Category Archives: Stories

When We Believe

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We always thought that we’d spend a few years living internationally.

It was a goal, in a way, a dream even, especially for Jake. He joined a company out of college in part because of their work all over the world and opportunities for that.

So far it has taken us to a handful of places across the country that we’ve grown to love. We imagined our next project would be the right timing for an international assignment when this one ended this year. Perhaps Australia, Europe, the Middle East. It all enticed us with the opportunity for experience–for all of us.

We planned to spend maybe seven more years living in diverse places and then settle down and build our own home on a piece of land somewhere closer to family.

Covid changed trajectories for a lot of people, and we did not escape its course derailing. There’s still hope for the possibility of international living in our future, we haven’t closed those doors, but it’s interesting to me that even before covid, before the world stopped and changed so many plans, I was already feeling the desire to change mine.

The summer before last we stumbled upon a piece of land among sprawling pastures and green hills and my heart drew me in to the possibility of settling down, sooner. I felt drawn to this land like nothing before. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was breathtaking! My mind caught hold on all the possibilities of working together on our own piece of land, sooner, and my dreams started building themselves.

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We researched the land and considered our options, but still the price and so many unknowns in our future seemed daunting at best. We didn’t know where our next job would be, how we could afford it, or how it would all work out, but when I starting thinking on these things, a whisper of encouragement often entered my mind,

“With God all things are possible.”

It was subtle yet unmistakable, because I knew the whisperer.

I just needed to trust Him.

I clung to those whispers to hold onto hope and possibility and started building my dreams until one day in prayer He whispered to me again. I felt it so clearly in my heart and in my mind.

We had arranged the financing, researched the land, worked with the agent, and considered our plans, praying for help and guidance through it all.

A few days before we put in an offer on the land, I prayed to Heavenly Father about it all and asked if we should move forward with it.

That’s when He whispered to my heart again. It was an overwhelming love, a distinctly fatherly love so encouraging, and I felt Him say, “Go get it, I’ve got your back.”

For the past year I have clung to those words and that feeling as people changed plans, better offers came in, and we stepped in hole after hole in our efforts to obtain it. But God was planting seeds in those holes, and those whispers gave me hope enough to believe it, even while our feet felt stuck.

Over the past year with each offer and change and roadblock, my heart would sink and anxious stirrings captured my thoughts for a time. But then I would settle, and I’d remember that God keeps His word. And I’d remember the words He shared with me, the whispers that I felt, and I’d keep hoping.

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I remember when I first felt that assurance I told Jake, “Even if we hit roadblocks or if other offers come in, or whatever, I just know that He is going to help us get it. I just know it.”

That’s how powerful connections with heaven can be. That’s why we need to record and remember them.

And we need to believe.

Now here we are, 16 months since those first whispers to my heart and the land is finally OURS. 😭🙏❤️

God is real. His love is real, and so is His help.

He is over all, so aware of us and desiring to help us if we trust Him, if we hope, if we BELIEVE He will.

We still have challenges, but it’s the greatest feeling having God on our team. I feel so very hopeful! I KNOW that with God ALL things ARE possible.

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#mamanotes

“God expects you to have enough faith and determination and enough trust in Him to keep moving, keep living, keep rejoicing. In fact, He expects you not simply to face the future (that sounds pretty grim and stoic); He expects you to embrace and shape the future–to love it and rejoice in it and delight in your opportunities.

God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. But He can’t if you don’t pray, and He can’t if you don’t dream. In short, He can’t if you don’t believe.”

-Jeffrey R. Holland

I wrote an instagram post back in July of 2019 when I first saw the land, a year and a half ago. It’s beautiful to me to look back on that hope and those dreams that I’m still dreaming. They are so much closer now. <3

You can read it here.

Taken Care Of

Ava was surprised the other day when she heard that we can bake things with pumpkin.  (Clearly I’m still coming out of hibernation after having the twins, just starting to make a full week of dinners over here.)

BUT I am excited about baking again, it satisfies Ava’s love of making things and I love the opportunity it gives us to give some away, to have an easy excuse to go visit people.

We made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for the first time the other day. I promised the kids that we’d get outside and ride bikes, and as the last of the cookies finished and the sun began to wane, we quickly dropped some off to the lady a few doors down that let us borrow her ground cloves.

As the kids geared up to head out the door again, I thought about how this may be the best time to offer them to someone else, so I stood by the door wondering WHO to bring them to.

I quickly thought of the elderly man a few floors above us, he lost his wife to cancer just the week before.

I had never met him, but I cared about him. I put a few on a plate and wrapped them up, wrote a note at Ava’s request and ran out to meet the other kids already playing in the hallway.

I imagined he might have family there, might be out somewhere, or might not care for visitors. Maybe he was doing just fine, we could just drop them off real quick.

He didn’t have family there, or visitors. A pile of funeral programs and two vases of flowers still sat on his table. He greeted us gratefully, responded that he was “hanging in there,” and didn’t seem to mind the kids hanging on my legs as we talked.  He told me about his family, showed me a poem his autistic granddaughter wrote for him, and spoke of his last days with his wife with tears in his eyes. We talked for thirty minutes in his doorway, he mostly talked and I mostly listened, feeling my own tears and wishing I knew a way to better comfort him. Another lady down the hall toted my kids back and forth in her wagon until she got tired and Thea had to go potty.

I mentioned we’d better go home to the bathroom and he offered we use his. So we went inside and talked some more.

When we turned to leave, he looked down at the cookies and the funeral pamphlets next to them, his mouth pressed to keep back the tears.

I felt for him.

I wondered then, hesitant to leave him, perhaps people aren’t as “taken care of” as we think.

Are we ever “taken care of?”

I’m learning just how much we are all in need.

It’s inspiring to me the way God weaves our paths with others, the ones we need and who need us. When we are open to it, we see how we can reach out in simple ways. Ways for Him, and ways that take care of us both.

There’s a powerful feeling that comes when we take care of each other, when we try where we can, even when we’re not sure it’s needed or not sure we know how.

I imagine we both feel it. It’s God’s love we’re really sharing. We learn how to love more like Him and we get to feel His love because of that. Because we try. And that makes all the difference. #mamanotes

When an Apostle & His Wife Carried My Toddler & Walked with Me Home

Elder Gong was at church again today. He’s in our ward along with Elder Rasband, but they are usually away on other assignments on Sunday.

They are apostles of Jesus Christ, some of only fifteen on the Earth today. It’s the neatest thing when they come. The Spirit of God fills the room when they speak. I feel it.

Last summer, a few months after we moved downtown, we were walking into church on Sunday and Elder Gong held the door open for us. I thought how neat that was, almost starstruck that here was an apostle of Jesus Christ, one of his special witnesses, helping ME.

Little did I know how much he and his sweet wife would be helping me just later that day.

The twins were too young to go to nursery at the time, so Jake and I would take turns strollering the babies around during second hour to get them to go to sleep.

That day they were especially cranky, in fact I couldn’t get them to settle down. They just kept crying.

I opened the church doors and started to make my way home, figuring that a nap was the only thing that would really settle them.

I stopped to soothe the babies at the end of the sidewalk because they were still crying. I sat back on my heels, searching my backpack for something to soothe them, when Elder and Sister Gong came up behind me asking if I would like some help.

“Oh I think they’re not feeling well or something, I figured I’d just take them home to nap.”

“Do you think they’ll be happier if we carry them?” Sister Gong offered.

“We could try it,” I said, not really sure what to do.

Sister Gong then picked Thea up from the stroller and her crying stopped. I did the same with Esther, and we started walking, Elder Gong pushing the stroller along with us.

I was sure to tell them that it was no short walk to our place, that we could try putting them back in the stroller and they could go on their way to wherever they needed to be. But they assured me that they were just fine and were happy to go with me all the way home.

Three quarters of a mile they walked and talked with me. Sister Gong carried Thea the entire way.

I thanked them greatly when we arrived to our door and felt somewhat bad for putting them out and keeping them from other things.

But the truth was, I think they were happy to. They carried what I couldn’t and lifted me up, just as the Savior would, if He was here. They are His friends, that was clear.

I’ve thought of that often, and what a special experience it was for me. I know they’re called of God to serve and witness of Him here, I’ve felt it and I know it.