At the start of a very short end to a long beginning

So here I am....finally. 2 weeks after I planned but here nonetheless! I have so very much to cover so that I'll have  all the events, blessings and miracles documented since I don't do a real journal. 

The last 4 months have been life changing and have brought so much strength to our marriage and definitely to our testimonies of the gospel and of answered prayers. We talk so much about the blessings that come after trials and the blessings we can see so clearly during the storms of our lives but I think I have a hard time really believing that sometimes. 

The last few months have taught me so much about trials and how the Lord wants to bless us. We wonder why things are happening and why things are so hard?! And we can't see how they'll get any better and even if they do eventually, they seem so hard Now! 

At least that's how I am. I admit it. :)

I guess I'll start at the start. I'll leave many details out mostly for the sake of privacy but I will cover everything truly important to me and that I want to share with others because of the truths and miracles I've experienced. It's going to be long.  Please don't feel like you have to read it. :) It's for me to remember more than anything.  :)  Much of this may not feel or sound as miraculous to others as they do to me, but that's ok. It doesn't lessen their impact on my life.

So the start. In Aug of this year Bryce and I were doing well. We loved where we lived in Logan and I thoroughly enjoyed my job and my calling especially. I was working full time and was the RS pres in our married student ward. Bryce was doing online classes and working part time. We were paying the bills, putting a little aside to save and budgeting like crazy to pay off some debts. We were going to a fertility Dr that we loved and feeling like we might move forward with our lives and our family. We were going camping on the weekends a lot and had another 4 campouts planned with friends and family in the coming two months. 

We had been feeling like it was time to move on and move somewhere but didn't know where or why we would do that. We've been a little stuck where Bryce's helicopter school is concerned and also looking into the military life in order to get that finished but still hadn't received an answer. Without a definite plan....at all -we were staying where we were and trying to move forward in other things.  But we were doing well and we loved our home. 

The day we left town for a family reunion, Bryce told me we had received a letter in the mail indicating that we needed to be out of our apartment in 4 weeks.  They had to get new renters in before the new semester at USU would start. They said it would be impossible after that.  This came as a shock to both of us and was very frustrating. Where would we go? How would we possibly afford to move on our budget? We were hoping to move on to some other place eventually and how would we find a contract short enough? 

The one thing we felt very quickly was that we weren't to stay in Logan. (not that Logan was bad, just that there was somewhere else we were supposed to go. But where?? We thought and thought and went through everything we could think of that would factor into the decision. I stressed so bad. I cried about a billion times. Meanwhile we started to pack up the house for when we left for...wherever.

We had been looking very seriously at the military the month before and started to think that simply moving to SLC and joining there would be a good way to go. My sister lives there and I could be around them if/when he went to boot camp etc since I don't like being alone. I love SLC. I loved living there back when I was a single lady. :)

So that was the plan. For about a week.

Bryce brought up the idea of Texas. I've Always felt like we would live there

eeeventually. Not now. 

Not. Now. 

In fact, a year or so before I was trying to get Bryce to move to TX and he was very against it at that time. 

But now, I was so completely against it. He kept asking me to just consider it for one minute and talk to him about the possibility but I was very closed to the idea. We had already decided on SLC and I was excited about it and once I've made a decision I do not like to change it. 

Bryce's family just happened to come to visit that week.  They walked in to see boxes everywhere. Surprise! We're moving.... oh Where? Well, we don't know. Probably SLC but it's not for sure right now." ha. I felt so stupid and lost. I did not like the feeling. 

But Lori (my mother in law) was amazing and spent her entire (practically) visit packing up my shelves and shelves of books and all my wall hangings while I was working. I love her! She's a master packer, being a veteran of the military lifestyle. :) She saved my bootie. 

While they were visiting she told me that from the moment we told them we had to move she felt like TX was where we should come. It made me laugh because of course she'd want her only married son who'd eventually (hopefully soon) be giving her grandchildren, to move close to home! Certainly didn't sound like revelation. 

Oh so little do I know about a mother's intuition!!! 

They headed home and we continued to pray and house hunt and obviously job hunt in SLC and ... a little in TX too.  Over the next few days of packing and working and praying and worrying it naturally moved into just looking at TX jobs and apartments. It ended up making more sense but I was still really hoping for a sudden revelation of somewhere else.

We gave our two weeks notice and told friends and it was sad. We cancelled our camping trips and we were sad again. We told our Bishop and I cried and cried. Actually Bryce told him while I sat in the car and cried and cried. I couldn't tell him. I just couldn't do it. We loved our ward so bad and he had been such an awesome bishop and not only with my calling but he had counseled with us in the difficulties of infertility and then in military decisions. He was the perfect bishop for that time of our lives. 

Anyway, we packed and got the insanely long list from the rental company of the cleaning duties that had to be done.  I started getting up an hour+ in the mornings to pack before work. We started talking to Bob and Lori of the possibility of living with them for a few weeks once we got here while we found jobs and found a place to live. So we agreed on that and really started planning more.  

This brought up the issue of how we would afford to actually make the move....the 1600 mile move. How would we take our F-350 Dually, old Ford flatbed, even older Ford truck, and the 24 ft gooseneck trailer all out to TX with pretty much no money. Ha!

{Blessings} Well my husband is amazing and allowed me to convince him to ditch the even older Ford truck at the scrap yard and got the $400  back that we had originally bought it for. (he cried when we left it there-don't tell). It was a very sad day. Then he, with a ton of help from two of his friends, planned and built an 8 ft x 8 ft x 8 ft wood box with huge doors on the front half of the gooseneck trailer to put all our furniture and boxes in. So all our things were safe. Yay! and we didn't have to rent anything! Then he built a small version of another box on the back of the flatbed and loaded that as well. Then we pulled the truck up onto the trailer behind the box. This made it extra safe to keep the box from being broken in to or breaking open on the long trip. Then he loaded all his car parts underneath that truck. (phew! tons and tons of work!!) 

Bryce was the mastermind behind the packing of the moving makeshift moving truck. Meanwhile, I was in charge of packing most of the house and cleaning. Even though I started the packing process a couple weeks ahead, it just wasn't possible to live in it until the last day and have it all packed and cleaned by that last day as well. Especially since Bryce had so much to do outside so it was up to me to do. It was just insanity trying to do everything in so short a time period. Insane. But we did it. 

{Blessings} Well let me tell you. My beautiful pregnant sister came and helped me pack a couple times---not only giving me the much needed help, but gave me someone to chat with and enjoy during the hours and hours of cleaning and packing. (I cannot believe how much stuff two people can aquire after only 3 years!!!) My best friend Darcy was a miracle worker, let me tell you. She came multiple times for hours on end.....I still can't believe how many hours that girl helped me clean. She's wonder woman.  I literally couldn't have finished on time without her. The last day of deep cleaning....seriously, she's the best friend a girl could ask for! 

{Blessings}Then my wonderful compassionate service leader, first counselor, and also very pregnant visiting teacher all came over to help me as well. These women are all wonderful wonderful friends and I feel so blessed to be friends with each of them. They've all taught me so much about service and charity and fulfilling callings and being the amazing women they are. 

{Blessing} Also, several couples had us over for dinner in those couple days, saving us from having to go out to eat on $ we didn't have and saving us from having to unpack food.  

{Miracle} One day at work I ran into a high school friend's brother and his new wife that I had never met. I recognized Clay and we started talking. I had no idea they were living in Logan. They had just moved there and his wife was looking for work and I was leaving my job and my supervisor just happened* to get to talk with her and hear about her and what she was like and that she needed a job. Long story short, she took over for me when I left and it was so completely divine intervention; I still can't get over how the Lord works. {Blessing} Also, we were so sad to have just run into them right as we were moving! We would have had so much fun getting to know them better and hanging out.  They have such wonderful hearts--Clay and Dallin came and helped us pack one night as well, making the ordeal, again, so much easier to deal with when you have company. :)  Anyway, Dallin taking my job made me feel so much better leaving my job so they weren't short staffed. I loved my job so so much---mostly because of the amazing women I worked with there! 

I SO wish I had taken more pics on my last day!!! But I'm glad I have a couple:

During this time I was trying to wrap things up that I'd been working on for my calling. Doing new sister visits with my presidency and checking on sisters I'd been concerned about and putting sisters in touch to be sure everyone was covered. There was so much I was going to miss. So many wonderful girls I'd grown to love.

Our last Sunday at church I was released from my calling. I had been dreading this because I had loved it so much. I had grown and learned so much. My testimony of RS grew leaps and bounds in the short 9 months I had served.  Those sisters taught me so much, I hope I was able to make a difference for one of them as well.  Sacrament was last and I dreaded it all day. We sat down and I was holding it together pretty well considering. But as the Bishop got up and said the words releasing me from my calling, the tears spilled over and I cried the rest of the meeting. As difficult and heavy as a calling like that is, the blessings you feel during the time you serve are so strong that when I was released ... I could just tell and I wanted it back so bad. It had been an amazing experience. 

It's 10:30 PM. Time to go to bed. I'll finish...soon I hope. Life gets in the way of the blog usually. But I haven't even got to the biggest of our miracles and the other angels we met along the way. I'll be back for sure because even if no one ever reads all of this, I want my Heavenly Father to know how grateful I am for those miracles, blessings, and angels He sent to our little family.