Family history I am doing it

I just turned in my family research paper and it feels so good to finally have done!  Mrs. Steadman has told us that is the hardest and longest paper that we will do this semester.  Although it was not my favorite thing in the world to do, I am grateful for the experience.  I can especially say that now that it is done.  It took a good amount of time to do.  My topic surrounded smoking and how tobacco companies succeed in getting new customers in spite of all the well known knowledge of the dangers of tobacco.  I did this because a few people in my immediate family smoke and quite frankly their stupidity amazes me at times.

It took me a while to really decide what I wanted to even write about, but once I was able to make up my mind it seemed to click rather quickly.  I think my least favorite part was getting all of the sources gathered up and putting them in order correctly on the works cited page.  That was BY FAR my least favorite part, although I do understand why it is so important to do it that way.  But that could be because I waited till the last minute to get all of that info finally gathered up for that.  All of the sources.

I really did enjoy going into a deeper meaning of the topic of my paper.  It helped me see some of the statistics regarding children of people who smoke and what not.  It was honestly a very interesting topic that I could find myself getting more and more intrigued by.  Something else that came to be of great interest for me was how the amount of smokers is decreasing drastically in the United States.  The anti-smoking ads seem to be having an effect.

For me the hard part wasn't necessarily finding a good thesis for my topic.  But rather expounding on my thesis for 9-10 pages was the difficult part.  All in all it ended up being an enjoyable experience and I feel pretty good about my result.  It took a lot of work and analyzing, but it ended up being a paper that I learned a lot from.

Come listen to the prophets voice

Unfortunately, I was not able to listen to many of the live sessions this last week during General Conference. I am in the Air National Guard, and this last weekend we had training all day on saturday and sunday.  But I was able to watch the Priesthood Session live, where I was able to hear one of my favorite talks given in recent memory.
              Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave a talk entitled, "Lord, is it I?"
In the talk President Uchtdorf tells the story of The Last Supper and how during this the Lord says one of the people present will soon betray him.  Instead of looking around for the person to put the blame on, they were exceedingly sorrowful and looked into their own hearts and asked the Lord, "Lord, is it I?"
Throughout the talk, President Uchtdorf uses several examples showing how so many people have such a distorted view of how they actually are.  Many times the successful see themselves as being better than they are while at the same time not giving others enough credit.  In his own words, "when we start believing that our contributions at home, at work, and at church are greater than they actually are, we blind ourselves to blessings and opportunities to improve ourselves in significant and profound ways."
          This talk really struck home with me, because I constantly am comparing myself to my friends and other people and there are times where I almost look down on my friends because they make choices that I don't agree with.  In reality, I should be concerned with where I am spiritually, because heaven knows I have a lot of improving to do.  
             This talk really makes me desire and strive to set aside pride and instead strive to constantly improve myself.  He gives a promise for those of us who look in ourselves and are constantly striving to improve.  "Those who want to improve and progress, those who learn of the Savior and desire to be like Him, those who humble themselves as a little child and seek to bring their thoughts and actions into harmony with our Father in Heaven—they will experience the miracle of the Savior’s Atonement. They will surely feel God’s resplendent Spirit. They will taste the indescribable joy that is the fruit of a meek and humble heart. They will be blessed with the desire and discipline to become true disciples of Jesus Christ."

Indian blood

I have been given the assignment, along with the rest of my class, of finding a story or event from my family history and writing a research paper about it.  There is one particular story that I always enjoy telling/ hearing about.  I don't remember all of the details surrounding the story but basically I have Native American blood in my family and from my understanding, it comes from my Healey side.  I am extremely curious how this story happened and how it came to be that a Native American woman came into my family however long ago that it was.
 From my understanding she was Cherokee, but I have never really asked any of my family on that side how it came to be.  So I intend on researching that story and what that changed for my family as well me.


Caleb:
I like this idea. It's always fun to find that your ancestors had traditions that you had never heard of before. I can't think of a more fascinating attempt of discovering more of your ancestry than of researching an ancestral culture so different from your own.

Hey me too! Supposedly. No one really knows if its true or not though. I live right next to a reservation and the Natives actually have a huge impact on the culture of the whole town. I would try researching Cherokee cultures and seeing what aspects from their culture could have been brought into your family.

You could also look into the history of the Cherokee tribe. See what happened to them through out history. Were they mis-treated?? 

It's not terribly clear as to what you are researching.  I'm not sure what your thesis is.  Is it about the Cherokee's or specifically about your grandmother's story?  Both of which I think will make an excellent paper.  I think it's a very interesting topic and you're clearly interested in it.

I have Native American blood too. My great something great grandparents were Cherokee. My grandfather's name was Chief Chicken Warrup. Weird right? My dad's really into it. I could probably get you some background if you need help! -katie vincent