Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Thrift, Industry, and Self- Reliance President Young -Caring for the poor President Romney

“If you wish to get rich, save what you get. A fool can earn money; but it takes a wise man to save and dispose of it to his own advantage (DBY, 292).” I think that this quote kind of changed my point of view and that why I am going to use it and say that they should buy a smaller home that they can get a smaller mortgage on that way he can have more money to put away every year and save more I think that it is a great thing to have a huge home and everything that comes along with that life style but he should wait until as Dave Ramsey would say buy the home with cash.
“A few illustrations of the consequences of failing to perform according to our covenants
Should stimulate us to review our own performance, increase our fast offerings, and be
More faithful in our welfare work.” I think that he gave this talk in a good and bad way I came across thinking that he was trying to scare the saints into helping the poor but the more I got into the talk you would only think that if you were prideful and not in tune with the spirit. As I was reading it this sentence stuck out to me the most because it reminded me of the importance of fast offerings, When I was on my mission I received $130 a month and I remember I was paying $5 a month to fast offerings and once I was on exchanges and another Elder and I were talking about it and he asked why I did not pay more I said it is already hard to get by on $125 and he told me that I needed to sacrifice that there were people that needed it allot more than me. This was hard for me because I paid for my mission so it was my money or that was the thought that I had. I remember that I decided to pay $20 I remember thinking there is no way I am going to have enough money well we all know the way the lord works I never worried about money the rest of my mission. Reading this talk was a friendly reminder that I need to do better. I would say that I don’t disagree with anything that he said in his talk the one thing that is hard for me to understand is that we need to provide for the poor I think it is way better to teach them to provide for themselves so they can come self reliant but I will address this in my conclusion.
I love the Perpetual Education Fund I love the fact that we are not just giving the people the money but we are lending it to them interest free and they have a time period in which they will need to pay it back. I do have a biases and that is that every year my Dad goes down to Lagloria Mexico and builds homes for the people they will normally build 4-5 every year. For the longest time I never went with him I would always stay home one year I went and had an amazing experience with the people there but this is where my biases comes in, so they have organized something with the stake down there were they help members of the stake that really need help the stake president picks the people that will receive homes that year I was put on a job and worked for a few days then I realized that the people we were building the home for almost expected us to be there and in my option were very ungrateful that bothered me I talked to my Dad and told him first off that I think that we need to be teaching these people how to build so they can help other members build there homes and I also hated the fact that we were only helping members of the church so he told me I was on my own and that I could work on whatever I wanted so that night I found out that there were an elderly couple that needed a new roof on their home so the next day I went out there and there roof was caved in and O told them let’s get started the old man came out and watched me and helped me as I spent two days putting a new roof on their home the wife would bring us drinks every thirty min and ask if she could help I had such a great experience that old man told me that he knew of people that also needed new roofs and now that he knew how to do it he was going to offer the help to others. I personally think that we need to help the poor help themselves. I came home from that trip determined to help others in need but not just by giving them money. That’s when I found KIVA they are a non for profit company that gives micro loans to people in third world countries I was a skeptic at first but after the first two people I loaned to paid me back in full within months I was gung ho I have donated to over 8 people now ! it has been a great way for me to help the people in need and just not hand them money. http://www.kiva.org/

1 comment:

Alisa said...

That's awesome that you have helped 8 people. Also, I didn't know about the roofs in Mexico. I'm sure they will be forever grateful.