Divine Intervention

                The election of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States came as a surprise for millions of Americans. Many were in shock when he won the election. Polls and media all said that Hillary Clinton would win the election, and there was no reason to doubt their ideas.

                Trump claimed the first Electoral College votes. Then North Carolina and Florida were called for Trump. The votes continued to add up until he had more than the required 270 votes.

                Some people are talking about how the Trump election was divine intervention from God. Did God raise up Donald Trump – like Cyrus – for such a time as this? 

                Pastor Jeremiah Johnson did not know much about Trump when he wrote these words in July 2015: "I was in a time of prayer several weeks ago when God began to speak to me concerning the destiny of Donald Trump in America. The Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, `Trump shall become My trumpet to the American people, for he possesses qualities that are even hard to find in My people these days. Trump does not fear man nor will he allow deception and lies to go unnoticed. I am going to use him to expose darkness and perversion in America like never before, but you must understand that he is like a bull in a china closet. Many will want to throw him away because he will disturb their sense of peace and tranquility, but you must listen through the bantering to discover the truth

that I will speak through him. I will use the wealth that I have given him to expose and launch investigations searching for the truth. Just as I raised up Cyrus to fulfill My purposes and plans prior to the 2016 election. You must listen to the trumpet very closely for he will sound the alarm and many will be blessed because of his compassion and mercy. Though many see the outward pride and arrogance, I have given him the tender heart of a father that wants to lend a helping hand to the poor and the needy, to the foreigner and the stranger.’”

                Dr. Lance Wallnau is a Christian speaker and leadership coach. He too said that he feels God raised Trump up to help our nation. He believes that God will use Trump as a “wrecking ball to the spirit of political correctness.”

                I believe that God could have raised up Trump to help our nation. I know that millions of people have been praying for our nation. I believe that God could have answered our prayers by helping Trump win the election.

After the Election

                Americans have endured months and even years of political ads, debates, and accusations. Politicians slung mud at each other while their supporters did verbal and sometimes physical battle. The division between Americans became deeper and wider. Now the election is over, and Americans are faced with the problem of moving forward. What is the best way to do so? Here is a helpful message from President Thomas S. Monson. 

                Under the heading “America Needs You,” President Monson says, “Headlines from America’s leading newspapers, depicting recent events, pass silently in review, that you and I may judge: `Serious Crime Registers 10% Increase in Past Year,” “Violence Rocks South,” “Racial Strife Hits East.” Murder, rape, arson, burglary, assault, narcotics violations are all on the increase in the America of today. These are the headlines of today’s newspapers.

                “The revered Abraham Lincoln accurately described our plight: `We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.’ (Proclamation for a National Fast Day, March 30, 1863.)

                “Can we extricate ourselves from this frightful condition? Is there a way out? If so, what is the way? …

                “First, then, I would suggest that each American love the Lord, our God, and with our families serve Him in righteousness.

                “The road back to God is not nearly so steep nor is it so difficult as some would have us believe…. Divine favor will attend those who humbly seek it. If we will but realize that we have been created in the image of God, we will not find Him difficult to approach. One cannot sincerely hold this conviction without experiencing a profound new sense of strength….

                “Second, I would suggest that each American love his neighbor as himself. Before we can really love our neighbor, we must get the proper perspective of him. One man said, “I looked at my brother with the microscope of criticism, and I said, `How coarse my brother is.’ I looked at my brother with the telescope of scorn, and I said, `How small my brother is.’ Then I looked into the mirror of truth, and I said, `How like me my brother is.’” …

                “America truly does need you and me to lead out in a mighty crusade of righteousness. We can help when we love the Lord and with our families serve Him, and when we love our neighbors as ourselves.

                “The frightening trend toward crime, lawlessness, and violence will then be arrested. God will continue to `shed his grace on thee,’ America, `and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.’”

                President Monson made this statement in his book Be Your Best Self in 1979, and our society has only worsened since then. Our nation is deeply divided between races, sexes, sex orientation, religion/non-religion, politics, age, etc. We are divided in every way.

                President Monson is exactly right when he tells us to follow the two great commandments: We must love the Lord and serve Him with all our hearts, and then we must love and serve our neighbors. The only way we can unify our nation is by following this counsel given by the living prophet of God.

Donald Trump

                Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States in spite of all the doubts and dirt thrown at him. I will admit that I voted against his opponent more than I voted for him. I am following the counsel of President Ronald Reagan when he said, “Trust, but verify.” I put my trust in Trump to be the kind of President that I can support.

                Mr. Trump won the election, but the election had very little to do with him. The election was about ordinary, everyday Americans – those who love their nation with every ounce of their patriot blood and know America is exceptional, those who felt betrayed and left behind by the Obama administration, those who want to work to provide for their families but cannot find suitable employment, those who feel the elites in Washington, D.C. have two tiers when it comes to freedom and justice for all, and many others. He won the election because the forgotten Americans and the silent majority rose up in power and broke the power of the progressives in government and the media.

                Of course, we must give credit to Trump for soldiering on when so many in the country and his own party were against him. Before Election Day Bob Just paid homage to Trump in an article titled “Donald Trump: American Hero, Win or Lose.”  He writes, “No matter what happen in the election, Donald Trump has – in hero-like fashion – come forth to fight a dragon that for years left most Republicans cowering. The `politically correct’ left and its media minions who rule over Washington usually terrorize dissenters.

                “Yes, Trump has been scorched by the dragon’s flaming breath, but despite flaws, his courage, vision and unusual media skills have helped him fight back, bringing him through many trials to this final moment of decision for the American people.”

                Mr. Trump drew huge crowds and excited the common people because he was willing to cut through the politically correct jargon and tell the truth. After too many years of being told lies by Mr. Obama and his administration and minions, Americans wanted to hear the truth. Mr. Trump gave them the unvarnished truth even though it sometimes came out in coarse ways. He said what most people were thinking.

                Now Mr. Trump needs to keep his promises to Americans. He needs to secure the border and obey immigration laws. He needs to “drain the swamp” of filthiness that is in Washington, D.C. He needs to build up our military to the point that no nation or group of terrorists will dare to attack us or our allies. He must support Israel.

                Americans have forced the end of the “fundamental transformation” of America. Now Mr. Trump must help us to rebuild our nation and make America exceptional once again!

Election and Supreme Court

                The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the statement that the 2016 presidential election was about appointing justices to the Supreme Court. We are still in the death throes of the election as I write this post, so I do not know whether we will have Hillary Clinton in the White House or Donald Trump – or the election will be called off – or many other possible things happen. I am writing with what I know a week before the election.

                Most Americans accept that Hillary Clinton will appoint liberal justices while conservatives put their hope that Donald Trump would appoint conservative justices. Michael Brown wrote an interesting article about the justices appointed by Republican presidents. He quotes some statements by Dr. Benjamin L. Corey about the false hopes of Christians in justices appointed by Republicans. Corey points out that justices appointed by Republicans presidents gave us Roe v. Wade and Obamacare.

                After sharing the statements by Corey, Brown writes, “And so, we do well not to vote for Trump with naïve expectations, not only regarding the make-up of SCOTUS but for other reasons as well…. And we do well not to put our hope in the decisions that will be made by the Supreme Court, recognizing that the ultimate way America will be changed will be through the faithful witness and work of the church.

                “But there’s something important that Corey appears to have missed, which is this: While the votes of conservative-appointed SCOTUS justices sometimes disappoint conservatives, the votes of liberal-appointed SCOTUS justices rarely disappoint liberals.

                “In other words, a liberal-appointed justice is much more likely to be consistent in his or her rulings than will a conservative-appointed justice, one reason being that it appears that Republican presidents have sometimes appointed more middle of the road conservatives while Democrat presidents have appointed more radical liberals.”

                By the time that you read this post the election will be over, and we will all know who will occupy the Oval Office for the next four years. I hope and pray that Hillary Clinton does not win the election. I believe that she is an evil woman who will continue her corrupt ways with even more power if she becomes the next POTUS. May God bless the United States of America!

God's Emissaries

                Home teachers and visiting teachers in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are some of God’s emissaries. They are assigned to watch over and bless certain members of their wards or branches and to report their actions to their supervisors.

                Home teachers are priesthood brethren who are assigned by priesthood leaders to visit individual families in their homes each month. Visiting teachers are sisters who are assigned by ward Relief Society presidents to contact individual sisters each month. Did you notice that difference? Home teachers make actual visits to the homes of their assigned families while visiting teachers need only make a contact. Home visits are certainly preferable, but telephone calls, emails, texts, or letters are acceptable.

                I have been a visiting teacher since I became a member of the Relief Society in 1972. I normally make home visits, but I also make telephone calls and write notes containing the visiting teaching message. In the more than forty years, I seldom miss making some kind of contact and usually report 100%. I consider the assignment to contact my assigned sisters to be just as critical as preparing a lesson for my 5-year-old Primary class. I am committed to fulfilling both callings.

                I am amazed at how easy and fulfilling it is to be an average visiting teacher. Yet, I recently heard that only 57% of the sisters in our ward had been contacted in the previous month. I have to say that I was shocked, but I should not have been. I have gone through several sets of visiting teachers who never called, sent a message, or visited as well as some sets who visited infrequently.

                I try not to be judgmental, but I do not understand how anyone can accept such an important assignment and not do it! I can see missing once in a while when children are sick or when vacationing, but I have a difficult time understanding how anyone can simply dismiss the responsibility to simply contact a sister sometime during the month.

                I am an active and committed member of the Church, and I have no problems for which I need help from my visiting teachers. However, I need the social contact and the emotional knowledge that I am important enough to be a priority to them once in a while.

                I have gone several years without a contact from a visiting teacher, and my family has gone years without a visit from a home teacher. The past year has been very nice in that we have had a visit from our home teachers every month that we have been home. It is nice to know that we are a priority to them. During that time I purchased an exercise bicycle from a friend that was moving. It was too tall to fit under the canopy on our truck. I called my home teachers, one of which had a truck with an open bed. They came one evening after work and moved the bicycle from my friend’s garage to my garage. The whole experience took about half an hour, but it left both them and me feeling good about our relationship.

                Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke about home teachers in his recent General Conference address. He acknowledged that there are circumstances where priesthood brethren cannot visit each assigned family every month. Sometimes there are too few priesthood holders to visit all the families in the ward or branch. Sometimes the distance to travel is too long or too expensive. Sometimes there is limited transportation. Sometimes the assigned families live in dangerous neighborhoods.

                In any of the above circumstances, the counsel given to leaders is to “do their best to use the resources they have available to watch over and strengthen each member.” After sharing this counsel, Elder Holland suggested how he would fulfill his assignment as a home teacher under the above situation. He would establish “a schedule that would get us to those homes on a calendar that was both possible and practical. Built into that schedule would be the prioritization of our available time and frequency of contacts to those who need us the most….

                “While working through our schedule to visit all homes, which may take some months to accomplish, we would make other kinds of contact with the individuals and families on our list via any of the means the Lord has provided. Certainly we would watch for our families at church and, as the scripture says, would `speak one with another concerning the welfare of their souls. In addition, we would make phone calls, send emails and text messages, even tap out a greeting through one of the many forms of social media available to us. To help address special needs, we might send a scriptural quote or a line from a general conference talk or a Mormon Message drawn from the wealth of material on LDS.org. In the language of the First Presidency, we would do the best we could in the circumstances we faced with the resources available to us.”

                Elder Holland called for the priesthood brethren to “lift [their] vision of home teaching. Please, in newer, better ways see yourselves as emissaries of the Lord to His children. That means leaving behind the tradition of a frantic, law of Moses-like, end-of-the-month calendar in which you rush to give a scripted message from the Church magazines that the family has already read. We would hope, rather, that you will establish an era of genuine, gospel-oriented concern for the members, watching over and caring for each other, addressing spiritual and temporal needs in any way that helps.”

                Even though Elder Holland was speaking to the priesthood brethren about home teaching, he could have said the same thing to the sisters about visiting teaching. As the world darkens with the evils of our day, we need one another to strengthen and uplift us and to help us to stay strong in the gospel of Jesus Christ. My hope and prayer is that home teachers and visiting teachers everywhere will heed the counsel of Elder Holland and fulfill the assignments that they accepted to watch over and bless members of the Church.

Marriage and Family

                We can strengthen our families, communities, and nations by studying “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” and by following its precepts. One way to study the proclamation is one paragraph at a time.

                The first paragraph of the proclamation states, “We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”

                President Henry B. Eyring suggests that we study the proclamation as if we were “little children hearing those words for the first time and believing they are true.” He says that a “little child would feel safe hearing the words `marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God.’ The child would know that the longing to have the love of both a father and a mother, distinct but somehow perfectly complementary, exists because such longing is part of the eternal patter, the pattern of happiness. The child would also feel safer knowing that God will help the mother and father resolve differences and love each other, if only they would ask for His help and try. Prayers of children across the earth would go up to God, pleading for His help for parents and for families.”

                While we study the proclamation as if we were children, let us remember the family is essential to our eternal happiness. We can receive the highest blessings of eternity only as family units.

                As you study the first paragraph of the proclamation, you may want to share what you learn in a family home evening. This site has a wonderful family home evening program all outlined with lesson, music, activity, and refreshments. I hope you will use this outline and strengthen your family, community, and nation by understanding the doctrine that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to Heavenly Father’s plan for the happiness of all His children.

Veterans Day

                The federal holiday known as Veterans Day in the United States is always held on November 11. This day is the anniversary of the signing of the armistice – the end of World War I hostilities between Germany and the Allied nations. The signing took place at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. It was first celebrated as Armistice Day on November 11, 1919.

                Armistice Day was approved as a legal federal holiday on May 13, 1938, and was meant to honor the veterans of World War I. In 1954, following World War II and the Korean War, the name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day, a day set apart to honor all American veterans wherever and whenever they serve their country.

                In 1968 Congress passed a bill that made most federal holidays fall on Monday. Veterans Day was supposed to be on the fourth Monday of October. Many states disagreed with the new law and continued to honor their veterans on November 11. A few years later in 1975 another bill was passed stating that Veterans Day would be held on November 11 from 1978 onwards. Veterans Day is held annually on November 11, just as it should be.

                I have a young veteran friend who has the opportunity from time to time to accompany older veterans on the Honor Flights to Washington, D.C. He is always thrilled to make the flight and is grateful to offer the service. My daughter has an “adopted” father who served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. Each year she accompanies him to the reunion of his shipmates.

                There are many things that we can do – both on Veterans Day and throughout the year – to honor the men and women who stood between the enemy and our homeland. I hope you will take the time to honor the veterans that you know personally. To all who currently serve and protect and to those who accepted the duty previously, I say Thank You!