Caucus

I went to my first caucus meeting this week. I had never heard of it before. I'm glad I went. I actually sat right next to our County Clerk/Auditor, Bryan Thompson who said he got his start at a meeting just like this one. It was fun to have him teach me and fill me in on all the happenings of the process. I loved the immediate results from the voting process.  I wish more of our government was run this way.  I loved seeing my neighbors and people unprepared to be a delegate were nominated by their family or friends to represent our community.  I loved seeing people get passionate and emotional in their 60 second introduction.  I loved voting, seeing them collect and count the votes and then write the numbers on the board.  I loved the accountability.


One question that kept coming up was "Will you vote to represent us, or will you vote your conscience?" I found that those two things seemed to conflict in my mind in a sense, so I spent most of the evening figuring out how I felt about this question, and this is what I came up with:

Personally, when I look for someone to vote for, I look for someone who shares my values and is strong and unwavering. Someone who can't be bought, and is unafraid to stand firm, even when it is unpopular. BUT, I feel that if you are in a position to REPRESENT others, that is your primary goal, and only if your consituants are evenly divided is when you step in to use your conscience.

This is why, I feel, so many Americans are unhappy with our current government. We are feeling like we aren't being heard. Too many huge bills have passed lately that the majority of Americans opposed.

I say use your strength and values to educate, promote good and change on committes and writing bills, but when it comes time to vote, you'd better REPRESENT, because by gum, that is what we sent you there to do.  As soon as a representative begins to feel they are smarter than the average American and vote in contrast to their constituants' voices, it's time for them to be replaced.

Childhood Gems

I was playing a board game with my girls yesterday.  On my turn I chose a card that had a negative consequence.  I stuck out my bottom lip and pouted.  Jaeda jumps up and wraps her arms around my neck and says most sincerely,

 "It's okay, Mom.  You won't win, but I"ll cheer for you."

Water for Haiti

With the earthquake in Haiti brought heartache to our hearts every time we watched the news or heard updates. I watched with soberness a fund raiser on TV that shared personal stories of those who were experiencing the awful after effects of the large earthquake in the already poverty-stricken island. My sweet, tender hearted Rayna sat by my side and cried along with me at the stories of the innocent children who were suffering the loss of family members and their homes. Rayna said “I wish I could do something to help them.” This reflected my exact feelings. I had already donated what money we could , but didn't feel like it satisfied my longing to DO something.



This year our family is trying to focus on service, taking President Monson's General Conference talk “What Have I Done for Someone Today” as our guide. I thought what a better time and opportunity to teach my children the value of service? They were already longing to help. After a bit of research on the internet, I found a charity in Salt Lake that was collecting bottles of water to send to Haiti. I signed up to help and we pledged to donate 650 bottles of water. We didn't know how we'd do it, but we brainstormed at dinner that night. Rayna made up a flier, we prayed for help to reach our goal, and for Family Home Evening for the next 2 weeks we went door to door in our neighborhood taking fliers to each home and having Ian or Rayna explain our water drive and how they could donate. We came home and made a bar graph taped up in our living room to chart our progress towards our goal.


Rick and I were amazed at the dedication and ability of our young children and their efforts to help others half a world away. We were also amazed at the overwhelming response we had from our neighbors, family, and friends. Each time the door bell would ring, my children would run to the door and jump up and down with excitement while gushing their gratitude for the donation. We would faithfully count each bottle and fill in our graph. As the deadline approached I was moved to tears several times as I saw children in our ward spend their own allowance on a case of water for Haiti, as I had to make a new column for our graph because we received WAY more than expected, or listening to our children pray for Haiti and success with our water drive.

In the end, we collected 1,901 bottles of water to donate to Haiti – almost 3 times our goal. Our children learned that the Lord can help us with things that seem impossible. They also learned that they can make a difference in the world, even without a lot of money or a lot of experience. I'm sure our little project was only a little drop in the bucket compared to the needs in Haiti, but we know that through our efforts we were able to make a difference to 1,901 people.