The month of March has been a continuation of what was happening in February - Cancel Culture. Along with the surge of illegal immigrants on the Southern border, cancel culture has become a crisis in our country. It seems that if someone is offended then that action or those words or that book or that event in history must be banned from our society. They have even gone so far as to cancel some Dr. Suess books because of some supposed offensive language. Let's not look at the offensive music of this generation but let's cancel children's books that have been around for 50 years because, in this day and age, they have become offensive. Aunt Jamima syrup and Uncle Ben's rice have been renamed because they featured a black woman and black man on the labels. Somehow that is not an honor but a degrading look at the black race. This is getting out of hand. In journalism, it is now required that if you write the word black in front of a noun such as a black person, the word black must be capitalized. Of course, that does not hold true if you put the word white in front of a noun.
Not only is race an issue in cancel culture, but anything that suggest gender is now not politically correct. In the Congress of the United States, it is now improper to use any adjective that suggests gender such as Mr., Mrs., Aunt, Uncle etc. These are to be replaced with a gender neutral adjective. Even Mr. Potato head has been renamed to Potato head. I guess referring to male and female is offensive to the transgender person.
Then there is the war on conservative news outlets. The congress is now wanting to not allow networks like Newsmax to be broadcast on Capitol hill. We are being censured and silenced now with the Democrats controlling all houses of government and the Presidency. A little scary for a country that prides itself on the freedom of speech.
Enough ranting for the month. I must mention a miracle that happened on fast Sunday. As I knelt to pray that morning to implore the Lord for the things for which I was fasting, I also included my depression about the future of our country. I asked for help to get out of my funk and to find ways to have a more positive outlook for the future. After my prayer, I turned to the scriptures. I was reading the Gospel Doctrine.com commentary on the first chapter of Jacob and read the following.....
9 things to finding the abundant life......faith enough to make work a pleasure, wealth enough to support your needs, strength enough to battle with difficulties and overcome them, grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them, patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished, charity enough to see good in your neighbor, love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others, faith enough to make real the things of God, and HOPE ENOUGH TO REMOVE ALL ANXIOUS FEARS CONCERNING THE FUTURE.
I began to cry as I read that last thing I needed to do. Truly an answer to prayer. I need to have more hope for a brighter future so I must put all my fears in the hands of the Lord and live life to the best of my ability.
At the first of the month, we celebrated Kailee's birthday. She loves German Chocolate cakes so that's what she got for her birthday cake. She was thrilled. We also had her favorite dinner, Malibu Chicken.
Toward the end of the month, several things happened. The first is that we had our second vaccine shot for COVID 19. We were a little worried about it because some people have had some reactions to the second shot. Paul was fine but I had a few aches and pains about 24 hours afterward. It was nothing, though, that a warm bath and a couple of Advil couldn't handle. We will be 95% protected from getting COVID as of April 6th. Happy Day!!!
Our vaccination cards that show we are fully
vaccinated. Hopefully they won't be needed to board
a plane or enter a restaurant as had been suggested by
the bigwigs in Washington D.C.
Two days following our shots, Paul went into the skin doctor to have some cancer removed from his forehead. He was there for about three hours but at least they got all the cancer the first time around. On his ear a few years back, it took the doctor three tries before he felt he had gotten it all. Hopefully this will heal without too much of a scar.
The afternoon after Paul's surgery, we went to Provo to run some errands and then stopped at Charlotte's apartment so she could follow us home. She was having a hard time with her roommates and needed a break. That break turned into her moving out of her apartment the following week so she could just live with us till her parents come in April to pick up Jillian and drop off Maggie from BYU Idaho. Charlotte will follow them home and stay there until the Fall semester. Hopefully by then, campus will be opened and classes will be in person. All her classes have been on line this semester which means she is basically in her apartment all day. At least with her here in Heber she has quiet spaces to do her studies, can get a good night's sleep, and had us for company. A welcomed change for her.
All month long, Ryan has been sending us videos of Aubrey's high school volleyball games. We've never seen her play so this was a treat. She played really well and her team was victorious in most games. At two of the games, Grace sang the National Anthem before the game so that was also special to see her perform. No on could attend the Volleyball games so the district arranged for them to be broadcast for families to watch at home. This made it easy for Ryan to forward the link to us so we could watch her play, too.
Thank goodness for modern technology in this time of COVID.
Note the girls are having to wear masks during play.
That's got to be hard.
On the last Sunday of the month, Todd and Kailee came up for dinner, as they usually do. Charlotte was there so that was a treat but the best thing is that Paul had found one of Aria's LOL dolls which she had lost while up here a couple of months ago. It was the doll she had purchased with the money we had given her so she was heart broken when it got lost. Paul found it in the snow bank next to the driveway. It must have fallen in the snow when Aria was getting into the car. Needless to say, Aria was thrilled.
The LOL doll that was found
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| Playing the turtle game with Dad |
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| On one of the Sundays this month, Todd and Kailee \brought up the girl's scooters. Of course, they had to ride them down to the pond and back. |
Before I end this blog entry, I must talk about a speaker at one of our Sacrament meetings this month. An Elder Cook of the Seventies, came to our ward because he was visiting a family in our ward, the Sargeants. At the end of the meeting, he took a few minutes to speak to us about the miracles the church has experienced during this pandemic. He said that baptisms are higher than they were before the pandemic because the missionaries have learned how to more effectively use technology. He also said that he had been working with the governments in the Phillipines and Africa to see how General Conference could get to the people in those areas where the internet service was not good. As a result, General Conference will be broadcast on National television making it available to millions more people. The Lord knows how to grow his kingdom even when a pandemics strikes the world.
I also heard something else that inspired me this month. It was, 'Life is hard. It's not meant to be easy. If it was, we wouldn't grow and stretch. It's challenges that make us into better persons and bring us closer to Christ.' I loved that. We just need to work through the hard things, relying on the Lord in faith and hope for a bright future.
And that's it for another month.....
