficiently massive object, like the earth.

And I thought about all of that while I was at the temple.

Obviously, that was not a good use of Temple Time.

Thankfully, I spent a good deal of time at the temple, so I was able to shelve the physics-defying hoop hero for a while and instead spend a good deal of time focusing on spiritual matters. I meditated, I pondered, and I felt the Spirit strongly, as one should when one attends the Temple. With my thoughts affixed to the right spiritual objects, I was able to pull myself a little closer to my heavenly home.

It's fine to think of superheroes every so often, and solving puzzles is a fun way to develop our brains. Figuring out how the hoop-puller could "push" on objects may have helped a bit toward my mental development and thus my spiritual development, since our minds are part of our spirits, but focusing on spiritual matters had a much greater effect and was thus a much better use of my time.

We only have a short amount of time in mortality, and we can only spend a small fraction of that time at the temple. When we do get Temple Time, it's important to make good use of it.