Temperature is the amount of motion of atoms/molecules in a material. It is a form of kinetic energy. It seems ethereal because we are used to kinetic energy in the form of an object moving as a whole. Kinetic energy is easy to understand then.

Temperature is kinetic energy all jumbled and shared around between the great many super tiny particles inside the material. The whole object isn’t moving, but inside, it sort of is, but all spread out and averaged to zero. The dynamics of heat, or the transfer of temperature, gets complicated by microscopic effects, but it is still just kinetic energy. Phase transformations, like freezing, also gets complicated, because of the weird ways atoms ‘click together’ when a material goes from a liquid to a solid, but it is valid to say that ice is just water that is cold enough that it’s molecules settle down enough to click together like Legos, and this happens a 0 degrees Celsius.

If the popular notion of the Mpemba effect is suggesting to people that hot things are easier to make cold, then that is like saying a faster car is more easily stopped, which is obviously wrong. If you want to make ice, use cold water, silly.