A “Yankee Heater” is when you go outside in the cold for awhile. When you come back inside, the interior feels much warmer than it did.

We had a young family getting baptized this afternoon. The arctic cold front has covered everything with ice and though we do get some weather out here on the high plains its more than the town can handle. We aren’t even trying. A few cars are creeping across the ice. And our cars, because we are going to the baptism.

We come in from the cold to the warmth of the church. But after awhile, the church starts to feel a little cold, once we get used to being inside. There is some air moving around or something.

The couple in particular looks a little cold. Then they go down into the water—we set the temperature at the high end of comfortable—and they are toasty warm again.

Then they come back out and the cool air hits again.

I think there’s a figure of baptism in that. Call it “Yankee Baptism.” You come in from the spiritual cold and everything feels warm to you. But after awhile, you realize that there are still drafts even inside the Church.

The only solution is the one we learned from Lehi’s Dream—you can’t just taste the fruit once, you have to come to it again and again. You move from cold to warmth, from cold to warmth. You repeat the baptism experience through the sacrament and other spiritual experiences as your capacity to experience spiritual warmth increases.