May 22nd, 2017
Last Sunday was such a special day. I can't even pinpoint exactly why, but a few things happened that I want to remember. It was Mother's Day and Robby and I normally sit in the back of the chapel because it is just the two of us...and we are normally late! (Sad I know! We need to do better, well mostly me!) Anyway we sat in the front next to the Atkinson family (Cassie Atkinson is the senior primary chorister, and I am junior primary chorister). The primary president Shaylse Heaton and her family were right behind us. They have such an adorable family. They have what I like to call a "Bowler" family because they have two boys and then two girls, and the youngest (Charlotte) is just like Mindy! She is hilarious and sassy! During Sacrament meeting, 3-year-old Charlotte says "Hi Sisser Bowler!" Then later she goes "Sisser Bowler are you going to help me sing?" It was the sweetest thing, melted my heart. The previous week Charlotte had asked me to run around the church with her to "chase her brothers", it was so cute! We walked home from church together hand in hand that Sunday (they live next door). It was so sweet. So back to my original story of Mother's Day, during Primary on this Sunday I just remember feeling the Spirit so strong in Primary. I felt like I had a magical moment where the children were still, reverent, and singing their hearts out. They were listening to the words I said, we laughed and they were so captivated! After singing time was over the pianist, Linda Christenson, who is sweet older woman called me over to say something to me. She and I sit fairly close to each other during primary so I snuck behind the piano and sat on the bench by her. She whispered, "you must be going into teaching younger children, because you seriously have a gift for this." It was so unexpected, what a huge compliment it was to me! I was so nervous about this calling when I first accepted it. I felt SO inadequate and unprepared. How could I stand in front of 20-30 children under the age of 8 and teach them to sing and feel the Spirit? I know how much I remember my primary choristers as a kid. I had very high expectations for myself, just knowing how much I wanted to bring the joy and fun to music time. I also wanted to bring the Spirit and help the children understand the power and beauty of the lyrics that we sing.
Well the week before I had bonded with our neighbors the Heatons, I had a very unexpected surprise visit from our landlords. Allen came to the door of our casita and announced that his father-in-law was not doing very well living on his own in California. He told me that Robby and I had a month or so to get all moved out. It was an awful day. It was a week or so after I graduated nursing school, I was preparing for the biggest test of my life (dang it NCLEX) not to mention preparing to work full time at the hospital. No surprise my stress level was already very high, and I just did NOT want to move away! We finally felt "home", we began to grow so close to our ward members, and loved our callings (Robby had just gotten called to be in the young mens program the week before...so sad! He called it his dream calling). I was so lost at why God needed us to move right now? We shed a few tears, joked with many people in our ward about letting us move in or someone else building us a casita... ;) Everyone we talked to was so sweet, and almost seemed serious about wanting us to move in just so we wouldn't have to leave the ward. Well we searched and searched, nothing was feeling right. We checked craigslist and searched for housing whenever we could. Robby was busy with summer school and I was trying my best to focus on passing NCLEX. Robby's best friend Caleb Ripley and his girlfriend came to visit us, and we all ended up looking at a downstairs basement "apartment" with a theatre room! We felt very uncomfortable during our tour with the home owner, he was not very friendly and had over-priced the place (asking for $1200 a month! And that was without a washer or dryer! We had been paying $650 flat for our casita, which we realize is so generous of the Terry's!) I finally caved and posted about how we needed a place to live on Facebook, hoping word of mouth would save us and find us an awesome place! Well within a day of my post we had two options, one sounded very promising. Not even a week later we had yet another place to look at from someone who worked with John. We came to look at the option from a Facebook friend. Their place was quaint, a bit run-down, but affordable and in Brent & Whitley's ward! Sadly we couldn't move in until they left in July (and this was still in May...we would've had to move twice). We took a quick tour of the townhouse that John's coworker owned and instantly fell in love. It finally felt right, we knew we could see ourselves living here. We found out about this town home, and moved in exactly one week later. It was a huge blessing/miracle to say the least. John and Shannon came and helped us pack everything up. I was a bit emotional the day we moved. Just having a hard time processing it all, while going through all of our stuff was just happening too fast. It was so kind of John and Shannon to stop everything and help us pack up our life and get into our new place. I We house sat for the Terry's the week after we moved out, kind of weird timing for that too.
Some big bonuses to our new place was that Brad was giving us a deal on it (charging us $850 instead of $950), it is a well kept older home with lots of space (and character! Sunflower tile in the bathroom and all!). We have a garage now! And also a spare bedroom and bathroom! It is awesome living so close to the college. We just bought Robby a Penny board that he rides to the school while I am at work. He can get to the school in less than 10 minutes or so, and he can also walk if he really needs to. I am a five minute drive to the hospital which seems/feels a lot closer than we were when we lived in Washington/ over the hill.
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| The day we moved into our casita! June 2015 |
September 15th, 2017
We have lived here for three months, and it is really so great. We feel so blessed. I have moments where I really miss our old ward, my calling, etc. But we "fit in" a lot more around here! There a lot more young couples that are close to our age. It is so fun having a lot more younger couples that we can relate to. We were actually invited to watch the famous boxing match (Mayweather vs. McGregor) with a big group of couples. It was so much fun!
There is also a lot of quirky-ness that comes with living in a "newly wed or nearly dead" area :) We have some interesting people in our ward too, some very opinionated elderly people (and some that aren't really old enough to be considered elderly...but that is besides the point...) We have been very late to church on several occasions, which I feel I have a valid excuse because I have been working night shift, so I go to bed at 8 am and have to be up and ready for 1 pm church which is really hard for me, but we are doing our best. Anyway, we have never missed the sacrament because it seems like the same person always conducts church...and he takes up soooo much time! Robby and I were supposed to give talks (I ended up having to work) but John came around 1:30 thinking he could be there in time to see Robby speak, but the Sacrament hadn't even be passed yet. Robby had to cut his talk by two thirds! But other than those weird quirks here and there, we are really enjoying it. I miss my calling in primary deeply, when I am in relief society I can hear our primary children singing their songs and it makes me sad. I fell in love with being in primary, the children and the music that we sung....ahhh my heart has just been missing it all a lot more recently.
Since moving, taking my NCLEX, starting my new job, quitting my old job all happened within the month of June I still feel like I am processing all of those changes. I haven't sat down to write my feelings out, it feels good to reflect, but it also makes me sad all over again. I get so attached to people and the environment that I spend so much time in. What can I say, I am sentimental and I LOVED my job. I miss Payton and Saelyn. They touched my heart forever and brought a lot of perspective, patience and pure joy into my life. Those sweet girls taught me so much. I learned to slow down, listen, be patient, and enjoy the simple moments. I learned to be creative and quick on my toes, I learned to be more gentle and compassionate with strangers. I learned about God's mercy and
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