Is America Better Now Than Five Years Ago?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the realization that President Donald Trump is fixing America. We were living in a broken country. There were too many people living illegally in the United States. Foreign nations were taking advantage of the goodness of Americans. Republicans are concerned that the November election will follow the historical precedent that the party in power loses seats in the House and Senate and possibly power.

Victor Davis Hanson believes that we are getting an inaccurate picture. In his article published in The Daily Signal, Hanson suggests that we look at the real world and compare the current conditions with those of the Biden administration. 

Let’s start with Canada. Canada is very angry. We’re in a trade dispute. Is Canada now making a serious effort? Does it promise that it will meet its NATO commitments? It hasn’t yet, or it barely has, but it’s making progress. It better do it. Is it trying to address, in a haphazard fashion, the idea that it can just dump product, or it can have these high tariffs and run $50 billion to $80 billion tariffs with impunity, as Mexico did? No.

Our relationship with Canada is changing for the better for us. It’s changing for the better for Mexico. Do they like it? No. Why don’t they like it? Because they had a pretty good deal at our expense.

Is the border closed? Yes. Is illegal immigration plaguing us at 10,000 a day? No. How about Venezuela? Is it importing terrorism and narcotics to North America? No. We just signed a deal that will essentially allow the United States, for 100 years, to have access to 65 billion barrels of high-sulfur, thick, but very valuable Venezuelan oil. They get $19, no matter what, without spending a dime, off every barrel that the oil companies try to extract.

And if you do the math, the cost in Venezuela is not Saudi Arabia, not the United States. It’s not light sweet crude. It’s not easy. It’s a politically difficult place. It’s a geographically and climate-challenged place, and it will cost those oil companies anywhere from $30 to $40 to $50. And if oil goes below $65, it’s going to be hard to see how they make a profit. It’s good for Venezuela. That’s why they agreed to it.

But more importantly, all of South America and all of the Caribbean and all of Central America is unrecognizable from five years ago when Joe Biden entered office. There is no problem now with the Panama Canal. Cuba is on the ropes. There’s only five governments in Latin America that are anti-American. The vast majority are capitalist, democratic, pro-American.

Go to the Middle East. One of the biggest problems we’ve had the last 50 years in the Middle East, one of the biggest, the biggest, is Iran. But not just Iran, its proxies: the Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah. There was no Lebanon. It was kidnapped by Hezbollah.

You heard the Lebanese prime minister the other day. He said, for the first chance, there’s real opportunity in Lebanon. Why? Because Hezbollah has been defanged by Israel, but more importantly, it has no money. Why? Because we have the strictest sanctions, embargoes, that we’ve ever seen on Iran.

And as Iran, as we hear, is winning the war, they’re just about kaput. They’re strangled. We talked about an Anaconda program. Their military has been degraded by about 90%, but more importantly, they have no oil. No oil is getting in. They even have gas lines in their own country. Their currency is worthless. They’re the pariah of the world….

It’s not that the war is going bad or going good. It’s that the war is irrelevant. In other words, our life goes on and Iran’s doesn’t, and time is on our side. Maybe it’s going to be six weeks. Maybe it’s going to be six months. But it cannot survive the economic sanctions that are now in place.

And the entire Middle East is starting to wake up and see that there’s a really good chance to go to a normal regional atmosphere without that pernicious, toxic government.

The Strait of Hormuz is going to be irrelevant in two or three years. Pipelines are already in progress that will bypass the Strait of Hormuz….

But when Iran is out of the question, oil prices will not just drop, I think they’ll crash. And who’s going to control most of the oil in the world? The United States, because it’s got this good deal with Venezuela, and it’s already the largest producer of natural gas.

If you look at Russia, Russia’s a shadow of its former self. If you look at NATO, it’s rearming in a way that no one had thought would ever be possible….

You add it all up, and the EU model …it’s been thoroughly repudiated….

In other words, the socialist model has failed all over the world, and it’s starting to implode. And it’s not gaining ground in the United States. It’s a last gasp of a frustrated urban elite and partly due to radical immigration.

Add it all up, and the United States is in a preeminent position. And the world today has nothing in common with the world just five years ago. That could be very bad.

But when you look systematically in a disinterested, rational fashion, and you look at the power of China vis-à-vis the United States, you look at Russia vis-à-vis the United States, you look at Latin America vis-à-vis the United States, you look at the Middle East vis-à-vis the United States, you look at Europe vis-à-vis the United States, you come up with either two conclusions, and they’re not incompatible.

No. 1, the United States is much stronger and in a much better position than those countries and regions I just mentioned.

And No. 2, whether they like us or not, they’re moving toward the United States, not because they want to necessarily, but because our system is producing spectacular growth economically, militarily, socially, culturally, and, more importantly, in the technologies to come in the future: AI, software, space exploration, satellites, bioengineering. We’re preeminent.

So, do not listen before these midterms that we’re in crisis, the loss of war: We’re in a world that is completely unrecognizable to the one five years ago. And the fact that we haven’t been able to appreciate it is largely because we’re right in the middle of the storm. We’re in the eye of the hurricane.

But the storm is passing, and it’s going to be very advantageous for the United States in the next decade.

 

 

Articles of Faith: What Do Latter-day Saints Believe About the Fall of Adam 6?

Article of Faith 2

   We believe that men will be punished for their own sins,

                    and not for Adam’s transgression.

This essay is the sixth and final one teaching about the Fall of Adam and Eve as stated in the second Article of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The first thesis discussed moral agency, or the freedom to choose good or evil. The second treatise discussed sin and punishment for sin. The third essay discussed Satan. The fourth paper discussed the creation of Adam and Eve and Satan’s great temptation. The fifth essay discussed the tree of life and the immediate result of the Fall. This thesis will discuss how the Atonement was provided for because the Fall did not come by chance, using the words of Elder James E. Talmage (The Articles of Faith [1890], 66-68).

Atonement Provided for – God did not leave His now mortal children without hope. He gave other commandments to Adam, requiring him to offer sacrifices in the name of the Only Begotten Son, and promising redemption unto him and all his descendants who would comply with the conditions prescribed. The opportunity of winning the victor’s reward by overcoming evil was explained to our parents, and they rejoiced. Adam said: “Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God.” Eve was glad and declared: “Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.”

The Fall came not by chance – It would be unreasonable to suppose that the transgression of Eve and Adam came as a surprise to the Creator. By His infinite fore-knowledge, God knew what would be the result of Satan’s temptation to Eve, and what Adam would do under the resulting conditions. Further, it is evident that the fall was foreseen to be a means whereby man could be brought into direct experience with both good and evil, so that of his own agency he might elect the one or the other, and thus be prepared by the experiences of a mortal probation for the exaltation provided in the beneficent plan of his creation [emphasis added]: “For behold, this is my work and my glory – to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Pearl of Great Price, Moses 1:39) spoke the Lord unto Moses. It was the purpose of God to place within the reach of the spirits begotten by Him in the heavens the means of individual effort, and the opportunity of winning not merely redemption from death but also salvation and even exaltation, with the powers of eternal progression and increase. Hence it was necessary that the spiritual offspring of God should leave the scenes of their primeval childhood and enter the school of mortal experience, meeting, contending with, and overcoming evil, according to their several degrees of faith and strength. Adam and Eve could never have been the parents of a mortal posterity had they not themselves become mortal; mortality was an essential element in the divine plan respecting the earth and its appointed inhabitants; and, as a means of introducing mortality, the Lord placed before the progenitors of the race a law, knowing what would follow.

Eve was fulfilling the foreseen purposes of God by the part she took in the great drama of the fall; yet she did not partake of the forbidden fruit with that object in view, but with intent to act contrary to the divine command, being deceived by the sophistries of Satan, who also, for that matter, furthered the purposes of the Creator by tempting Eve; yet his design was to thwart the Lord’s plan. We are definitely told that “he knew not the mind of God, wherefore he sought to destroy the world” (Pearl of Great Price, Moses 4:6) [Emphasis added]. Yet his diabolical effort, far from being the initiatory step toward destruction, contributed to the plan of man’s eternal progression. Adam’s part in the great event was essentially different from that of his wife; he was not deceived; on the contrary he deliberately decided to do as Eve desired, that he might carry out the purposes of his Maker with respect to the race of men, whose first patriarch he was ordained to be.

Even the transgressions of men may be turned to the accomplishment of high purposes. The sacrificial death of Christ was ordained from before the foundation of the world, yet Judas who betrayed, and the Jews who brought about the crucifixion of the Son of God, are nonetheless guilty of the awful crime.

It has become a common practice with mankind to heap reproaches upon the progenitors of the family, and to picture the supposedly blessed state in which we would be living but for the fall; whereas our first parents are entitled to our deepest gratitude for their legacy to posterity – the means of winning title to glory, exaltation, and eternal lives. But for the opportunity thus given, the spirits of God’s offspring would have remained forever in a state of innocent childhood, sinless through no effort of their own; negatively saved, not form sin, but from the opportunity of meeting sin; incapable of winning the honors of victory because prevented from taking part in the conflict. As it is, they are heirs to the birthright of Adam’s descendants – mortality, with its immeasurable possibilities and its God-given freedom of action. From Father Adam we have inherited all the ills to which flesh is heir; but such are necessarily incident to a knowledge of good and evil, by the proper use of which knowledge man may become even as the Gods.

 

Why Does DEI Still Have Life?

The federal government banned “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or DEI, and public opinion of it has dropped. However, elite educational institutions still have it. Jarrett Stepman discussed the situation in his article published in The Daily Signal. 

DEI may be crumbling in the federal government and waning in the public esteem, but it is still going strong in elite educational institutions despite popular and legal headwinds against it.

Aaron Sibarium at The Washington Free Beacon dropped a report on Monday about how one prestigious law school journal often made race a deciding factor in the submissions it would accept.

Sibarium wrote that the prestigious California Law Review, the University of California at Berkeley School of Law’s top journal, brings on editors aggressively dedicated to promoting “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

This group of editors used an increasingly common set of procedures that let it create more racial diversity without directly saying, “Whites need not apply.”

The Free Beacon reported that it “reviewed 14 applications for the committee submitted between 2023 and 2026,” as well as internal announcements about which applications were ultimately accepted.

The pattern that emerged was clear.

“The documents offer a window into how editors at a top law review … are using personal statements to bypass bans on affirmative action, giving race as much weight or more than what one former committee member, Clemencia Garcia-Kasimirowski, dubbed ‘seemingly objective’ standards.”

One of the members of the California Law Review’s selection committee was former Politico Deputy Director Maya Parthasarathy, who came aboard in 2025.

Parthasarathy, according to the report, had previously used her position at Politico to aggressively promote DEI.

First, Parthasarathy dropped grade considerations for new hires, then she created a “holistic” review for new job applicants which apparently included an editing test. But even that test didn’t seem to be too important to the eventual hiring decision.

“For candidates on the borderline of a passing score on our test, we considered strengths they showed in other parts of their applications, and experiences they would bring to the table,” Parthasarathy wrote in her application to the California Law Review admissions committee, “At the end of my tenure at Politico, our team had grown from just one person of color – me – to fifty percent hires from underrepresented backgrounds.”

So, the objective hiring measures were effectively dropped. Then there was a flood of people hired from “underrepresented backgrounds.”

The thinly disguised form of racial hiring Parthasarathy described became ubiquitous in media, in corporate America, in law firms, and certainly in academia before the “vibe shift” and President Donald Trump’s election in 2024.

Practically every elite institution of every type grabbed hold of the “racial reckoning” and committed to hiring practices of dubious legal merit. But many of them got cold feet when the Department of Justice made it clear they would begin to enforce civil rights laws against them. However, as we’ve seen in many such cases, higher education just can’t give up what’s become its central reason for being.

It has shown a remarkable willingness to throw away notions of merit and credibility to continue the DEI racket, even in the face of legal threats.

And that was clearly the case at the California Law Review.

It wasn’t just one submissions editor who perfected the art of racist, “antiracist” dog-whistling to bring in artificially created diversity.

Previously mentioned Garcia-Kasimirowski blasted standardized testing as “created by a eugenicist” and denounced large scale lectures as “proven to disadvantage people of color.”

Two more editors explicitly said, according to Sibarium, that they joined the submission committee so they could boost Native American applicants.

One editor pledged that she would ensure that “students like the girl from my tribe can look to law review journals and feel represented.”

The submissions process was heavily skewed toward the personal statement, which, Sibarium noted, was often a deciding factor in whether an applicant was accepted or not. And the personal statements that were most likely to be accepted were clearly weighted toward students who demonstrated how they would fit the goals of DEI.

When you see story after media story complaining about how the Trump education department is waging a war on “education,” or how conservatives want to defund “research,” think of this report.

Our nation’s top schools have replaced merit with the ultimately shallow but ruthlessly discriminatory demands of DEI. This report on the California Law Review doesn’t shock me. What would shock me at this point is if any top law review didn’t use DEI in some way…..

It’s an important lesson to keep in mind going forward. They’ll never give it up, but they’ll keep you down if you don’t have the right skin color and don’t bow to the same gods of DEI that they do.

Who Is Dolly Parton?

My VIP for this week is Dolly Parton. She was born in a one-room cabin in January 1946 in Tennessee, the fourth of twelve children. The family later moved to a two-room cabin and a farm. Dolly’s father was illiterate and worked first as a sharecropper and then in construction. Her mother cared for the large family and shared musical talents with her children. Dolly described her family as being “dirt poor.”

Dolly wrote her first song at age six and began to perform in public at age ten. She became a singer-songwriter, actress, businesswoman, and philanthropist. She was known as the “Queen of Country.” She wrote more than 3,000 songs and sold more than 100 million records. Her music endures with hit songs like Jolene, Coat of Many Colors, 9 to 5, and I Will Always Love You. She starred in films, such as 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolias. In her six-decade career, she earned 11 Grammy’s and multiple Hall of Fame inductions.

Dolly was also a philanthropist. She founded Dollywood. She launched the Imagination Library and provided millions of free books to children worldwide. She received multiple humanitarian honors before her death last week.

Dolly was married but never had children of her own. Therefore, she treated her nieces and nephews as her own and loved children everywhere.

Dolly was a successful businesswoman, and she used her great wealth to help people who were less fortunate.

I chose Dolly as my VIP for this week for two reasons: (1) She is all over the news this week.

(2) Her life shows that a person can start life with almost nothing and still become successful in American by working hard and developing talents. 

Will Americans Vote for the Constitution or For Revolution?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns groups who wish to dismantle the United States and rebuild it to fit their designs. They believe that they are allowed to use violence or any other means to achieve their “noble” goals of equality, fairness, and welfare. Victor Davis Hanson discussed this problem in an article published in The Daily Signal. Victor Davis Hanson: The Radical Left Wants to Destroy America and Rebuild It

We often associate leftist movements, anarchists of the 19^th century, Jacobins of the 18^th century, Marxists, Bolsheviks, Symbionese Liberation [Army], the Weather Underground with violence.

And the argument that they use is, we are for mandated equality and fairness and helping the underprivileged, and therefore to achieve those noble ends, which were morally and intellectually superior to those on the conservative side, we’re allowed to use any means necessary. And any means necessary is what’s happening right now

Hasan Piker is always in the news. He’s the multimillionaire podcaster, second-generation Turkish immigrant who just recently led a cheering crowd in a song, whipped up the crowd, mocking the assassination of Charlie Kirk. …

Remember, he’s also told us that 9/11, we essentially deserved it. It was our fault, 9/11 was. He’s not unusual right now on the Left.

Angie Nixon is a radical socialist, and she won the Democratic primary Senate campaign, and she will be in the runoff for Florida’s junior senator. She said recently that ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, were slave catchers and t hat they were targeting black people, no different than people in the Confederacy, and that the U.S. government was trying to kill blacks.

She doesn’t understand that under the auspices of DEI, which continues affirmative action, that blacks have [been] given preferential treatment based on past transgressions that the majority of the country felt needed to be addressed.

No one is trying to kill young back people, much less the government. If you look at the murder rates, the statistics make her completely unbelievable….

Then we have another luminary in this new radical extremist movement, Abdul El-Sayed. He’s running now. He won the nomination in the Michigan senatorial race. He will be running against Mike Rogers for the Senate. He said … that he follows Sharia law. He was caught in a hot mic saying that we should not celebrate the death of the supreme leader, [Ali] Khamenei, in Iran.

Remember, [Khamenei] had just ordered 40,000 of his own people to be slaughtered, that were protesting. And he said, “My constituents wouldn’t like that.” …

When he tried to attack a fellow Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman, he said, ideally, you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message. That’s almost a blatant call to kill him and then to use that violence to intimidate other people….

We’ve had four occasions now when the Secret Service shot at potential and actual Trump assassins. We’ve had Hollywood stars. We’ve had people like Robert DeNiro, Kathy Griffin, Shakespeare in the Park in New York, celebrity cooks, and Snoop Dog.

They’ve said they’ve all tried to compete in imagining to use an audience through public media and social media whether they should kill Donald Trump, whether they should burn Donald Trump, whether they could decapitate him, whether they could throw him over a cliff, whether they could blow him up….

For three years, the FBI, a rogue agency under James Comey and then later Andrew McCabe, cooked up the Steele dossier, which was a complete fabrication, and tried to take out a Republican candidate for the presidency. Operation Crossfire Hurricane was all based on a lie.

We were told in 2020 that a laptop with incriminating evidence, which the FBI had in its possession and had verified it as Hunter [Biden] laptop’s possession, it was his property with all the incriminating information on it, was cooked up by the Russians. Fifty former CIA and intelligence authorities swore on the eve of the election that the Russians and Donald Trump were colluding. It was a complete lie….

We had four prosecutors, Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Fani Willis, Jack Smith. They all made up charges…

Over 20 states tried to take a Republican nominee off the ballot for the general election so the voters wouldn’t even have a chance.

I’m not even gonna get into the social media where the FBI was partnering with social media to squash stories they felt were prejudicial to Joe Biden.

What we’re witnessing is a revolutionary movement, as I said, and we have people who are celebrating the death of their opponents. They’re dreaming of how to kill their opponents.

They’re praising people who murder. This is the starkest choice in November that we’ve had in a midterm election in my lifetime.

There is a vast gulf, a huge chasm between what the Democratic Socialists are advocating and what traditional conservatives are trying to maintain.

If they win, we will see the beginning of a destroyed border, and we will return to 12 million people within a four-year period crossing unaudited. We will see a war on fossil fuels, even as we were the greatest producer of gas and oil in history.

We will see biological men green-lighted to compete in female sports. Antisemitism will be the trademark and anti-hatred, not anti-Israelism, hatred of the only democracy in the Middle East.

We will see a full-fledged return of diversity, equity, inclusion, prejudice and bias.

What we’re talking about is a revolutionary group who often is telling us, “If you elect us, you will not recognize the United States as you’ve known it. We must destroy it and rebuild it along socialist and totalitarian designs.”

Remember that when you go in [November], and vote for somebody who says, “We are not ashamed of what America is. We’re the greatest nation in the world, and we’re the greatest nation in the world because of our traditions, our Constitution, our protocols, and we have nothing to apologize for.”

Why Should I Share My Testimony of Jesus Christ?

My Come Follow Studies for this week again took me to the book of Psalms and a lesson titled “I Will Declare What He Hath Done for My Soul” (Psalms 49-51; 61-66; 69-72; 77-78; 85-86). The following information introduced the lesson. 

The writers of the Psalms shared deeply personal feelings in their poetry. They wrote about feeling discouraged, afraid, and remorseful. At times, they even felt abandoned by God, and some psalms carry a tone of frustration or desperation. If you’ve ever felt that way, reading the Psalms can help you know that you aren’t the only one. But you’ll also find psalms that can encourage you when you’re having such feelings, because the psalmists also praised the Lord for His goodness, marveled at His power, and rejoiced in His mercy. They knew that we are burdened by evil and sin but that the Lord is “good, and ready to forgive” (Psalm 86:5). They understood that having faith in the Lord doesn’t mean that you’ll never struggle with anxiety, sin, or fear. It means that you know who to turn to when you do.

The scripture block for this week teaches several principles, including: (1) Redemption comes only through Jesus Christ (Psalms 49; 62:5-12). (2) Because of the Savior’s mercy, I can be forgiven (Psalms 51; 85-86). (3) My testimony of Jesus Christ can help others come unto Him (Psalms 51:13-15; 66:5-20; 71:15-24). (4) The Lord will help me in my time of need (Psalms 63; 69; 77-78).

This essay will discuss how sharing my testimony of Jesus Christ cam help other people to believe in Him. Here are a few verses where testimony of Jesus Christ is declared.

·       Psalm 66:5: “come and see the works of God.”

·       Psalm 66:16: “Come and hear, … and I will declare what [the Lord] hath done for my soul.”

·       Psalm 71:24: “talk of [His] righteousness all the day long.”

At a BYU-Hawaii devotional address given on September 21, 2010, Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught the following about a testimony (“Testimony: Sharing in Word and Deed,” New Era, March 2019). 

A testimony is a knowledge or spiritual witness of truth given to us by the Holy Ghost. Receipt of this knowledge will change the things we say and the things we do. A testimony is composed of key elements of truth of which the Holy Ghost will bear witness.

“The foundation of a testimony is the knowledge that Heavenly Father lives and loves us; that Jesus Christ lives, that He is the Son of God, and that He carried out the infinite Atonement; that Joseph Smith is the prophet of God who was called to restore the gospel; that we are led by a living prophet today; and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Savior’s true Church on the earth” (True to the Faith: A Gospel Reference (2004), 178).

I have always believed in Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. I do not remember a time when I doubted. I know that They are real because the Holy Ghost has confirmed to me on multiple occasions that They are near. This confirmation has grounded me on numerous occasions when I felt alone. If you desire to have a testimony of God or His Son, I encourage you to study about Them and then ask God to confirm Their reality to you.

How Can Our Society Solve the Problem of Young Men Checking Out?

Strong families are composed of a man and a woman who become what God intended them to be. Men and women are equal in value, but their bodies are created differently. Although some people think that men can become women and women can become men, their DNA and bone structure tell us differently.

When the skeleton remains of a person are found, experts can tell if it is a man or woman by the size and by the shape of the shoulders and hips. Somethings do not change no matter how much someone wants them to be different. The DNA stays the same no matter how many hormones are ingested.

The struggle to convince the rising generation that they can change their gender by cutting off certain parts and taking certain hormones has caused numerous problems. One of those problems can be seen in the young men of modern society. Nick Freitas explained that the problem “has nothing to do with weakness. The BlazeTV Staff shared the information in an article published at theblaze.com. 

Why are so many young men checking out of modern society? According to Nick Freitas, the answer – unlike what the Gen X and Boomer generations would have you believe – goes far deeper than laziness or a lack of resilience.

Freitas tells Christopher Rufo and Jonathan “Lomez” Keeperman on “Rufo & Lomez” that the first thing to consider is that there is a real problem and it’s “different from what we faced in the past.”

“It’s really easy to point back like, ‘Oh, you think it’s hard now? What about the 19-year-olds that were storming Normandy?’ It’s like, yeah, that was hard. And that’s why we lift up and we celebrate the 19-year-olds that stormed Normandy,” Freitas explains.

“The problem is we have a bunch of 19-year-olds now where first of all, there’s no Normandy to storm, and they’re being told that all of the characteristics or instincts that would have informed the man storming the beach in Normandy are now bad, evil, toxic, horrible, and need to be repressed,” he says, noting that “that’s the part that’s unique.”

“That’s the part that I think Gen X-ers and Boomers have a hard time understanding is that the culture has shifted so much as to deliberately target the very things that young men were designed, I believe, designed by God to be,” he adds.

Freitas notes that it’s “confusing and horrific” to attempt to thrive in an environment “where you’re told that all of your instincts are bad and you need to be emasculated.”

In order to deal with this, Freitas explains that “one of the big things” he tells young men is to seek identity through Christ.

“It’s eternal. It doesn’t promise me that everything is going to be going good. But it’s eternal. I believe it’s true. And so in so far as that’s where I get my identity, then all of a sudden I always have identity, meaning, and purpose,” he says.

“I never lose it, and it cannot be taken away from me,” he adds.

Freitas tells young men “to seek identity through Christ.” As I read this article, I made a connection between this statement and the missionary program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From the time that they are children, young men are taught that they have a priesthood responsibility to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.

Those who accept this charge prepare themselves for missionary service and submit their applications to go. The age for young men to be called has long been age 19 years of age. In recent years, the age was lowered to 18 years of age. For young women, the age was 21 years of age for many years, but it was lowered some years ago to 19 years of age when the young men age was lowered to 18 years of age. The age for young women has recently been lowered to 18 years of age. Could it be that the Lord knew that He could solve the young men’s problem, while missionary work is being performed?