Election Day Hangover

We turned on the tv last night to watch the election results come in. We were fully expecting Hillary to win. We stayed up long enough to hear the winner and were a little stunned. How did we get here? Or as Corey said "It's like a nightmare..." (Not that we would have been thrilled with a Clinton presidency...) And there we see Donald Trumps picture with a big title "President Elect Trump" underneath. We didn't stay up to hear him address the world but caught up on it this morning. Corey said his only regret this election cycle was that he became too well informed on Donald Trump. So, if you would like to have hope, DO NOT READ Donald's book "Never Enough". That was the one that sealed our opinion of this man as a "bad guy" - as Sophi put it at the end of the at post.

I was glad to have Evan McMullin on the ballot here in Utah and to be able to vote for him. No one can be criticized for voting this way or that. Everyone had their reasons, their strategies, I'm sure many people headed to the polls holding their noses nose, some more than others. But wow, I did not see this coming.

We recently finished reading the Book of Mormon as a family. In Ether 15 near the end of that book I saw the bad side of the two party system and felt like there was a message her for us. They weren't having an election, but there was a race taking place for the future king to leader their country. And there were just two choices. They spent (verse 14) 4 years gathering all the people on all the face of the land, gathering them to the side they wanted to be on. Verse 15 - it's Shiz or Coriantumr? Make your pick. Then you have to defend it to the death. I don't think I would have fought for Coriantumr just cause he wasn't as bad as Shiz. Would anyone be willing to fight to the death for the candidates this year? Wow. I'm gonna say neither. If I had been a Jaredite I would have fought my way away from the war and joined a 3rd party.

My brother in law said something on a Sept 27th that I liked and felt articulated my feelings well... (Bek, you can tell Matt I just spent a long time scrolling and scrolling down his facebook wall trying to find this) He said: "Please hear me out. If you were told you have 2 choices, either everyone you love or care about is killed, or you must run a gas chamber and exterminate 10,000 people you never met, what would you do? Would you debate the two options and pick the lesser of two evils? Would you do only the two things those in power tell you to do? Or would you choose the third option of fleeing the country with everyone you know? There is always a third option. The same is true for this election." I wonder if any of the Jaredites tried to flee? Sad thing is they didn't have a good choice. And in the end it didn't matter which side you were on, they died fighting it out and millions were slain until it was just the two king-elects left. Then Coriantumr slew Shiz and was declared the winner, yay. As The Donald would say: "Sad".

So it's pretty surreal. And our situation is not now as dire as it was for the Jaredites or people in WWII Europe. And if it were, I'd try to not worry. I took Mitt Romney's loss in 2012 harder than I did this election - this one wasn't going to have a good ending anyway, but Mitt would have been so good, sigh. I'm still regret his loss and during this election have often found myself thinking how great it would have been if Mitt won. Sigh. But we try to move on. We had a great testimony meeting at church this past Sunday (6 Nov) and were blessed to have Elder D. Todd Christofferson attend our ward. Many shared thoughts about America and the future, including Elder Christofferson. He said shared John 16:33- there may be things in the world we fear, but Christ has overcome the world! He also said "I am very much at peace. The Lord knows how important this nation is to His church - to be a light, for resources, for a refuge, and it will continue to be so as long as it is needed."

So, yeah, what a political year, I'm glad it's over, and now, what's done is done. I think I should probably have the boys remove the photo of now President Elect Trump that they had on their dart board (it was just a magnetic one, not as bad as putting real darts through his head). All through the day I've had moments where I pause and say "President Trump..." Once Corey turned to me and shushed me with "we do not say his name..." Trump might be our new Voldemort? But we will pray for him, hard. I liked something Tom Hanks said recently - "I hope Trump does so well that I vote for his reelection" And as for me and my house, we will strive to move on with optimism for our country and kindness for our neighbor, remembering what we can control ~ as shared by Barbara Bush (via Tim Ballard's facebook) "Your success as a family, and our success as a society, depends not on what happens in the White House, but on what happens in your house."