Selected!! :)

I have to share this, the Lord is there and when we trust Him He can bless us with miracles.

A few months ago Jeremy was in the middle of his last semester in the masters program at BYU, along with the other three guys in his cohort. Three of them, including us, were scheduled for CHBOLC and we were all actively working to get our packets in to get orders. Everyone was under an extreme amount of stress with tons of homework, families, and everyone running out of money to provide for their families. We found out that Frank (he's over military relations for  the church) would only allow two guys to put their packets in the June board and the other one would need to wait until August. Without telling us (it wasn't intentional) the two other guys contacted Frank and talked to him and both felt that they had more priority then us to go to the earlier board. Jeremy and I were both very upset and very hurt. Jeremy was trying to be fair, and we realized that all of us wanted to go to the earlier board, so we suggested that the three of them draw straws to give everyone an equal opportunity to go to the earlier board, one of them was willing, the other outright said no and that he would be going to the earlier board no matter what. I won't get into the details, but it was not a good situation. Jeremy contacted Frank about what was going on and Frank said he didn't think it would matter so much if we waited until the August board. We didn't want to cause a big fight, but at the same time, we wanted to continue our progression in this career and be able to provide for our family. I was still really frustrated and upset, so I asked Jeremy for a blessing. In it, I was told that I needed to not worry anymore and that things would happen at the right time and we will be in the right place. Even though we still felt upset with that specific person, we decided to go ahead and trust the Lord and do the August board and to not cause a big fight about it, trusting that it is all in the Lord's hands and we will go where and when he wants us too.

Fast forward a couple months, Jeremy was just finishing up his packet with his recruiter (who has been amazing) and Soler kept saying we needed to go to the June board (there are a lot of diff circumstances right now with the covid virus that were making the June board a little easier to get the paperwork in for), but Jeremy kept telling him that the decision was up to Frank, and Frank had been adamant that only two LDS chaplains could go to a specific board at a time. Jeremy finally told Soler that if he wanted to try to get us to the June board he would need to call Frank and talk to him. So, he did. And Frank said we could go ahead and put our packet in, we could hardly believe it! We were so grateful, so we went ahead and put our finished packet in last week. Jeremy and I fasted on Sunday that if it is the Lord's will our packet would be selected. Boards were this week, June 2nd-5th, and we got a call from Soler this morning, much sooner than expected (we thought we'd have to wait 2-4 weeks to hear). He asked if Jeremy had a place to sit down because he had the results from the board already, and then he told us Jeremy has been selected! He also said that CH Wallace would be in contact and that he is planning to have our order date start the day we are available, which is September 3rd, right after CHBOLC. After Jeremy got off the phone with him we hugged and cried because we are so grateful, and also feel overwhelmed and terrified, LOL.

The Lord knows. He is in control and all He asks is that we trust Him. We chose to trust, even though it was hard to let go of the situation and take the higher road, and we were able to go to the June board and get selected anyway, and without ruining our friendships with these two other guys. Taking the higher road is really hard sometimes, but the Lord asked us to, and then helped us get into the earlier board anyway. Our hearts are full of gratitude to the Lord for blessing us with this opportunity and His tender mercies.

Jeremy leaves for CHBOLC in two weeks, he has two weeks of quarantine first (another tender mercy, he gets an extra two weeks of pay). He will be there until September 3rd, we will miss him so much, but we also know this is a big step in fulfilling the calling to being a Chaplain.