Patriotic Devotional

Doug made the decision as acting Elder's Quorum President that a Patriotic Devotional would be a great idea since we are in a ward consisting of 90% active duty military.  He arrange to have 3 speakers:

• Speaker one- talked about how God prepared America for the Gospel to be restored here
• Speaker two- Annalisa Churchill, a wife who's husband is deployed for a year and gave birth to baby #4 while he was gone and who also was also the early morning seminary teacher, FRG leader for their unit, and was enduring another year without her husband (she's one of my heros- I will never forget her!).  She talked about "God Bless"ing" America" and those who make sacrifices for our freedoms.
• Speaker three- our 1st Counselor (and Doug's best guy friend) Scott Gale, who's a blackhawk pilot.  He talked about defending freedom and our duty as Latter-day Saints to support for and pray for our freedoms.

There were three musical numbers as well.

• "Battle Hymn of the Republic" sung by 8 Army men (including Doug) harmonizing
• "God Bless America" sung by the primary and youth
• "America the Beautiful" solo by Christy Swenson (BYU Vocal Performance Major) to which Doug and I arranged a slide show of members in our ward demonstrating patriotism (currently deployed, wedding pics in uniforms, coming homes, visits to national monuments, etc.)

The slide show left everyone in tears as it was quite meaningful, especially when the Wallace family was shown (they're the ones who lost their husband/father right when we arrived in the ward...leaving a young wife with 4 kids...remember...I'll never forget).

Doug testified of his love for our country and those who sacrifice daily to defend the freedoms we enjoy.  Thank you to all you who give of their time, talents, loved ones, years of their children's lives without dad to our country.  How I admire and respect you tremendously!  You give me the strength and courage to do my part as I will soon live what it's like to have my husband deployed to a war zone next spring for approximately 6 months.  A year ago this terrified me deeply, but after witnessing most of my friends endure a year without their husband, it makes 6 months seem do able and I want to do it well like they do it...with a smile on my face and faith in God.