The Oatmeal Isn't Hot

Quiet Echo: “The Oatmeal Isn't Hot” Host: Dan Larson | Cedar Valley News | October 16, 2026 Called back to fix a cabinet door a sixteenth of an inch out of line, in a house full of a man’s grown children, Dan Larson caught himself judging the homeowner, then drove home composing a complaint to the lumberyard about six shorted boards. On the way he remembered a story from General Conference: Elder Dale G. Renlund’s patient, Mr. Martin, kept alive through heart failure and failing organs on mechanical pumps, given one donor heart which failed and a second which took, who ten days later gripped his breakfast tray and said, “The oatmeal isn’t hot, and the milk isn’t cold.” Dan stops laughing when he sees the man fixed on the small thing, blind to the full house, was not the homeowner but himself. He keeps the complaint, lets it stay small, and goes in to supper. Write to us. What is the cold oatmeal in your life this week, and what larger thing is it keeping you from seeing? Send a letter to our Letters to the Editor page: https://bit.ly/40p8jKy Get Cedar Valley News free, every morning. Sign up here: https://publicationconsultants.aweb.page/daily-cedar-valley-news Sources. Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles delivered “How Long Will It Be Ere They Believe Me?” in the Saturday afternoon session of the October 2026 (196th Semiannual) General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, October 3, 2026. The heart-patient anecdote, with “Mr. Martin” a pseudonym, opens the talk. Official text: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2026/10/21renlund Coverage: https://www.thechurchnews.com/general-conference/2026/10/03/elder-dale-g-renlund-october-2026-general-conference-trust-savior/ Cedar Valley News is fiction. Its columnists and townspeople are invented, including Dan Larson and the house he was called back to, though the public facts it cites are real and sourced. The talk is real. Written by Evan Swensen, Publisher, with Claude Marshall, AI Developmental Editor. A reflection, not a report.