One of the most significant days in history

Today is one of the most significant days in history, and not many people know it. on this day, 187 years ago, Joseph Smith was first shown the gold plates. Four years later, he was given the gold plates (from which the Book of Mormon was translated), the Urim and Thummim (the means by which to translate the plates), and a breastplate from the angel Moroni.

How absolutely WONDERFUL! What joyous days! The Gospel of Jesus Christ was well on it's way to being fully restorded to this earth, after such a long apostasy!

For more information on this topic, and other topics regarding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, please visit www.lds.org or www.mormon.org.

"Not For Sale"

This semester, in my English 122 class, we have to write a 10-12 page persuasive research paper on a topic of slavery. After watching the movie Invictus, I planned on writing about Nelson Mandela, and how his rise to political power in South Africa affected slavery and racism in South Africa. That was my topic, until today.

Dr. Eisenlau had Dr. Fiederlein (sp butchered, I'm sure) from our school come speak on the topic of slavery. He's quite the expert. He talked about four different kinds of slavery. Child soldiers, sex traffiking, sex tourism, and labor traffiking. I later three, I didn't have much of a problem stomaching. I know the problem exists. What I DID have a problem stomaching, was the children forced to be soldiers.

One clip that affected me quite harshly was a clip of a film he showed. It depicted a practice used quite frequently by rebel groups in third world countries in the 90s (and I'm sure today) to recruit the children to be soldiers. The rebel soldiers would literally rip the children from their parents' arms. They would then shove a machine gun into the child's hands, and force the children to kill thier parents.

Hello natural man. I cannot imagine removing a child from their parents, let alone forcing the child to kill his or her parent. I realized how blessed I am to have the life I do. I have no idea what true horror is. My biggest fear right now is getting into UNC. Their's is simply surviving another day.

Hello wake up call.