Thoughts on Conference -

I have been working with the missionaries as they are teaching a young lady about 26 years old. She remembers Tiana from high school. She was raised strong Catholic and for the last two years has been very active in a Evangelical Christian church where she works with the youth and has made several charitable mission trips to Mexico and South America with that group. She is one that is living the religion she has been taught. A whole new world has opened up to her by teaching her the restored gospel. The first LDS church meeting she attended was a very powerful and spiritually rich Stake Conference two weeks ago and she made a very interesting statement after the meeting. As I’m listening to General Conference this weekend I keep on thinking about what she said.
Her impression was one I have heard from a number of investigators or visitors to our church meetings. Their walk-away impression of an uplifting and spiritual meeting has always bothered and saddened me. To summarize her comment she said, “It seemed like a business meeting. Where was the room for worship?” Her comment just blew me away and I wondered about the disconnect, and are we missing something in our meetings?
I think it is all based on the premise of why we attend church. To many in the Christian world, they attend church to “worship” God. To aid in that practice they employ crosses, ornamentation, gowns and robes, participatory services, and lots of “Praise the Lord”. They attend weekly to drop off their few minutes of worship and praise and once that’s taken care of they can go about and live their own lives. It is good to bow in respect and admiration of Heavenly Father and in the Savior, but is that true worship? Almost sounds like the Rameumpton people in the Book of Mormon.
During our “business meetings” the heart of the reason we gather weekly is to take the sacrament. Instead of bellicose external worship our route is one of very quite and individual reflection of our standing within the family of God. What better path then personal introspection into our discipleship and need for repentance to bring us back into at-one-ment. That is the whole reason of Christ’s passion. The ancillary talks are then designed to allow the spirit to direct our thoughts to ways we can live our lives better and draw closer to our Heavenly Father. Our worship is deep and personal but quiet and reflective. What better way to honor our HF then silently repenting and/or resolving to change our lives for the better. No need for drapes or incense or candles or crosses, just a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I like that kind of worship.
As I watch and enjoy General Conference it is a personal experience of worship as we have the opportunity to put on the whole armor of God and put off the natural man. It is a great opportunity and I’m so glad you all are taking advantage of the treasure of listening to a prophet’s voice. Enjoy conference.

GO GREEN - Recycle Congress

Whewwww…..We just got back from a fun filled trip to visit Celeste and Brad and family and I had one of those top ten thrills from the party Celeste threw for us on Saturday. Some of you may have heard about it on the news. But first let me ask who turned me in to the White House as being opposed to this administration? When we got to the airport, very late of course, the machine wouldn’t issue my boarding pass. Come to find out I’m on the watch list as a suspected terrorist. The guy at the ticket counter took my ID and had to call in to some Big Brother number and get approval to issue me a boarding pass. He said it was happening more and more now-a-days. My guess it is all those anti Obama emails I like to forward on to you all and the White House is watching and listening. Well listen to this- “Hell hath no fury like a taxpayer ignored.”

We had a great four days visiting with the Baillio’s and we got the royal tour to Ft. McHenry, the inspiration for the Star Spangled Banner, downtown Baltimore, dinner in little Italy, the National Aquarium on the inner harbor, the Smithsonian, the Antietam battlefield, Harper’s Ferry, and several monuments in Washington DC. But the crowning event of the trip was the opportunity to join with thousands, no tens of thousands, no hundreds of thousands marching through the street to protest what is happening to our country and it’s sharp left handed turn into socialism or worse.

I felt 20 years younger as our little family grabbed signs, waved flags, and thronged Pennsylvania Ave to march on the capital building. I grew up in Canada during the Viet Nam War and missed all the fun the Americans were having at protests and marches. Finally now in my mid 50’s I could contribute my voice and spirit to protest against the stupid, scary, and costly policies foisted upon us by this Democratic led government. Wow is it ever fun; I should have done this years ago. The visual banquet was amazing. Lots of people dressed in colonial garb and patriotic shirts displaying American flags and carrying painfully honest but humorous signs.

Joe Wilson was the big hero and Nancy Pelosi and Obama were the goats on most of the signs. Lots of veterans paraded in their hats and insignias. I was so proud of this nation and its citizens that can come together and make their voices heard. The march passed by the Newseum building which is a museum dedicated to Free Speech and a Free Press. On the 12 story structure there is a statement that covers one half of the building. That statement describes how important it is to have the ability to speak out and fight against Tyranny. It was inspiring to march by those words.

We travelled to DC on the Metro and as we approached the city the crowd grew louder and more colorful in the train. They were Americans from all over the county coming to the capital to live an important part of the American Dream. The train came to a stop at the right station and the platform was almost so crowded that the train couldn’t let off the passengers. Masses of people dressed in red, white and blue were chanting “USA! USA! USA!; man it was so thrilling to be there. We took the train down two more stops to visit the WWII Memorial before joining the protest. As we left the train we rode up the escalator with a nice black couple wearing OBAMA t-shirts and talked a little bit. They were headed to a large Black Family Reunion on the mall near the Washington Monument. I asked if they were going to join the big parade and they said “probably not today.” Here is an “only in America” point of interest. The marchers had much better signs and speakers, but the Black Family Reunion had better music and food….so after the rally there were tons of “Tea Party” and “Don’t Tread On Me” t-shirts peacefully chowing down on excellent Southern Fried finger food and Bar-B-Que at the Black Family event. It was a sight to behold; the happy enterprise of capitalism operating so effectively and efficiently. It brought together people of opposite and often violent views to eat and to make a profit. I love America.

Random Week

Nothing major this week, just a collection of random pluses and minus happening this week around the family:

1. My shoulders, arms, and back are killing me from trying to do weights with one of the missionaries staying with us – Elder Larmouth. He has 50 lbs dumbbells and I went along with the name and was dumb enough to think this old body could bench press them. The joke is on me and I can barely lift my arms.
2. To help a care giver out mom is having us watch her dog while she gives care. God must have been in a bad mood when he created Pug dogs – they are just down right ugly and this one stinks and farts constantly and wants to sit in everyone’s lap. Jensen and Lily liked him though; they have no sense of smell.
3. Average week for mom as she teaches on ground classes, on line classes, does counseling, and is working 24X7 trying to herd cats called caregivers into doing what they said they would do. She even has to listen to reasoned adults talk about themselves for 47 minutes. Her nickname is Atlas around here.
4. Congrats goes to Tiana….she landed her dream job of making people beautiful. They mainly do laser hair removal and this guy needs to be your first appointment.
5. Bummer with Austin….Keith doesn’t have room for him on the diving team at BYU this year but wants him next year. After looking at the pictures on Austin’s blog that might not be a bad thing…the pics show the results of a missed Rev 3 ½. Ouch!!!!
6. Congrats to the BYU Cougars who beat #3 ranked Oklahoma 14-13.
7. Don is preparing for a tough assignment in Afghanistan during the chilly months of winter.

Enjoy the Labor Day Holiday and remember that it was hard work and entrepreneurship that built this country, not social giveaways and government control.

It has been a Knock Out week –

The strangest thing happened this week; I was walking this female client out to her car after a late afternoon appointment when this mugger jumped us and I ended up with this black eye…..no wait it was mom simply tired of me leaving my dishes out and she wanted to punctuate the point…..or could it have been my tender Marine son Don who wanted to handicap our racquetball game at the beginning with a quick shot to my eye with the racquet. You guessed correctly, it was Don leaving me a reminder of his visit. It was great to see him, if only with one eye.
In fact it was great to see all the kids together for the first time in 4 years, even if it was only for an hour brunch. I can’t tell you how much I love my family. You all have taken our feeble efforts to make a few memories and daily scripture study into happy marriages, healthy grandkids, and a positive attitude towards Heavenly Father. You even all vote conservative – a parent couldn’t ask for more. Life is good.
Here are a few pictures from the week.

Adding my voice....

With all the fun this country is having with their town halls, I feel I have missed out on the opportunity to shout a little bit and raise some H___ too. So I’m spouting off here in this venue.

I listened to part of Barak Obama’s town hall meeting held in Grand Junction yesterday. This man is a con artist. The words he so smoothly dispenses are so different than his actions and the poison he spews is wrapped in a sugar coating. The scary part is that so many people believe him.

He makes the insurance companies an enemy to us: to cover the weakness of his health care plan. It is their fault we have a crises – “let’s get ‘em”. Yet private insurance could be part of the solution and is probably the best solution. He effectively blocks off a source of ideas and solutions to create an enemy. That is self preservation not leadership.

He says – “You’re either for reform or anti-reform”. I say NO. I’m for reform but not his flavor of reform that allows for: the government to have access to our personal banking information to “collect payments”, rationed medical care, slowly eliminating private insurance companies, creating a national database of personal medical information, paying for illegal alien’s medical coverage, and supporting taxpayer funded abortions, etc. Yes we need to make improvements but so use the free enterprise system that reduces costs and improves service. There are many great ideas out there that are not being circulated or talked about because the Obama plan has sucked all the air out of the room. I want plans not government based like Medicare which is burdened with incredible amounts of debt and corruption.

Let’s start with tort reform and remove the obscene amounts of wasted money paid to trial lawyers who are not part of the solution. The government is not the appropriate administer of a health care plan – we can do better.

The bottom line fear is “who is going to pay” for the services. How do you add 47 million patients to the system and then claim that a government-run health care solution will decrease the debt. It is a blatant LIE and people still believe him. The Zimbabwe currency was declared defunct yesterday because of rampant inflation that required billions of their dollars to buy bread. We are headed down the same road unless we get the government to stop printing money. Having them run health care will not help to strengthen our currency or country. It is a recipe for disaster.

Now I feel better

Bike Hike

No time to write, just some pictures from our weekend getaway to Woodland Park and Garden of the Gods for a bike hike. I loved the lake trail and mom loved the rocks in Garden of the Gods.

New Light on the Subject –

I have been working for almost two years to get into this one company to do their 401 K program. It is a good sized company, growing fast, and they have doctors, but they have been reluctant to pull the trigger on a program because of the economy. They finally started the process and my name wasn’t on the list of prospective providers. My contact with the company got me an appointment for a presentation at the last minute.

I was panicked. I hadn’t been able to meet with them to do any data gathering and they were already at the selection stage. They sent a truly ugly RFP by way and it was some idiot document pulled from the internet and gave no direction at all. I had no time to prepare, no direction, no ideas on a plan design solution, and big expectations. My friend had stuck his neck out for me to arrange my appointment. I did what any silly sales guy does – I procrastinated hoping for then to just give me the business based on good looks. That would be a fast shut down.

I actually prayed like crazy for a couple of days with nothing reveled to me. The day before the presentation I was in a real panic. Then that morning during prayers it all came together. I saw how I needed to organize my presentation and spent a couple of hours after the temple shift that night preparing the agenda. During the meeting I had to fight the urge to persuade and sell and instead I helped them organize their thoughts and outlined what they needed to do to put a complex plan in place. We got really involved in mapping out their organization and what they needed to do and we ran out of time before I had told them all my sales points. I thought it was over.

They called the next morning to say that I was the only one that seemed interested in their business organization and how to help them put the proper plan in place. The business was mine and they canceled two other presentations. The spirit is a great business partner – I ought to use it more.

The other light came from mom’s wishes to have new lights in the front entry. We spent all day on rented scaffolding 15 ft in the air changing out the light fixture. Ladders aren’t my thing anymore.