Remember

Since today is Memorial Day I've decided to talk a little about my ancestries.

First, my grandpa Proudfit. He died before I was born, but I've always looked up to him for many reasons, one is because I like war stories and he was in World War II. He was a B-17 pilot and on one mission the plane he was flying got shot down over Holland and crashed in a corn field.

A few of the locals who witnessed the crash took my grandpa and the other crew members in and hide them from the Nazi's. Later my grandpa made his way back home.

I think that story teaches us how determined some of those men were in risking their lives for the freedoms we have and how grateful we should be for the courage they had to do that. It shows us how willing we need to be to stand up for what we believe in. I know there are a lot more touching and inspiring stories than this one, but this is one of my favorites.

On the other side of my family is a man named Albert Petty, he is my fourth great grandpa on my mother's side. He fought in another kind of war, he fought in a spiritual war. Back in 1831 he was converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints along with his family.

He first moved to Missouri and then to Nauvoo Illinois. During his stay at Nauvoo they lost at least one child, by the time they had come out west, they had lost four of their nine children.

When the church was just starting to grow the persecution was so horrible that it took a lot of faith, courage, and detrmination to join a brand new church and be hated for it. But they were also blessed for enduring that persecution, and are still being blessed.

Both of my grandpas lived at different time periods under different circumstances, but in my eyes they each did something great to let me live the life I want to live. They are both a great source of strength for me. I have other ancestries that did great things, and I'm sure you do too, we need to remember them and to learn from their lives, we need to look up to them as heros and role models.

We need to remember what they stood for, so we can remember what we stand for. We need to make them proud!!