Heavenly Father is Trying to Tell me Some Things......I am Trying to Listen!

The last week or so has been one of great personal enlightenment for me.  I went to the joint Priesthood and Relief Society meeting where they showed a video on the church's "new" missionary program.  As I sat, watching the video, I felt so strongly that I really need to refocus my life a bit.  I have been SO consumed with politics and the awful things happening in this country, I have become more and more depressed and hopeless and ANGRY.  I still believe it is important to keep up with what's going on and I still am NOT someone who can just sit by and watch things happening that I KNOW are wrong and not try to do something about it.  I totally believe the quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that says, ""He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."  However, I realized that my life has been very unbalanced of late.  I have focused so much attention on protesting against evil that I have not been working to do as much good.  I was so grateful to have this little moment of inspiration and, since then, I have been trying very hard to do some good each day.  I have not done anything really huge or noteworthy, just things like visitng people, being friendly to those who serve me in stores and other places, working a little harder on my callings, writing letters.....stuff like that.  But the difference in how I feel has been wonderful.  Yes, we DO have to fight evil but we also NEED good in our lives every, single day. 

No Importa

Parte del razon por escribir aqui es para ver lo que responden los demas.  Se que tengo pocos que me siguen, pero todavia, me parece que a alguien debe importar lo que escribo.  Si no, porque tomar el tiempo de escribirlo?  Yo podria guardar mis pensamientos a mi misma.  Tal vez, la mayoria de la gente le gustaria eso.  A lo mejor, que si.  Bueno.  Lo haria.  Me parece que mis sentimientos no son importantes a nadie.  Muchos dias me parece que no importa que existo.  Si asi es, no vale la pena.  Ultimamente, me parece que muy, muy pocas cosas valen la pena.  Me pongo muy diprimida casi todos los dias.  A nadie le importa eso, tampoco. 

Rainbows

Growing up, I loved rainbows.  I would draw and paint them all over the place.  I once made a ceramic dish at a crafts store (It was egg-shaped and had a lid on it).  I painted it sky blue with clouds and a beautiful rainbow on it.  I loved that thing!  I collected pictures of rainbows.  To this day, when I see a rainbow in the sky, it takes my breath away.  To me, a rainbow is a beautiful, colorful symbol of hope.  It is like a message from God.  It really bothers me that the rainbow has been usurped by the gay community and is now used as a symbol of gay pride.  I see the rainbow everywhere these days, but it does not bring me the joy that it used to.  It is very sad to me that something I loved is now being used to symbolize something I just cannot embrace.  Except for real rainbows in the sky, seeing rainbows is not a happy experience for me anymore.

Hatred

A quick scroll through facebook today yielded the following headlines:

- The Senate voted through the Immigration bill, most without even having read it.
- The Obama's latest vacation to Africa will cost tax-payers at least $100 million.
- The IRS continues to persecute people who they have labelled Republicans, Tea Partiers, or Christians.
- The Pentagon continues to threaten to prosecute any American military personnel who 'express or share' their Christian faith.
- The prosector for the Zimmerman trial is a race-baiter.
- The official start of Obamacare is in 99 days.  Our medical costs are about to skyrocket.
- The Immigration bill now includes providing free cars (at tax-payer expense, of course!) for young people who need them to get to work.
- The teachers union in Chicago says, "Rich White people to blame for Chicago schools."
- Vice-President Biden is pushing a new gun control bill and claims to have flipped 5 republican senators.
- Liberals are screaming about animal rights but care nothing about women having abortions.
- The IRS is sending $46 million to "Unathorized Alien Workers" in Atlanta.
- The college professor who forced his students to stomp of a piece of paper on which he had written the name "JESUS" has been rehired by a Florida university.
- Eric Snowden, the "whistle-blower" who exposed the NSA's spying on American citizens has had his passport revoked and is trying to find a country that will grant him assylum.  The Obama administration is calling him a traitor and wants to prosecute him.

I had to stop reading because my eyes were filling with tears.  Not tears of sadness, but tears of anger and frustration and hatred.  I know that it is possible that my facebook page and my blog and my phone and my e-mails are being monitored.  I know we all have to be careful what we say.  However, Martin Luther King, Jr. said something that I believe in very much, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."  He also said, "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it.  He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
 I have never, ever been able to stand by and watch things that I knew in my heart were wrong without trying to do something about it and I am not going to start now.  As I read through that list of stuff on facebook, I found myself thinking, "I HATE this country!"  But that is NOT true.  I LOVE this country.  What I HATE, with every fiber of my being is Barack Hussein Obama.  I hate him, his dog-ugly witch of a wife, his administration, and his supporters.   I can MAYBE understand people who were duped into voting him into office the first time.  They believed the hype and the lies and got caught up in the whole "First-Black-President" crap.  I do not truly understand how anybody could believe all that, but obviously people did.  I am willing to give people the benefit of the doubt for being ignorant.  However, I really have no understanding of the people who re-elected him, after all that he has done to our country:  the "Presidential Orders" to skirt around Congress and get his way, the bail-outs, fast and furious, the diviseness and race-baiting, the lies, Obamacare, Benghazi, the anti-American actions, the bowing to foreign heads of state, his love of muslims, his utter disregard for the suffering that is going on in this country, the millions and billions of dollars he's given to foreign nations who hate us, his disregard for the Constitution, his attempts to take away our rights, and the spending of our tax dollars on himself and his family while he shuts down the government and watches people lose their homes and their jobs -- HOW do people condone this??  How is it that there is ANY person left in this country who cannot see that this man is pure evil??  I just do not get it.  I am so frustrated and depressed about the things that are happening every day, but I am especially baffled by the fact that there are so many people out there who still worship this man and support him.  Barack Obama is the most evil, satanic man to ever live on this earth.  He makes Hitler look like a boy scout!  Never, in the history of this world, has there been a man with so much power -- leader of the greatest nation on earth -- who has been so evil.  How is it that he is allowed to continue, virtually unimpeded, in his quest to destroy us all??  If it were only the democrats who had to abide by Obamacare and be affected by the deceit and wickedness of this man, I would be fine with that.  They elected him.  They deserve to suffer.  But they do not seem to be suffering and they are taking all of us down with them.  Hitler rounded up the Jews, the gays, the gypsies, and anybody else he didn't like and tried to exterminate them all.  Obama would do that with Christians and Tea Party Patriots and Conservatives if he could.  So far, he cannot, but that will not stop him from trying.  And all of the people who voted for him, who cry every day in favor of gay marriage and equality for all and "fairness" will let him do it because they are all just as evil and dishonest and horrible as he is. 
There is a part of me that understands that mind-set.  There is a part of me that would do the same to every liberal and dumb-ass idiot who supports Obama.  Thankfully, it is not a large part of me and I do not have the ability to do anything like that.  However,  I will go to my grave doing anything in my power -- and I know that anything I can do is not much, but I will still do it -- to see that  Obama is impeached and to decry him and the kind of people who support him. 

It Is Happening Here

"You say the government has been monitoring our telephone calls?  The I.R.S. has been targeting certain conservative and Christian groups?  People who are considered 'enemies' of the current administration are being unjustly persecuted?  You are obviously one of those wacko conspiracy theorists or paranoid or racist or probably all three!" 
Personally, it is not hard for me to believe any of the above.  It is not at all hard for me to imagine a day when our government will attack us for things we have posted on facebook or said to a friend during a 'private' lunch conversation.  It is quite easy for me to believe this is possible because I have seen it happen before.  Not here in the United States of America, of course, but in Argentina. 
As 1983 drew to an end, Argentina held their first democratic election in a number of years.  As a missionary, I followed the Mission President's counsel to stay in my pension that day and not be out among the people, in case there were rioting or anything of that nature.  To my knowledge, there were no riots that day, but there were certainly many revelations that followed that election.  That day, a man named Raul Alfonsin was elected president of Argentina.  One of his main promises as he was campaigning was that he would put the people responsible for the "disaparecidos" (disappeared) on trial and prosecute them for their crimes against the citizens of Argentina. 
Once Alfonsin was elected, people felt safe for the first time in years.  They began to speak publicly and seek help for things that had happened to themselves, their families, and their friends.  My companion and I were walking in downtown San Nicolas, (which is really an oxymoron because San Nicolas was such a small place that nothing about it could really be called 'downtown', but I digress..), when a woman came up to us and asked if we were North Americans.  We said that we were and she asked if we would be willing to go to her house and speak with her.  It was clear to us that this woman was not interested in hearing our message about the restored Gospel, but we said that we would be happy to visit her at her home and took down her information.  A couple of days later, there we were, sitting in her living room, listening to things that we never could have imagined.
This woman told us that, previous to the election, she never would have been seen speaking to us.  However, now that Alfonsin was in office, she felt safe in talking. She was telling us because we were North Americans and, she hoped, could spread the word in the United States about what was going on in Argentina.  She began to tell us of her neighbors.  Someone in their family, I am not sure who, had said something negative about the Faulkland Island war that Argentina had fought against Britain several years before.  Within days, the family member was abducted by the Argentine military, along with their entire family, and taken to Buenos Aires.  They took this family, including women, children, and infants, up in an airplane.  As they flew over the Rio de la Plata, military personnel walked down the aisle of the plane and numbered off the passengers by twos.  Half of the passengers (either the ones or the twos, I am not sure which) were then pushed out of the plane into the river below.  Again, this group included women, children, and even infants.  The other half of the group were taken back to Buenos Aires.  They were interrogated and tortured.  Some were killed.  The rest were finally released to go back to their home and act as a 'warning' to anyone in their area who might be tempted to speak against the government or the military of Argentina. 
As this woman told this story to my companion and I, I remember glancing at my companion more than once and wondering if I was actually hearing what I thought I was hearing.  Was I not understanding her correctly?  Could she actually be saying what I thought she was saying?  Each glance at my companion revealed that she was as shocked as I was.  She must be hearing the same things I was hearing.  We were two girls in our early 20's, who both just happened to be from California, and who had no previous knowledge of anything comparable to what this woman was describing.  As she finished her story, she begged us to please tell people in the United States what Argentina was suffering.  We said that we would and we left.
My companion and I spoke just a little about what we had heard.  We did not write her words in our letters home or tell our mission president.  (At least, I didn't.)  After awhile, as we became busy in our work, I thought very little of what we had been told.  However, a few months later, things happened to remind me of that woman and her story. 
When I was in Santa Fe, the last city I would serve in, I was using the bathroom in the house of our duena (landlord) when I saw some newspaper pages that shocked me.  (The duena kept newspaper pages in the bathroom for us to use in place of toilet paper. My companion and I did not use them.  We purchased our own toilet paper and brought it in with us each time we needed to use the bathroom.)  I usually did not give the newspapers much attention, but the headlines on these caught my eye.  Apparently, due to the fact that so many people had come forth and complained about military abuses, the government had done some checking and found torture chambers in the basements of pretty much every official building in Buenos Aires, including the Banco Nacional de la Argentina.  These basements were full of little cubicles with cattle prods, tables, bloody instruments, and even bones.  There were all kinds of photos.  It was shocking.  I saw these and remembered the woman in San Nicolas.  It was like another piece of the puzzle was falling into place in my brain.
Not long after I'd seen the newspapers, something else happened.  Because of all the people coming forward with stories to tell and people they were looking for, the major television networks in Buenos Aires said that they were going to suspend all of their regular programming.  They said that anybody who had a story to tell or who wanted help locating a loved one who had disappeared could go on the air and ask for help.  All they had to do was get to Buenos Aires.   For days and days, the televisions were filled with people telling horror stories, holding up photos of people they'd lost, crying, begging for help.  It was amazingly sad and scary.  As missionaries, we did not watch television of course.  But every home we went into had it on.  It was like a horrible accident -- people could not look away.  The enormity of what had happened began to sink in, for the entire country.  In all, it is estimated that about 9 thousand Argentines were abducted and killed by their own military.  There were women who were taken and raped and gave birth while they were in captivity.  Some of the women lived, others were tortured to death, but in all cases their babies were given away. 
As Americans, we are used to having certain "inalienable" rights: the right to free speech, the right to worship as we please, the right to a certain amount of privacy and freedom from unlawful search.  We have these rights because of our Constitution and because of the people throughout the years who have fought to help us maintain our freedoms.  For the most part, we have taken these rights for granted.  Living in Argentina taught me many things, not the least of which was a deep gratitude for the rights and protections I enjoy as a citizen of the United States.  For many, it is unthinkable that we would ever loose these rights, and certainly not at the hands of our own government.  For me, it is not difficult to imagine at all.  I know, firsthand, what it is like when the government and military of a country turns on it's own citizenry.  I had hoped to never see it happen here, but I fear that it is already beginning to occur.   Little by little, President Obama and his cronies are chipping away at our rights.  They claim that they are trying to protect us.  They are lying.  President Obama is an evil man, out to destroy this nation and all that it stands for.  Too many people worship him and support him and help him to do his wicked deeds.  Those who try to stop him are subject to all kinds of persecution, from having their phones tapped and their computers hacked to having the I.R.S. audit them.  This kind of abuse will undoubtedly escalate.  In the same way that Eva and Juan Peron went after those they perceived to be their enemies, the Obamas are going after theirs. 
The Argentine military abducted men, women, and children in their green Ford Falcons (often called "Dinosaurios" by the people of that country) during the period now known as the "Dirty War."  Our country may soon have their own "Dinosaurs" in the form of drones, the so-called black helicopters, or whatever.   Even when many, many Argentines knew what the Perons were doing, there were still many, many more people in that country who still loved them and considered "Evita" to be equal to a Saint.  Even when the "Dinosaurios" would crawl down neighborhood streets, watching and spying and taking, there were people who refused to believe what was happening right in front of their eyes.  There will always be people who support the Obamas and their ilk.  There will always be people who mock those who see the truth and understand what it means for the future.   Satan always has people on his team, but that does not mean he is right. 

Deja Vu

Tonight, as I was driving home from work, I was listening to the Mark Levine show on the radio.  He had a man on, whose name I wish I could remember, who was a former member of the U.S. Congress.  He was a very wise man and pretty much laid the economic problems of the country out in a way that, for me at least, made sense and scared the heck out of me.  He said that there are so many people in this country who pay NO taxes at all that, even if there were a HUGE tax increase for ALL Americans who pay taxes at all -- not just the "Rich" people that Obama says "Should pay a little more", but ALL tax payers -- we STILL would not be able to keep up with the current levels of government spending.  He estimated that within 2 to 2 1/2 years, the country will be in such economic crisis that our money will be worth nothing at all. 
Sadly, this is a situation that is familiar to me.  When I arrived in Argentina in 1983, they had just dropped two zeroes off of all of their pesos.  They were printing out new money, called "Pesos Argentinos" that were updated from the old, regular pesos.  In the new Pesos Argentinos, a bill that formerly was worth 500 pesos, was now worth just 5.  A peso that had been worth 1,000 pesos, was now worth 10 Pesos Argentinos.  (Hence, the removal of the two zeroes)  The bills that had been worth 1, 5, or 10 pesos, were now worth absolutely nothing; people just tossed them out on the streets.  We would literally walk on streets paved with money (albeit worthless money) every day.  (Hey, they made great souveniers!) 
As missionaries, we would receive our monthly 'spending money' at the beginning of each month.  We were handed an envelope with Pesos Argentinos, NOT US Dollars, that was equal to $100 US dollars at the current exchange rate.  Now, I was used to trying to conserve my money to make it last through the month.  That was how I'd lived through college.  That was the absolute WRONG thing to do in Argentina, however.  If I saved my money, spending as little as possible every week, I would end up with no food at the end of the month.  The Pesos Argentinos lost their value so quickly that they could not buy as much as the end of the month as they could have at the beginning of the month.  I had to learn a whole new mindset.  At the beginning of the month, when we got our money, we would go out and buy as much food and other necessities as we could possibly keep (we had no refrigeration, which made it tricky to save some foods).  We would use all but just a small amount of our money, which we kept on hand to buy perishables and pay for bus fare and things like that.  Having food and other goods was worth more than having a fistfull of Pesos Argentinos.  As the months went on, the government announced that they were AGAIN going to drop two zeroes from the newly-printed Pesos Argentinos.  So now the original 50,000 pesos that had become the 500 Pesos Argentinos was worth 5 pesos.  Again, the streets were littered with bills that were now not even accepted as currency.  Eventually, we missionaries were given an increase in our monthly amount of money.  Instead of receiving Pesos Argentinos equivalent to $100 US dollars, we were given the equivalent to $150 US dollars.  That helped, but by the time I left, they were getting ready to raise the amount again because it was such a struggle to live on that amount.   There were at least three instances on my mission where we did not have any food at all for 4 days at a time.  I knew we were being blessed because we managed to live through those times.   If we had had actual US dollars, it would have been fabulous, but we did not. 
I remember one time, as we were riding the bus, I saw the headline of the newspaper that the man sitting in front of me was reading.  The headline stated that inflation for the previous month had been 16%.  SIXTEEN PERCENT inflation in just a MONTH'S time!  It made my head spin just thinking about it. 
When I left Argentina, I had a NEW 1,000 Pesos Argentinos bill.  This was the former 100,000 Pesos Argentinos bill with two zeroes removed, which would have been a 10,000,000 Pesos bill when I first arrived in the country.  That bill, when I left the country, was worth less than $20.00 US dollars.  I wish I could say for sure how much that 10,000,000 Pesos bill was worth when I first arrived, but I cannot. 
I can easily envision the time when the United States of America has to go through what the country of Argentina has gone through and continues to go through.  A time when our money is practically worthless and having goods and food is all that matters.  A couple of years ago, I read a news story about a train in Argentina that had hit a cow on the tracks and killed it.  I am not sure what town this ocurred in, but it really doesn't matter.  It really could have been anywhere in that poor country.  Upon hearing that the cow had been hit, everybody who could, ran to the tracks.  There were hundreds of people there, with butcher knives and scissors and anything they could grab and take with them, trying to get a piece of the dead cow.  People came to blows, some even stabbing and hurting others, in an attempt to cut off any piece of cow at all, to take home to feed their families.  I was heartsick when I read that.  I could just imagine that horrible scene.  I wonder now if I will see such things in this country in the near future.
Like Argentina, America is a land rich with resources.  Like Argentina, we have our own "Evita and Juan Peron" in Michelle and Barack Obama, who are robbing our country blind, stealing everything they can for themselves and their cronies, as well as their buddies in other countries, and turning a blind eye to their own citizenry.  Like Argentina, our leaders have blinded much of the population into thinking that they are saints and saviors, rather than the evil people that they truly are.  Even today, there are homes in Argentina where photos of Evita Peron adorn the walls right next to the pictures of the Catholic Saints and the Virgin Mary.  Just yesterday, an artist released a painting or a picture (I am not sure which) that he had done, portraying Barack Obama as Jesus Christ.  Last week, a black man on a television program urged the audience to thank God and to worship "Our lord and savior, Barack Obama."  In the days of the Perons, they managed to fool enough people, buy off enough people, and destroy enough people to get themselves elected and stay in power for quite a few years.  Barack Obama has managed to fool enough people, buy off enough people and create enough hatred and divisiveness among people to be reelected to a second term as President.  Argentina has never regained what it lost during the years of Peronista power.  I sincerely doubt that our country can recover from four more years of Barack Obama.  But, as I heard someone say recently, "We got the President that the majority of the people wanted.  But will they be happy with the President that they wanted?"  I suppose the jury is still out on that question but, for me, the answer is clear: ABSOLUTELY NOT. 
They say that history repeats itself for those who do not learn from the past.
"Don't cry for me, Argentina.....the truth is, I never left you......" 

Stages Of Mourning

It has been 5 days since the election.  The pain of it still sears me inside.  At first, I just wanted to be alone.  To curl up in a ball and hope for death or coma or.......I don't know what.  I didn't read much of what was posted on facebook.  I didn't read the news pages.  I didn't listen to talk radio.  I cried a lot.  Well, good news!  I just googled the 5 stages of loss and grief and, it would appear that I am right on track because, today, I have started to feel really, REALLY mad.  I just want to yell and scream and hurt people.  (Probably a good thing there's no school tomorrow!) 
A couple of days before the election, my home teacher sent me a message on facebook, chastizing me for being "inappropriate" in my comments about President Obama.  He recommended I go to a facebook page that he frequents called "Mormons for Obama" or something like that.  He said it was full of "Civil" people, like himself, and that my hatred of Obama was just "Not Christlike."  We messaged back and forth for two days.  At first, I tried to just be polite and kind of joke it off.  But he would not leave it alone.  I was curious, so I did go to the facebook page he'd mentioned.  The people there were no more civil than any on any other facebook page.  I finally had enough of his comments and wrote him back and said, "I reject your assessment of me."  We exchanged some more messages.  I was ready to just drop the whole thing and ignore him.  Then, the election results came in.  I replaced my profile picture with one of a woman, all in black, sobbing.  I wrote that I was without hope.  A few minutes later, my home teacher had clicked "LIKE" under that post.  I totally lost it.  What, exactly, was it that he liked?  The fact that I was without hope?  The fact that I was sobbing?  The fact that he was right in saying Obama was going to win?  It just hurt me so much!
Thursday, I saw my friend Sonja.  I had not told anyone here about the situation with my home teacher, but I told her.  Sonja told her husband who told the Stake President who told my Bishop.  I have no idea what is going to happen now.  I did not want to go to church today because I knew my home teacher would probably want to talk to me, if only to gloat.  I want nothing to do with him, at this point.  But I did not stay home because I knew that would be what Satan wants.  At church today, I made no attempt to approach him and he made no attempt to approach me.  I did get some dirty looks from his wife and from another sister in the ward who is also a total liberal.  As I said, although I have been feeling very sad and hurt for days, today I started just feeling total RAGE at these idiots who voted for Obama and who think that they can judge me.  I am ready to un-friend every person on facebook who is liberal or who thinks I should just "Cheer up."
 I am worried about the future.  Will Roger and I be able to retire?  If we can retire, can we leave here?  Will we be able to sell our houses if the country is in the middle of a depression?  What if one or both of us loses our jobs?  What if one or both of us has health problems?  Will we get the care we need or will we be deemed too old or too sickly to be worth saving? We are both so grateful that we do not have children -- that would compound our worries.  What about Iran and the nuclear arms it is developing?  What about Israel? 
I am in the process of making a card for the Romneys.  I want to thank them for trying to help save our country.  In my opinion, the country doesn't deserve the Romneys.  Clearly, there is too much evil in this nation for Heavenly Father to continue to bless it and keep it a land of promise.  Clearly, the majority of the people here would rather serve Satan.  Maybe the Romneys will never even see the card, but I feel like I have to send it.  They must be hurting too.  They deserve to know that people care and that not everyone is debating all of the 'mistakes' Mitt Romney made in his campaign or how he lost the election.  AFTER the fact, everybody thinks they could have done better.  Idiots!
If Kubler-Ross is to be believed, I will eventually come to accept this situation.  Maybe I will, maybe I won't.  Right now, acceptance feels like I would be giving up and conceding to the liberals.  I can never do that.  But I do hope that the pain and the anger will soon go away.