Family

So. I posted about my life earlier today. I didn't like it, so don't expect much more of it. I don't know why, I feel awkward talking about what's going on in my life in this forum, it's weird considering how open I generally am. Father's Day just passed. Last year I got to speak in church and honor the fathers in my life. I think tomorrow I'll post that old talk. I've been thinking about family a lot lately, about the nature of family and how it relates to everything in our lives. I'm going to tell you a little bit more about that. But first, I'm an uncle! I suppose I should announce that here. Now, to introduce you to my niece, Michelle, my future niece, Honor, and my two honorable nephews, Max and Connor. And let's not forget Teesa. Hope nobody minds me stealing some pictures! :)

Michelle Ann Adams was born June 18, 2009. She is the first daughter of my older brother Cy and his beautiful wife Brittany. I can't wait until I can go home and meet her. She's lucky to have such wonderful parents.

Then I have Honor Celeste Hadfield coming. My younger sister Amanda and her husband, Craig are excited to be parents and according to Amanda's blog there are 121 days left until she joins us. I can't wait to meet her too.
So far all I can show you is an ultrasound image. But I'm sure she'll be super cute. I've also been super fortunate to be close friends with some amazing people who have recently had children. Jimmy Salmans and his wife Hilary welcomed Maxwell into the world this March. I was able to visit with them and to meet Max the last time I traveled home. Returning from my grandmother's funeral, I was still dressed in my suit, and he decided to spit up. That's just a hazard that comes with kids, so I didn't mind at all. But Jimmy and Hilary were very sorry and informed me that it was Max's biggest spit up to date! So glad I could be there for the moment. He even managed to launch everything enough that he got a little past me and to my friend Rachel who was next to me. :)
















L to R: Maxwell Salmans, Connor Swart

Healthy boy there. And on Saturday my good friend Johnathan and his wife Jannene welcomed their son Connor to the world. I was able to talk with Johnathan last night and he, like Jimmy, pronounced me an honorary uncle.

Finally, I may never know her, but when I talk about being an uncle I have to remember my beautiful little sister's gift to a loving family. If I remember right, it was February 2, 2005 when Teesa was born. Amanda's Adia Faith.
I remember driving with my father to be in Logan when she was born. I remember getting to meet her before she was adopted. I remember the opportunity I had to talk about my brothers and sisters with my dad, to talk about the joys of family and the importance of the little moments in life. Lately, I've been thinking about my family a great deal, and about the nature of family. The family is ordained of God, I have no doubt of that. By and through it he provides us with our closest friends and our greatest support. And in experiencing the highs and the lows of the family relationship, we come to know God better. As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland once noted, of all God's titles the one he prefers is Father.
Joseph Smith once said that it is the first principle of the gospel to know the true nature of God. The true nature of God is as our Father, loving, caring, providing for our needs and watching over us, guiding us. And as our father he watches our foibles, our errors, our mistakes. He sees us hurt, and he mourns for us. He is our father, and I believe that to become a parent is to begin to understand how our Father in Heaven sees us. Congratulations to all of the new parents in my life. Thank you for allowing me to be an uncle! I cannot wait until I can join your ranks as parents, remember that you are being entrusted with the care of God's children. Love them and care for them. Thank you for offering me a place in their lives. I'm so excited for all of you! And for so many other friends and family who are new parents or who have recently had newborns. Congratulations all.

An Update on Life

I figure that I should get back in the habit of blogging sometime soon, and the only way to start up again is to start posting again! So, unfortunately y'all are going to have to deal with reading up on what I've been up to. Which is probably what most people had expected from this blog when it started... oh well, I forget the purposes of my projects at times.

So, let's fill you in on my status. A few weeks ago I started working with the Genworth Financial Agency Virginia Office, which services people who are interested in Longterm Care Insurance in the Virginia and Washington, D.C. area. I'm currently the Administrative Assitant pro tempore, as the previous Admin Assistant changed position to become a field agent. I'm filling in while others are interviewed for the permanent position, but in the fall I will begin as the Marketing Intern, so that will be exciting.

About the same time that I started working at Genworth, I also started dating a young lady named Stephanie, so far so good on that front. She's a photographer and on Saturday we went to the Canal Walk in downtown Richmond so that she could practice some lighting techniques and improve her mad photography skills. Then Saturday night my friend Daniel tried to get 100 people into the theater to watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Not a great movie, but it was fun to gather with everybody.

Other than dating and work, I've tried to keep busy by reviewing and preparing for the upcoming term of school and catching up on lots of reading. My latest book obsession is studying the Presidents of the United States (not the band) so I've been collecting books written by each president. So far I've only gone as far back as Franklin Roosevelt with my collection (in reverse order) and I've decided that I need to read what I've got at the moment before I invest in the memoirs of Herbert Hoover, which are actually quite extensive. I've also been reading a lot of books on the Supreme Court, which is fascinating. I love the history of the court and while no book has been as good as The Brethren by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, I'm learning a lot.

I guess that's the update for now. I'm teaching the Institute of Religion class this Tuesday and the topic is Chastity and Moral Cleanliness, so I may update you on how that goes.

Primary Colors

Those of you who read me regularly, know that I don't write on my blog regularly. At least not anymore. Perhaps I'll improve on that. I might blog about my new employment, or what happened over Memorial day weekend, and other exciting happenings in my life. But today, today I voted in the Democratic Gubernatorial Primary, and so I want to share some political thoughts again. Everybody who hates me talking about politics, altogether say "yay!"

To begin, I should state that I live in a largely Republican precinct, and that it is just a primary for the gubernatorial race. There is only one candidate for governor from the Republican party this year so there was no primary. But it's an open primary, hence independents like myself and Republicans can vote in the primary. I voted today at 5:05 PM. The polls opened at 6:00 AM. I was the 27th person to vote in my precinct today. In 11 hours, they had fewer than 30 people vote. This makes me sad.

So many people have died so that we have the right to vote in Democratic elections, so many people have fought, marched, and worked consistently so that we all can vote. And while I have abstained from voting at times because I felt uneducated about the candidates and feel strongly that our right to vote is accompanied by an obligation to vote knowledgeably, I am shocked that so few people made their way to the polls today. I know people don't vote in primaries as much as in general elections. I know that people don't vote in gubernatorial and senatorial elections as often as presidential elections, that they vote even less in local elections. But it makes me sad. Why do we get so passionate about presidential elections and forget to vote for the people who have so much more control over our immediate lives? Why don't people educate themselves on all of the primary candidates and vote so that they can help determine the candidates in the general election? So often I hear others lament that they feel as though they're voting for the lesser of two evils! And so many of them failed to vote in the primary, where they could have chosen a non-evil... I'm sad, vote. Please, vote. And vote knowledgeably, it doesn't take that long to look into the candidates, learn the distinctions between them, and vote for the person who can best represent you.

While I'm on the topic, I want to say something about the last presidential election a little bit. Many of you know that I love President Obama, that I donated and worked for his campaign, and that I believe he has the potential to be the greatest president I will see in my lifetime. With that being said, I have something to say about other supporters of President Obama. He ran with a campaign slogan of "Yes, We Can!" a slogan garnered from his concession speech after the New Hampshire Primary returns showed him losing to Hillary Clinton. If you haven't heard the speech, I reccommend you watch it on youtube. It's one of his best. So that became the slogan, it was on bumper stickers. Good times, it's an inspiring message, if we work together we can change the world and our nation. Listen to the speech, that's the message. November 7, 2008 Barack Obama wins the presidential election, November 8, 2008 bumper stickers appear on cars saying "Yes, We did!"

I shake my head everytime I see that. The message was that together, working as communities, we can change and improve our world. On November 7 the majority of voting Americans voted for a man who believes in that premise and wants to enact a type of that change. That's all. Yes, We Can isn't a slogan saying "Yes, we can elect a black man president" or "yes, we can elect a guy with a funny name president" or even "yes, we can elect a democrat president." Yes We Can is a slogan saying that we can improve our world, that by working together we can enact real, positive change. Yes We Did what? Ugh. Yes, we can, but we haven't done yet. Why doesn't everybody realize that? No one man can do everything that needs to be done. Just getting the man you want to lead you elected accomplished something, but not everything. Nobody should say "Yes, we did."