What day do we celebrate this week?

An interesting bit of Independence Day history I learned today in a sacrament meeting talk:

In 1776, John Adams wrote the following to his wife of the day when the States declared independence from Great Britain:

"I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

I think that we have generally succeeded in celebrating it as he so desired.  However, the interesting part is that John Adams wasn't referring to the 4th of July, 1776.  The line which preceded the above quote was:

"The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America."

Apparently we are actually two days late. :)

In reality, the colonies declared independence on the 2nd of July, but the founders decided to put it into writing for King George to read, and spent two days drawing up what we now know as the Declaration of Independence.  And so, we now celebrate the day when the document the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana...

To those who follow my blog, I'm sorry that I've been such a flake about posting. We've been crazy busy, and I haven't made time for blogging. New posts will come soon, I promise. In the mean time:

Some Sunday funnies

I love these.  I hope you enjoy them, too.

Memorial day trip to the city.

Which city? 

Well, THE city, of course.  New York City. 

Last Monday was a day off, and instead of spending it holed up in the gloriously luxurious 1-Star Inn, I decided to do a leader's recon of NYC.  This way it's not such a surprise when we try to take all 9 of us in.

Instead of driving, though, I took the train from Garrison, which sits on the opposite bank of the Hudson from West Point.  I had been a little worried, because Friday, Saturday and Sunday were all rainy and pretty dismal. But lucky me, Monday was a gorgeous day.

 Looking across the Hudson at West Point

After a very long train ride (it was a good hour from Garrison to Grand Central), I arrived.  Apparently this year is Grand Central's 100th anniversary.

From there, I had to try and figure out which of the gazillion subway trains I needed to take to get to... Oh, wait.  I didn't really plan out what I was going to do.  Well, it was Memorial Day, so why not go see the 9/11 memorial, right?  Shouldn't be too difficult, and hey I've been on plenty of other subways before, so I figured it wouldn't be all that different.

Whatever.  I let myself get disoriented, ended up getting off and running to the other side of the street to go the other direction, till I realized I'd been going the right direction, and ran back across...  Eventually, I made it to the general vicinity.  Fortunately the WTC is marked by a very, very big landmark.

That's the new WTC Freedom Tower to guide me

A closer view

I got there and realized there was a huge line to get into the 9/11 memorial, and even more, I needed a reservation that apparently you can only get online.  Thank goodness for smartphones.  Too bad it was Memorial Day, and everyone else had the same idea.  They were booked up.

But it was lunch time, so I headed over to a restaurant in East Village, recommended by a former missionary companion, Brad.  Here I got to have some borsch and potato vareniki, and of course, I ordered everything по русски.  It was good food, although the borsch was a little sweeter than I expected.  The vareniki were excellent, and big, with sauteed onions on top.  The black bread was good, too.  Not too heavy or rye-y.  The service was, well... Russian.  But hey, they only looked slightly put out when I asked for more sour cream for my vareniki.

Mmmm, borsch!

Afterwards I decided I'd recon the Empire State Building, and man am I glad I did.  I ended up waiting nearly an hour and a half to get up on that roof, and I'm glad I didn't have kids with me for it.  When we go in with the kids, it'll be the first thing we do.  I must say, it was certainly weird seeing the elevator go from 20 to 30, to 40, 50... all the way to 80, and then 86.  It was pretty cool up there, and the weather was excellent.

 ESB lobby.  Only 85 stories to go...

 At the top.

The tallest building visible here is the same Freedom Tower

I then went on a recon of the Museum of Natural History.  That was pretty cool, although I quickly learned the difference between the express and local subways.  Fortunately I learned before it became a problem and darted across the platform from one train to another.  The museum was huge, and honestly, it's a multi-day project.  I saw a whopping two exhibits in the two hours I was there - ancient South American cultures and, naturally, dinosaurs.  

 My favorite dinosaur ever, the Allosaurus.

 Those silly Jaredites... I mean, Olmecs.  Don't they know they're supposed to be primitive?

An obsidian sword, as used by many ancient American peoples.

From there I decided to go to Times Square.  Wow, what an underwhelming location.  Seriously, all the electronics on the buildings nearly send you into epileptic seizures, it was the dirtiest location I'd seen, it smelled, and was full of weirdos.  Fortunately it was time to head back to Grand Central, get a bite to eat, and wait for the train.  I found a 99 cent pizza hole-in-the-wall outside the station, and then waited.

The ride back was only supposed to take an hour, and I was tired, so I relaxed a bit, figuring I'd just pay attention to what stop we were at.  About 20 min into the ride I looked around and realized that there were a whole lot of people missing...  I looked at my watch, and it wasn't 20 min later.  I'd slept almost an hour!  I waited anxiously to find out if I'd missed Garrison or not.  Fortunately, I woke up at the stop before Garrison. How's that for cutting it close?

Sunday morning thoughts

I found this quote today by Elder Henry B. Eyring, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

“There are few ways in which good people do more harm to those who take them seriously than to defend the gospel with arguments that won't hold water. Many of the difficulties encountered by young people going to college would be avoided if parents and teachers were more careful to distinguish between what they know to be true and what they think may be true. Impetuous youth, upon finding the authority it trusts crumbling, even on unimportant details, is apt to lump everything together and throw the baby out with the bath.”

I wanted to share it, because I think that it is very applicable, and not just for youth, but for the new convert, for long-time member of the church, and for all.

I think that the lesson we need to pull out of this is that we need to develop our youth and ourselves to recognize that the only truly solid foundation that our testimony can rest on is the witness of the Holy Ghost that Jesus Christ is our savior and that the gospel is true. 

We can't send our people out into the world with their testimonies resting on half-thought through arguments and non-gospel related traditions. We need to help them to distinguish between what is really doctrine and what is tradition.  Between the flimsy superstition that is easy to embrace, and the practical religion that requires thorough study, thought and prayer. We must teach them to recognize that often truth doesn't come easy, and it often isn't popular. Because if we don't, just like in the quote above, people will find those flimsy things come apart.  And especially for youth, the lifestyle that is put forward as an alternative to the gospel standard is extremely appealing, flashy, and often seems to be logical.

The only true defense is to get them to have those metaphysical experiences that come from the witness of the Holy Ghost when they are young.  If they have had strong spiritual experiences that witness to them of the truthfulness of the gospel, in spite of all the contrary arguments in the world, then they will be able to endure.  They may not always understand, they may not always have the answer, but they will have the knowledge.

For the rest of us, this is our defense against the wiles of the adversary and the world.  How many good people have chosen to fall away because of offenses, perceived or real, or other worldly situations? 

We will always have questions.  We may often have doubts.  We cannot understand everything.

Our testimonies are ours.  We must found them on the spiritual witnesses from the Holy Ghost that Jesus Christ is our savior, that our Heavenly Father loves us.  This is the center of our doctrine.  Nothing anyone can say or do can take away or invalidate those experiences, and therefore nothing anyone can say or do can take away our testimonies.

It's not too late to post a memorial day message, is it?

I know.  I've failed again.

But, this was what I posted on facebook for memorial day, and since we're still within a week of the holiday, I can still post this.  I have been fortunate enough to have not lost any close friends.  But I know far too many who have been lost, and I fear that their sacrifice has become second or third tier to the holiday, its festivities, and internet-era politics.  Even worse, we are quickly losing the WWII and Korea generation, and their lessons.  Soon we will begin to lose our Vietnam veterans.  Public school history classes don't teach much about these conflicts, because, well... because they'd rather be suspending kids for making their pop tarts look like guns.  I wish I had been older, and able to talk to my Grandpa Jackman about his experiences in the Pacific.

So, all that being said, please enjoy this.  Maybe if we could truly understand the human cost of war, and actually remember it, we would be less apt to engage in "politics by other means."

Someone should flog this blog... ger

Yes. I am ashamed of myself.

I have let this blog atrophy.  I'd like to say I have good reason for it; that I've been really busy with the now online portion of ILE; that I've been busy acclimating to New York culture and my new job. 

But in reality, I'm just being lazy.

So, as a mad recap of the last month or so...

Myself and Chaplain Steve Blackwell after graduation

I graduated the common core course at ILE, and quickly fled Alabama (apparently it's a trend for Elletts with a Hayden in their name to flee Alabama for better climes).  Granted, Huntsville is an island of modern sanity in the sea of all that is Alabama, but I was glad to get out.  Not least because I could be back with my family for two weeks.


And it was a wonderful, but very very fast two weeks.  I got to have fun with my kids, enjoy time with Mandy, and have a bit of a break from ILE madness.  We even went to Sea World.  Though, we were shocked to discover that the day we went was a field trip day and the park was closed to the public.  Fortunately, the very nice customer service rep let us go in and do all the stuff the field trip groups were doing, so we still got to see a lot of the cool stuff there.

Alas, the day came for me to leave and head to NY.  I went from Round Rock to Nashville, to Winchester, VA, and finally to West Point.  It wasn't a bad drive at all, though I arrived on Mothers' Day to find West Point crawling with families.  I mean, traffic backed up, people all over, parking lots overflowing... It was crazy.  People were waiting in line for a brunch like it was a Disneyland ride.

But alas, I am here. 

And in the interest of not making blog posts that are longer than your average book, I'll go ahead and end this one now.