I'm sending a picture of me on a 24 foot ladder hammering. I was being productive and hammering at this height for nearly 3 hours. I almost had a panic attack but I made it without dying! The strange lump on my butt is the cell phone.
I am so glad I don't have to watch TV - I don't know how I would deal with all the political stuff - my guess is not well. I think I mentioned this already, but President Boyd K. Packer's Conference talk gave me hope. I got the impression, just like you said Dad, that things will/can go bad - but as long as we have worthy Priesthood holders upholding the Constitution we'll be OK - eventually. President Packer's talk is called "The Test" - I recommend looking it up and either read or watch it. If nothing else - we know that the Church will make it through.
On a lighter note - I loved your Halloween costumes - did the Ward have a party or did you following in my footsteps and have a big party at the house? I'm crazy in love with Whitney's costume! I have every intention of using it at some point in the future. (Michael was Ralphie and I was the leg lamp from "A Christmas Story" - Whitney was a "Gold Digger")
I loved Dr. Alexanders cycle - it reminded me of the Book of Mormon. I'm on my second run through of the Book of Mormon since I left and one of my notes is something like me imagining Heavenly Father's reaction to people's prayers - "You're in bondage AGAIN? Oh man *sigh* I'm coming." I'm funny sometimes.
(The following is the quote Kelli referred to)
Cycle of Democracy
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage.
Dr. Alexander Tytler
Anyway, this week was spent doing lots and lots of service, we painted, hammered, cleaned and volunteered at the Iron Man competition. The Iron Man was my favorite - we got free t-shirts - our job was to track the athletes for their families. They would come up to us and tell us the number of the person they were watching and we would look it up and tell them approximately where they were in the race and how fast they had done the laps. Dad, you did a half Iron Man right? Or was that a triathlon - what is the difference?Mom - your Christmas tree is up already? You know that is tacky right? I bet you've got your lights on too. Congrats on losing the support hose - I assume you feel good and are pain free without them.
I was talking to Amanda this morning and was reminded of a quote I need to tell ya'll. We were talking to Kim and Haadi about Temples - Haadi is all kinds of curious - Kim didn't care that much she said "I'll see it when I see it." Then she went on and said, "If you've got Jesus sitting on a throne in there, I'm going to be mad." Oh I nearly died!
That's about it! I love ya'll - Kelli
P.S. I'll probably find out about the election from members, but tell me just in case.
