This week we celebrate Thanksgiving and I am looking forward to a great dinner. My mother-in-law can cook like nobody's business so I am really looking forward to it. However, more importantly I get to take time to really focus on what I am thankful for. I have never been to the impoverished and war torn countries of Africa, the slums of some of our South American neighbors or any of the other place in this world that house the less fortunate. I know that everything is relative based on what we are used to, but I can not help but think about the fact that God gave me what I have simply by sending me to the home he did. All of my blessings started on the day I was born. I have received many more blessings since then but none so great. How grateful I am to God for my birth. How grateful I am to him for my parents as well as Lisa and the kids. It is easy to take so much for granted but for at least this week, I will focus on these things and be forever grateful for them.

Zion!

This last weekend was an incredible weekend. Lisa and I are the Stake Humanitarian Specialist. We have 2 things that we are responsible for. Once is a clothing exchange that takes place each summer before school starts. Everyone in the stake or elsewhere can donate clothes that are in good condition. With so many little children in Eagle Mountain you see clothes that they grow out of but are still in great shape. This relieves the burden of families when getting clothes for school. The other thing that we do in our calling as Humanitarian specialists is something called HEARTS for the Holidays.

The way this program works is each auxiliary and quorum in the stake selects 2 projects to do. For example, a High priest group can collect bicycles for one project and build doll houses for another. Some of the primaries asked the children to do extra chores around the house for loose change. Every week they would bring in their pennies, dimes, and nickles and put them in a jar. They raised over $200 in change and the primary president went out and bought toys to be donated. The auxiliary are High priests, Elders, Relief Society, Young Women, Young Men, and Primary. With each one doing two projects that makes 12 projects from each ward in the stake.

Around October the Bishop of each ward prayerfully selects families from his ward that are having a hard time and can not afford to do Christmas for their families. Our goal is to make Christmas a time of joy instead of a time of stress. Then in mid November these families are assigned an escort to take them through the stake center shopping. The escort is someone in ward leadership who is a part of the Ward welfare committee. They have sat down with the family prior to this event and evaluated what their needs are so when they are going through they know what to look for. Kind of the same concept as making sure you do not go grocery shopping when you are hungry.

We had just over 80 families attend and we met almost every need that was asked for. The stories are what is amazing. There were miracles that happened all day long. I would interview people who would say "the only thing my daughter wanted was X and I walked into the room and there it was." These incidents seemed to happen all day long. I have read the story in the New Testament that tells of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with only a few loves and fishes and this weekend I saw something similar. No matter how much went out that door there was always more. No matter what a family needed it seemed to be there. The spirit of God was there all day long. From time to time I would walk through the building and just look at things to make sure everything was still in order and I felt as though there were angles in attendance assisting all those who were there.

Most of the people who made it all possible never saw what I saw and probably will never know the impact they all had. I realized this weekend what Zion really is. Zion is "Every man seeking the interest of his neighbor..."(D&C 82:19) and what took place was the very picture of Zion. If such a program could be extended throughout the entire year I could say of us like the Nephites after the visit of Jesus "...there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God."(4 Nephi 1:16)

The pictures do not do it justice but here they are. The entire Stake Center was full.

Abraham Lincoln.

A friend of mine, Aaron Ball, has a blog and I have always enjoyed reading it. He posted a great piece on Abraham Lincoln. You can go directly to his post here on my blog list or click on this link. It would be worth your time to go see it.

Need some imput if you have it.

This morning I went and worked out at Golds gym and was not that impressed. It was an OK facility and had lots of stuff but while lifting I noticed it was a complete mess. Weights of all kinds were just laying around on the floor. The weights were not put back and if they were, they were in the wrong place. I spent way to much time hunting down the weights I needed. I did like the fact that they had racket ball courts as I love to play racket ball. I decided that I would do some looking over the next few months so if you have any suggestions for gyms then let me know. I would love some input.

Mr. President

I have been supper swamped at home as well as at work so my postings have dropped off significantly. I was thinking about what to post on and I decided to put my feelings out there about the election.

I kind of knew it would happen this way even though I did not want it. This country is slipping very fast down a slippery slope. As a country our morals are shot, our economy is a house of cards just waiting for a good wind and our overall strength and courage is no more then the next country. We have become just another country in the world. Maybe I am wrong, I would like to be but I do not think so.

Obama and the other liberals said they were going to change the country. They said they would turn around the economy and make us a shining city on a hill again. We are a country and what happens here effects all of us. Just because we did not vote for Obama does not mean he does not represent us. He is my president as well as yours. I will not call him Mr. Obama but rather he will be called President Obama. I say take the rains young man and show us how you are going to save us. I hope with all my heart that he can. From what I have seen of liberals I doubt it will happen but I will watch with an open mind. They have control of both houses of congress and the presidency so there should be no excuses.

Although the outcome is not what I wanted I am happy to see the Republicans get their tail kicked. I am no longer going to be registered as a Republican. I will be an independent as I think the Republicans are corrupt, i'm sure there are exceptions, but as a whole they are mostly just as corrupt and dishonest as the Democrats.

Perhaps out of this and what is lickley to come there will be a true conservative party rise out of the ashes. We can only hope.

890 pounds!

So I decided that I am loving lifting weights. I hate to run or swim and so my morning workouts mostly involve lifting weights. I have had a great deal of fun lifting and seeing my progress. Several of my friends are gearing up for a sprint triathlon so I was thinking of doing that but since I would only enjoy the bike ride I decided instead to enter a weight lifting competition. When you compete in weight lifting you have 2 different ways it is done. In the Olympics it consists of one lift over your head. In the other it is a combination of three lifts, bench press, dead lift and squat. For those who may not know what these lifts are, the bench press you lay down on a bench and press the weight up and away from your chest, kind of like a reverse push-up. dead lift is where while standing you reach down and lift the weight up to your waist. The squat is done by putting the weight on your shoulders, lowering your body to a sitting position and then pushing up strait again.

In the competition they add the three lifts and the one who lifts the most wins. I hesitated to make this post and I defiantly hesitated to post the following amounts, because there are those who would look at the amounts and laugh. However I have always known that if you share your goals with others they can help you stay on track and hold you accountable to them, so here goes.

My current:
Bench press - 255 pounds
dead lift - 335 pounds
Squat - 300 pounds
Total lift - 890 pounds

This is the first time I have done this in a long time so setting the goal is hard to do but I decided that I want to see a 20% gain by the competition in October of next year. So here are the goals.

Goal:
Bench press - 300 pounds
dead lift - 405 pounds
Squat - 360 pounds
Total lift - 1065 pounds

Got go hit the weights!