Veterans Day

We went to Springfield, Illinois as a family today. It was a long drive, and very gloomy and cold. We toured the Lincoln's home. We all got to touch the hand railing on the stairs that Abraham Lincoln touched every day. The museum was amazing. I got lost from my dad and Tashi on a walk though tour. So I was taking my time all alone. Seeing the wax figures of a black slave family being torn apart because they're all being sold to separate places...a darkened room with a casket lit up (representing Lincoln's body touring the country)...pictures of all the dead soldiers...it really hit me. I'm so glad to be an American. But I will never forget growing up in Japan. I always wonder how much simpler and how different my life would have been if I hadn't grown up there...
But if the founding fathers wouldn't have done what they did, if the soldiers in the revolutionary war hadn't sacrificed for what they thought was right, we wouldn't have had a free country. There wouldn't have been freedom of religion, and so our church wouldn't have started and my parents wouldn't have met Dr. Samejima (a member of our church) and we wouldn't have gotten Mia and Noah from Japan. 99% of my best friends in Japan are members of the church.
Just thinking about it that way really put it into perspective.
How much more good would have come if George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Joseph Smith hadn't died early deaths?
What would have happened to our country if they hadn't existed, or stood up for right?
They were all amazing men. And I am very grateful for them.

Here's the Gettysburg Address:



And Sullivan Ballou's last letter to his wife. I bawl like I baby every time I read, watch, or hear this. Oh goodness. This was a good man too.