Decisions and changes. :)

February 8, 2018

I haven't really shared anything about this on our blog yet, so here it is, it's quite personal but I wanted to share it in case our children ever need this, or maybe someone else needs to read it, or maybe I just need to have it, who knows. :)

Jeremy has been working at the same job as a linguist for the military for the last 8 years, he's really loved it and it has provided a lot of growth and opportunities. He has a lot of fun with the people he works with and he enjoys what he does, but we still felt like there might be something else we were supposed to do in the future. We would occasionally throw out different ideas, but they never felt right, so we just kept doing our thing. We moved from the Ranches out to City Center almost 3 years ago, we felt guided by the Spirit as we bought our home and were very grateful to get the size of house and property that we did. We started homeschooling and found out that there is a huge homeschool community right here in our neighborhood and surrounding area. Jeremy got called into the bishopric as second counselor about 6 months later and we felt like maybe this was where Heavenly Father wanted us to stay and raise our kids.

Well, early last year Jeremy came home and told me that his Team Chief at work had approached him with a promotion offer to be the team chief as a warrant officer when he retired the next June (in the military he would provide a strong recommendation for him as his replacement, and they would listen to him). At first, we weren't sure, it kind of surprised us and things seemed to be falling into place, so we prayed and moved forward. We had considered going Chaplain off and on over the past eight years, but the thought had come more regularly in the previous 2-3 years, and especially in the previous 6 months. We were actually pondering about going Chaplain when the warrant officer stuff came up at work, at the time we took that as a sign that we should stay, but over the next month we just both kept feeling "off" about things. After a discussion we decided to make a decision between the two and ask Heavenly Father if it was right. The entire next week we prayed, pondered, fasted, talked, and Jeremy went to the temple. He felt that he had received his answer, specifically in Moroni 7. We continued to study and pray, soon after that I was beginning my scripture study and I let the book open where it needed to, Alma 32. At first I thought, "I already know this chapter," but God has been showing me that with the Spirit we find the underlying mysteries in the scriptures. The surface story of that chapter "sort of" applied, but as I read, it was like I was literally being taught from "between the lines," or under the surface. After that, we decided we should begin to move forward toward becoming a Chaplain as we waited for further confirmation, so we did. As I continued to ponder, my thoughts turned to what we have here where we are, our beautiful home and property, the homeschooling support and community, Jeremy enjoys his job and he gets paid as active duty with benefits without having to move, and we are only 4 hours from family in Southern Utah. As I have thought about these things, it makes my heart ache to think of leaving them. I had already cried so many tears, but I was reminded as I studied that "whatever success I(we) had in my career and family life to that point was a gift from God."(President Eyring) Our greatest desire is to do God's will, and as the Spirit said to me in Alma 32, I believe He has planted a seed that He knows will grow into a beautiful tree that will bring forth fruit that is most precious, it is up to us to take the opportunities He provides.

After that we started the process of being endorsed by the LDS church, which in itself seemed so intimidating. We started immediately, in June of last year. We did an application, a Bishop interview, Stake President interview and General Authority interview, and Jeremy had to do a psychological evaluation as part of the application. We got endorsed by the General Authority, Elder Curtis, in August and we just sort of felt in awe. During this time Jeremy had started studying for the GRE to apply for BYU, and was studying in all of his spare time for the next four months. He took the GRE in October and his scores were just high enough to be competitive, so we left it in the Lord's hands and we went forward with his application to the MA at BYU in Religious Studies-Military Chaplaincy. Jeremy got everything together for that, and finished the requirements and applied at the end of November. We waited for the next six weeks, then received a phone call from the advisor of the program wanting to set up an interview less than two days later mid-January (that week turned out to be crazy), but he went and felt the Spirit so strong as he answered their questions, they told him to expect a decision in two weeks, and again we left it in the Lord's hands. The next week we received the acceptance letter to the program and felt in awe once again. And so now here we are, getting ready for Jeremy to go back to school, the program starts on June 25th and goes full-time for 22 months. I can't tell how the details will work out, but that's how this entire process has been and that's where faith comes in.

It all comes down to faith, there's a quote from President Boyd K. Packer where he shares an experience and says,

"I was very willing to be obedient but saw no way possible for me to do as he counseled me to do. I returned to Elder Lee and told him that I saw no way to move in the direction I was counseled to go. He said, 'The trouble with you is you want to see the end from the beginning.' I replied that I would like to see at least a step or two ahead. Then came the lesson of a lifetime: 'You must learn to walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness; then the light will appear and show the way before you.' Then he quoted these 18 words from the Book of Mormon: 'Dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.'"

We have found this to be very true over the past 10 months, but have also seen that as we trust, Heavenly Father absolutely guides. My faith was even strengthened when I realized that we had been warned from moving too far ahead with a decision that was not right, going the warrant officer route.

Richard G. Scott said, "When you are living worthily and your choice is consistent with the Savior's teachings and you need to act, proceed with trust. As you are sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit, one of two things will certainly occur at the appropriate time: either the stupor of thought will come, indicating an improper choice, or the peace or the burning of the bosom will be felt, confirming that your choice was correct. When you are living righteously and are acting with trust, God will not let you proceed too far without a warning impression if you have made the wrong decision."

Jeremy and I were talking the other night about all of this, he is now applying for the Chaplain Candidate Program, which involves a pretty intense application, an essay, a physical and a state chaplain interview (which he just did yesterday, and again felt the guidance of the Spirit). This whole process has really been step-by-step, Heavenly Father knew that we would be intimidated if we had known about all of the different things we would need to do, which is why the quote on Him lighting the path just enough really spoke to me. There were so many details I couldn't write in here, those details were miracles and showed God's hand in our lives. I am so grateful and I continue to write them down, however big or small, everyday in my study journal. He really is there, if you choose to let Him in your life and recognize His hand. :)

So, that's our update and where we are right now. :)

Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, go with faith.

May 22, 2018
Tender mercies from the Lord.

The last time I wrote on this post I was 36 weeks pregnant, Jeremy had just gotten his acceptance letter to BYU and we had no idea how we were going to pay for half of his tuition and our living expenses, we started researching every kind of loan we could find, but didn't decide on one, we just felt calm about it and knew the answer would come and still felt like we needed to stay in our house while he was in school.

I got this crazy cleaning urge the last month of my pregnancy and we ended up deep cleaning the entire upstairs, I'm talking like shampooing all the carpets, de-cluttering, going through all the kids books, DI run, moving rooms around, buying new furniture etc. etc. LOL. Jeremy just went along with it, he's so good to me. Anyway, we got it all done and I loved it. Then, Anderson decided to come 10 days early and he was born the morning of the 18th, in our home, and it was beautiful and we spent the next week just soaking up his sweet self. When he was about 7 days old I started feeling this motivation to figure out how we were going to pay for school. I researched like crazy, I was talking about it all the time, and then researching more, but none of the loan options were making sense. I talked it over with my Dad, over and over again and still nothing seemed like a good option.

One afternoon, Anderson was nine days old, I remember very clearly sitting at our dining room table, the laptop in front of me and Anderson wrapped in a blanket in my arms, I had my feet up on a chair, researching loan options until I found something I could make work. My Mom was working on her laptop across the table. It was quiet, the older kids were having an afternoon quiet time. Then one moment, I just sat back and looked out our sliding back doors to our beautiful backyard, the grass that had yet to green, our little fruit trees we had been waiting for two years to produce, the amazing view of the mountains from our backyard, then let my eyes gaze across our kitchen, our home, and I felt that burn that comes right before the tears. At that exact moment, I knew we would sell our house and it felt heart-wrenching. I kept blinking, not wanting my Mom to notice and ask, but she did. I just told her it was nothing, I wasn't ready to share this new direction that hurt so much to consider. I didn't say anything about it, and the next day Jeremy, myself and Anderson were driving to newborn pictures, my Mom was driving our older three boys. Of course the topic of paying for school came up as we had been talking about it a lot. Jeremy told me that he felt like we needed to pray about selling our house and I just started crying, because I had felt the same thing the day before. I was being stubborn, I told him I had to pray to be willing to pray about it, but I already knew and so did he. I couldn't imagine trying to pack up our house, adjust to having a newborn and four kids, and take care of all our other responsibilities, and we had no idea where to go. It literally felt like this huge mountain we had to climb right in front of us and it was overwhelming. The next few days Jeremy and I prayed and prayed and prayed, Jeremy fasted, we both knew the answer. I immediately started to emotionally detach from our house, it was really strange, but I see it as a tender mercy. Once our answer was confirmed we immediately started interviewing realtors and getting the house ready. We decided on a realtor, and we told him we wanted to list it in two weeks (the look on his face!), our house was a mess when he came by, but we felt strongly we needed to list it right away. It took me two days to paint our huge master bathroom, we fixed caulking and spent some very late nights packing and organizing the basement and worked like crazy to get our entire 6,000 sq ft house ready to show. I had many moments of tears, and I asked Jeremy for a blessing, I kept feeling unsure, like we were crazy, and my hormones were all over from having a baby and I was so tired. My journal is packed right now, but the main thing the blessing said was that we would know who needed our house and that when I felt like I had nothing left and I was tired, I would know it is the Lord giving me strength. So, we pushed forward. After an exhausting two weeks, we listed the house...

and it sold in a day.

Let me tell you about it.

We planned to list our house on a Thursday, the sign went up a week before and neighbors started asking us where we were going and telling us they would miss us. Well, one family in the area that homeschool and sends their kids to the same co-op found out and she texted me one day asking what we were listing it for. We had initially decided on 390,000, but I kept feeling like we need to increase it. It was late Saturday night and she asked if they could come walk through it, I told her it was a mess and we were trying to get it ready to list but they could if they wanted to it would be find. She said they'd wait until the next week, but they texted Sunday and wanted to walk through it. I raced around trying to clean up the worst of it, I only had an hour. They came by and walked through it, she wanted it so bad. They asked what we were listing for and all I said was around $400,000. So they went home and said they'd let us know, but I told them we were still planning to list it on Thursday. We talked to our realtor and we decided that $399,900 would still be good, so we did and I felt better about it. They texted to find out the price and we told them $399,900. They came by again on Tuesday to see it again. At this point we figured they were pretty serious, but didn't know for sure. Then they came by AGAIN with his Dad to inspect the house, this was the day before we listed the house. They put their offer in on Thursday, the day we listed. There's a whole story to go along with the negotiations. But I will summarize by saying that they offered $380,000, which was surprisingly low for the market. We countered at $397,900 and then got a second offer that was more than asking price. We prayed to know which family should be in this house, they hadn't accepted our counter-offer yet, so our realtor wrote up an addendum to rescind our offer and consider both. Just as we were about to click send on the signed addendum, their realtor sent their acceptance, and we knew they were the family Heavenly Father wants in the house. It was amazing.

So we started looking at renting, but that didn't feel right after looking at several houses, but we couldn't figure out the right loan to buy a house, so we felt pretty lost. After a lot of different ideas and work on the part of our friend and loan officer, James Hoffman, we put together a loan with my parents income and our credit and kept looking.

We closed on our house April 20th and received just about the exact amount of income Jeremy would make in two years at his job. This is miraculous. Looking back...we almost rented when we first moved up there, but decided to buy and found a shortsale. We almost rented it out, but didn't and took the equity to make the down payment on our last house, which we didn't love at first, but it was a foreclosure, so we offered the least amount possible and GOT it. Then home prices went up and we made enough on that house to be able to support our family while Jeremy is in school. God's hand has been in all of this.

Another tender mercy: We had no prompting to sell our house before Anderson was born. None. And looking back I am SO grateful because I feel like that might have messed with me getting ready to have a baby. 

Another tender mercy: I got that crazy strong motivation to get the entire second floor of our house cleaned and organized, which made it possible for us to get our big house ready in just two weeks to list. 

Another tender mercy: A neighbor let us borrow their Pace trailer and we filled it with donations, and they took care of it for us. 

We weren't going to hire a realtor up North, because my Dad is taking care of it, but we quickly found that the market was too hot for sellers and we couldn't get in to the houses fast enough without them going under contract. So, we hired a realtor to show houses for us, with part of the commission my Dad will make. His name is Matt and he is super, super nice. We were looking at a house that he knew would go fast and he told us about an "escalation clause," so we gave it a try, but didn't get the house. We kept looking and ended up putting offers on four different houses and didn't get any of them, but we knew they just weren't the right house, so we kept looking doing our best to find the right place. The boys and I moved down to Hurricane with my parents and Jeremy had to stay up North to work. We didn't know where he should go, and we remembered that when he was home teaching the Stake President (a very special man in our lives) he had mentioned that he had a basement apartment he could use if he needed it. Jeremy called him and they were so happy to have him there! It has been such a blessing, and we both knew that it was from the Lord. He knew it was a difficult situation, and even though we've had to be apart He provided a really, really nice apartment and good company for Jeremy while we were between houses.

We found out a couple months later through a friend Jeremy met at drill, split-training with the Chaplains, that the Military Relations through the church will provide a scholarship to cover the other half of tuition for Jeremy's program. If he hadn't decided to split train early on, we may not have found out about this, we are very grateful!

July 30, 2018

I didn't get all the way caught up when I updated last! We closed on a twin home in Spanish Fork on June 1st, and moved in on the 7th. I will always be amazed at the miraculous power of God. We won the bid on this house by only $500, then during the buying process it appraised for less and we got it for even less than we thought we would. It has just what we need...four bedrooms, a separate living area/play room, three bathrooms and just the right size backyard for the kids to play. It is in an amazing neighborhood with the best ward. We were definitely spoiled with the size of our last house, so we've had to adjust to a smaller living space, but we try to just focus on the positives and the blessings. Honestly, I feel like this house is cozier and we really love it. We were able to move in two weeks before Jeremy started school and my parents came up to help, my Mom stayed for ten days and we got the entire house organized. Like, completely. It's amazing and I am so grateful.