Memorial Day Remembrance

I saw this amazing scene at the Utah Veterans Cemetery & Memorial Park today, Memorial Day, 31 May 2021, while taking pictures of graves in response to requests on Find A Grave.

Anxiously engaged in a good cause (Come, Follow Me)

I'm so grateful for agency and the Savior's invitation to use it to do good!  I feel like the more people recognize that they are free to act--to bring about good in the world--and not simply subject to the challenges of life and the choices of others, society would be transformed.

Men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause,
and do many things of their own free will,
and bring to pass much righteousness;
For the power is in them, wherein
they are agents unto themselves.
Doctrine and Covenants 58:27-28

Forgiveness (Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month)

This is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and as I think about my many friends whose ancestors called Asian and Pacific nations home, I'm reminded of my love for them.  This month also reminds me how grateful I am to live in a country whose people forgive and help even those who sought to oppress and destroy us.  

In WWII when the Japanese Empire attacked the United States and many of its Asian neighbors and imprisoned, mistreated, enslaved, tortured, and killed millions, the U.S. and its allies sent many from the Greatest Generation to defeat Japan and restore freedom to Japan's Asian neighbors and even to the Japanese people themselves.  Hundreds of thousands of America's youth never got to live the lives they had imagined but gave them up for their brothers and sisters around Asia and the Pacific.

After victory, the U.S. helped to rebuild Japan and its economy, gave the Japanese their freedom, and even defended Japan from other military aggressors.  A few generations later, Americans look at Japan with a kinship and fondness that could only come from forgiveness.

That's what Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month reminds me of.

Forgive your worst enemy

"Forgive your worst enemy.  It will heal your soul and it will set you free."
 - Eva Mozes Kor, an Auschwitz survivor, who forgave Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death" who conducted medical experiments on her and her twin sister

This is an amazing story of forgiveness of one's former oppressor and the surprise felt at the freedom and peace that resulted:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk87MXtt5qg (if you want to pass some of the description of what she endured, you can start at 6:15)