Comments on: The Bazaar http://www.keepapitchinin.org/2012/12/07/the-bazaar/ Where our past is never very long ago Mon, 20 May 2013 00:29:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Ardis E. Parshall http://www.keepapitchinin.org/2012/12/07/the-bazaar/comment-page-1/#comment-323347 Ardis E. Parshall Mon, 10 Dec 2012 02:01:43 +0000 http://www.keepapitchinin.org/?p=9900#comment-323347 Oh, it existed, in some measure, but it has been greatly romanticized. We sent grain to China during the famine of 1907, and we sold a lot of wheat to the U.S. government toward the end of World War I, but both those contributions were tiny drops in a very big ocean — our numbers were waaaaaay too small “to feed Europe after the war” or to “get water to all of Africa.” They still are. It’s fine to long to do more, but a mistake, I think, to imagine that what we did in the past was greater than it was.

]]> By: Julia http://www.keepapitchinin.org/2012/12/07/the-bazaar/comment-page-1/#comment-323304 Julia Mon, 10 Dec 2012 01:13:49 +0000 http://www.keepapitchinin.org/?p=9900#comment-323304 Sometimes I wish RS had things that felt more meaningful. Is that terrible to say?

I grew up at the tail end of ward budgets and temple funds. My grandparents talked about the inequities of wealthy wards hiring less wealthy wards to run their activities. I realize that there were real problems with all of the fundraising, constantly going on, and the inequities to people in developing countries needed to be addressed.

Still, while I love visiting teaching, the more I learn about its history, the more I feel like we are missing out. Why aren’t we storing enough grain to feed Europe after the war? Or directly create and fund a way to feed and get water to all of Africa? I love the water project, but I wish RS had control of it instead of LDS charities.

For those who have lived longer and seen more than me, am I pining for a past that did not exist?

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