well good morning you know when we walked in this morning and the we started worshiping didn't you just feel the presence of the Lord land on this room and be with all of us and Brian and I are so blessed to be with all of you this morning we talk often about politics and government and the challenges that you run into and the divisiveness that we've seen in our country recently uh and we always have talked about the purpose for why we serve and why we step up and do this job you know I always dreamed when I was a little girl that I'd just grow up and be a farmer and a Rancher with my dad he was my best friend so the fact that I ended up doing what I do today is very strange but the reason that we do what we do is because of our children and because of our grandchildren we want to leave them a country that gives them just as many opportunities as we've had and been blessed with so it's been incredible to be with all of you and to be a friend of Ralph's and this organization for so many years I was thinking of the of the U story that speaker Johnson was just sharing that old Indian chief that came to see General George Washington at that time uh who was fighting when he was a colonel he said he wanted to meet the man who was the particular favorite of Heaven who could not die in battle which um I felt on Saturday we were at a moment in history watching what was happening to president Trump and what was happening at that rally and when we were watching it uh I felt this settling on the country almost like we had been at this elevated level of conflict that all of a sudden we needed to see a peace that passes all understanding when he stood on that stage and lifted his hand to reassure the crowd I felt a peace knowing that God was telling us and he wanted to reassure the the public he wanted to reassure the people at the rally and the country that he was strong and that he was going to continue to fight and he would not be deterred and that's what I think uh at that moment in time I remember thinking about the particular favorite of Heaven uh that there is a hand of God on President Trump and Brian and I had the opportunity yesterday to spend a little time with him visiting with him and he said I've always believed in God I've always believed in the presence of God but he said um you could tell he definitely in our conversation felt the hand of God in him in a new way in a new way that I think is going to be extremely powerful South Dakota has done some incredible things and I'm not going to run through all of the things that are going so well in our state despite the headwinds that we Face from the Democratic party and from the Biden Administration the one thing I will tell you is that we're a small state we are very proud that we took uh four of our Founders and that we have them carved into the mountains in our state at Mount Rushmore and we hosted president Trump there if you remember during the co pandemic and gave that whole country and I believe the world at that time some optimism and some hope in remembering what our history was in this country and what we stand for and believe in but we've also been a state that's been growing like crazy people have been moving there uh by the thousands and thousands they've been living in Freedom our motto is under God the people Rule and we follow the Constitution every single day with every de ision what I'm most proud about is that we've been so conservative not only in how we've approached our regulations and our tax policy by doing the largest tax cut in South Dakota history we've also embraced our conservative values in fact we've been an extremely uh conservative State and how we look at uh Christian uh lives and values and in fact last year uh one of the things that we've always been celebrating is that in South Dakota because we love babies so much and because we love families so much and because we protect life our department of health did not have a single registered abortion in the entire state of South Dakota we believe that we have been set forward to be an example to the nation to do things first that because we're small and because we're Nimble we can do things that other states can't do and lead the way the way our Founders intended this country to be formed and to be run with the power with the people speaking to their state and the federal government in its place and I'll make no mistake where's a lot of discussion this morning about if Joe Biden's going to stay on the ticket or not at the top of the democratic party he may he may not but remember no matter who they put at the top of that ticket their policies are not going to change their agenda is not going to change what their goals are for this country are not going to change and what their agenda is will destroy American Opportunity it will destroy fre freedom and liberty and that is the conversation that we need to continue to have that it's not about Biden it's about what this Democratic party's new agenda is that it has been the last 10 to 15 years and what they're trying to do to remake America one thing I want to ask you to do before I leave because I'm not going to take much of Ralph's time I know he's busy busy man has lots of important people here to speak but I want to tell you a story about when I was 13 years old when I was about 13 years old uh I was a very different probably individual my mom and dad would have described me as someone who was very insecure I couldn't look somebody directly in the eye I couldn't speak in front of people I was very chubby and felt like I had no gifts or talents to offer the world at all in fact my mom would tell you that she thought at that time she was very concerned about me and if I might be suicidal and how I thought of myself and that she needed to intervene on my behalf I remember one day she brought me to the kitchen table table and sat me down at the kitchen table and she opened up her Bible to Deuteronomy 28 and she started to talk to me not about how I saw myself but how God saw me she said did you know that God sees you as the head and not the tail above and not beneath and she started to speak scripture over me that um I remember at that point in time thinking um about myself in a new way in fact when she retold that story years later she said it was like you changed immediately your perspective changed she said all of a sudden you believed in yourself and you didn't look at yourself at how you your perspective was you looked at how God saw you and you saw the purpose and the gifts and the talents that he put into you so that's what I want to leave you with today is that we're not just called to go out and to work and to go out there and to argue our points and to be the smartest person in the room we're out there to go win hearts and Minds we're out there to change people's perspectives of how they see themselves how they see their families how they see their lives and we can do that with scripture we can do that both loving them we can do that by spending time with them but you can't do that without having conversation and talking and loving people the one scripture verse that got me through 2020 consistently it was amazing how many times I would walk into a building to meet with people or I would walk into a press conference and see it sitting on a wall or somebody would pass me a note was in second Timothy and it was that God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind and I remember telling myself over and over hundreds of times chrisy God has given you a sound mind make wise decisions use discernment and everything but above all he's called us to love each other we will win this election because people will know that we love them that we love them we have conversations with them and when we speak to them and take the time to sit around a kitchen table with them and use scripture to show them how God sees them what their purpose is and how they were created Everything Will Change the Revival we've been praying for for years will come it will be here if you do that and you remember how God sees people not how they see each other not how they see their neighbors not the ugliness that we've lived through the last several years but how God sees them and what his purpose is for this nation this is a great nation founded by people who loved the Lord and put all their faith and trust in him in fact Ben Ben Franklin even said back during those times he said surely we must all hang together or we shall all hang separately we will hang together because we put our trust in the Lord God bless you you have a wonderful day