Gretchen

[Gretchen @Cheecharra]

@EkoLovesYou ❤️"Make our home with him."❤️

[In Defense of Family | Megan @defense_of_fam]

The purpose of going after the one is to bring them back into the fold, not just tag along as they wander.

[David A. Bednar @BednarDavidA]

As we repent, strive to remember and honor our covenants, and prepare throughout the week to participate in the ordinance of the sacrament, we can be blessed to always retain a remission of our sins through the redeeming and saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The partaking of the bread and the water does not remit sins. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who forgives us of sin as we repent and come unto Him.

[Dallin H. Oaks @OaksDallinH]

The commandments of God provide the guiding and steadying force in our lives.

As we honor covenants by keeping God’s commandments, His promised blessings enable us to soar to celestial heights.

[Noah Verrier @NoahVerrier]

My oil painting of Fried Rice

[Noah Verrier @NoahVerrier]

My oil painting of Diet Coke & lemon

[Gretchen @Cheecharra]

@kateiswell Sisters’ Participation in the Gathering of Israel

https://t.co/zhWRBMHugn

[Neil L. Andersen @AndersenNeilL]

Eternal marriage is not a short-term experiment. It is an eternal journey of becoming who God desires us to become.

We believe in eternal marriage, we teach of eternal marriage, and we seek an eternal marriage.

[Noah Verrier @NoahVerrier]

My oil painting of Mac & Cheese

[EKO @EkoLovesYou]

Pacific Ocean, early 1400s. A trading junk goes down off Palawan in the Philippines. It stays on the bottom for 500 years.

In 1993, a pearl diver finds it. Divers pull up 4,722 artifacts. Ming porcelain, bronze cannons, Chinese coins struck between 1403 and 1424. And 21 grinding stones. The official catalog calls them sharpening stones. Researchers who handled them said manos and metates, the corn-grinding stones of Mexico. Nobody agreed and the story went quiet.

Chinese coins. Asian waters. Stones some researchers swear came from Mexico. Columbus is still decades away. History is compressed and censored and memory-holed, but you never see anyone talk about this.

I remember being taught that Asia and the Americas never ever touched. One land bridge during the last ice age, then the Pacific becomes a wall until 1492.

But around 1500 BC, at the exact moment the Shang dynasty is working jade and writing on oracle bones, the Olmec civilization somehow rises out of nothing on the Gulf Coast. Jade, for the first time. Writing, for the first time. Kingship, for the first time. Everything all at once.

No local evolution led up to it. But statues show men with pointy beards in clothing that doesn't quite look Mesoamerican. Seems the Olmecs and the Shang worshipped the same exact cleft-headed god. And over 80 petroglyphs across the Southwest match Shang oracle bone script.

Also turns out there's a bit of Chinese DNA in the Maya of the Yucatan, as well as the people of Nayarit. Chihuahuas carry DNA from the miniature court dogs of imperial China. Asiatic chickens were already in Mexico when the Spanish landed, being used for divination, same as in China. The Maya word for chicken is ki or chi. The Chinese word is ji (sounds exactly the same). The Chinese rose was growing on Mexico's west coast before any European ship logged a position. And the people of Nayarit still tell of ships as big as houses that came centuries before the Europeans. Bigger than the European ships.

In 1405 the Ming emperor built the Treasure Fleet. 317 ships. 27,000+ men. Flagship 400 feet long, five times anything Columbus would sail nearly a century later. It went on seven voyages.

Which brings me back to the junk on the ocean floor.

Standard objection has always been if they came, where's the wheel? ok fine, but Mesoamericans had the wheel. Archaeologists dug up figurines. Tiny clay animals on wheels. Toys for kids.

And toys imitate what adults use. Try naming one practical thing that exists in toy form that doesn't exist in the real world. Maybe they saw it work, but the working version was kept from them.

What if the Chinese reached Mexico? What would've been the terms of the visit? Somebody crossed with huge ships and pets and plants and stayed long enough to leave DNA on both coasts, long enough for their chicken to keep its Chinese name in a Mayan mouth.

What if Americas were never sealed off? What if the peoples of the East walked and sailed into our hemisphere, wave after wave, long before any flag was planted?

Some day, sooner than later, a certain government is going to go digging in its 'archives' and come up with some sort of theory. A forgotten voyage, an old gift, a tribute list. And they're going to wave it around like a deed. A long dead dynasty's map turned into a dotted line around our ocean, our hemisphere, and a story that started out for schoolchildren ends up a claim on land that was never theirs.

So maybe the Chinese reached Mexico. But a visit is not a title, and gifts are not deeds. A sunken ship just proves somebody came. And that's all it proves. So when they start reading from the archives, remember the junk.

[The Conservative Alternative @OldeWorldOrder]

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: "The worship of God is a duty. God governs in the affairs of men."

[Brett Cain @BrettWCain]

Let me introduce you to one of the greatest American guerrilla leaders you’ve probably never heard of.

Lot Smith

[Gretchen @Cheecharra]

@TheJollyEwok Charcuterie board.

[John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad]

Right now I am writing this in tears. Thank you @SECNAV @HungCao_VA from the bottom of my heart.

The US Merchant Marine has been defunded, denigrated, and stripped of respect for decades.

The result? The Navy pulled 17 critical logistics ships manned by Merchant Mariners from the active fleet, and only 86 🇺🇸 cargo ships remain in international service against China’s thousands.

Over the last three years, what started as a tiny group with @brentdsadler @Heritage gained traction through @michaelgwaltz and snowballed into countless meetings with Senators, Admirals, and senior White House advisors.

Together with dozens of patriots, and with the personal support of President Trump, we wrote the SHIPS for America Act, the Maritime Executive Order & the Maritime Action Plan. We overturned the UN carbon tax that penalized shipping, fought for new USTR rules, stood up @JerryHendrixII’s White House shipbuilding office and a new Navy shipbuilding plan, won critical support from @SecWar & got an actual USMM Captain, Steve Carmel, nominated as Commandant of the USMM.

It hasn’t all been unicorns and rainbows. We are still fighting to get the SHIPS Act through Congress and to get the bureaucratic state to execute the executive orders.

But my biggest frustration, one I raised at EVERY SINGLE MEETING, was this: we are swinging for grand slams while nobody guards first base.

And the easiest bunt of all is the most basic sign of respect: a service ribbon for US Merchant Mariners who served in combat.

My wife displays a single ribbon from her service in Iraq. Everyone who enters our house asks about it, giving me the chance to be the proud service spouse I am.

But that combat ribbon, one of dozens on the books for Merchant Mariners, is the only one regularly issued to our service & was essentially forgotten during the Obama years.

@PeteButtigieg refused to issue it when the USMM returned to combat in the Red Sea.

That ribbon is what kept me pushing. At every meeting with the top people in DC, I asked for one simple bunt: issue the ribbon to our mariners in combat.

Nobody did. A few tried. A few made phone calls. Most ignored the request, and some rolled their eyes.

One even told me: “This is ridiculous, John. We are budgeting billions for ships and you won’t shut up about a ribbon. Ask any mariner if they’d rather have a new ship or a ribbon and 100% will say a ship.”

They aren’t wrong. The problem is ships take time, we are three years in and they don’t have a ship. A ribbon can be issued in days.

The bigger problem is they don’t understand Colonel John Boyd: “People, then ideas, then platforms & technology. In that order.”

The fact that nobody is asking for a ribbon is exactly what makes it powerful.

A few weeks ago I met with Hung Cao and opened with the same ask I’ve made hundreds of times: “Dust off an @MSCSealift medals & give one to the crews in combat off Iran.”

He said what most have said: “Give me a few weeks, I’ll look into it.”

I’ve heard that before, so I got mad. Madder still when @shesova told me a USMM World War II hero had been overlooked for a medal. I called my Commandant & said, “GD it Steve, we still have a WW2 veteran who’s been overlooked.”

“Give me a few weeks John, I’ll look into it.”

🙄

Well, I woke up today to an email from Sheila inviting me and @SecDuffy to a ceremony awarding Charles Mills, World War II USMM combat veteran the USMM Outstanding Achievement Medal. Wow!

Then @MikeSchuler published this today.

I asked for a simple USMM combat medal nobody would recognize.

Instead President Trump & Hung Cao delivered a Presidential Unit Citation, one of the most prestigious awards in the military.

Yesterday @HungCao_VA said the Navy’s top 3 priorities are people, shipbuilding & the homeland. Senior officers have said that for years.

The difference is Hung Cao means it.

“Acta Non Verba,” deeds not words, is USMM Acadmy’s motto & boy did Secretary Cao deliver!

PEOPLE FIRST 🇺🇸

[Gretchen @Cheecharra]

@nauvoosupply

[Gretchen @Cheecharra]

@FoxsFoxes I think Article of Faith #7 is not read to the end. Interpretation is also needed. I've enjoyed when returning Missionary does both. D&C 50:22

[Nikki ZaraLehi @Nikki_sphinxed]

“Faith is trusting God in advance for something that will only make sense in reverse.” Boyd K. Packer

[Neil L. Andersen @AndersenNeilL]

The Ten Commandments have been a foundation of our moral understanding of right and wrong for more than 3,000 years. Let us cherish these commandments given by the Lord.

[Gretchen @Cheecharra]

@FiredUpCoug Haha, my nephew was at my house a few hrs today and still left stuff. Good luck!!

[History Calendar @HistoryCalendar]

John Quincy Adams, when he discovered that both his father, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson had died on the 50th anniversary of independence on July 4, 1826, he believed it to be a palpable mark of divine grace.

“The time, the manner, the coincidence with the decease of Jefferson, are visible and palpable marks of divine favour, for which I would humble myself in grateful and silent adoration before the Ruler of the Universe—For myself all that I dare to ask is that I may live the remnant of my days in a manner worthy of him.”