June-July-ish

Some things I have not posted about in our June-July-ish time of 2021:

Celebrating Grandma Helen's birthday.

Swimming with friends.

And celebrating what would have been Grandma Thatcher's 80th birthday on the mountains!

It was suppose to be the surrounding cities celebrations for the 4th of July.  But since it fell on a Sunday, most of the cities moved it to the 3rd.  So, I decided we were really celebrating Grandma's birthday!  We even wished her a loud "Happy Birthday, Grandma!" as we were taking the above group picture, sending the wish while looking over the Utah valley.

An update that I haven't journaled about it David's job situation.  David has been working in St. George for almost 2 years, meaning that he lives in St. George on Mondays through Fridays and comes home on Friday.  Obviously, this has been a hardship for our family.  Especially at first.  I would just cry.  Get depressed.  David would worry enough at times that he would make a surprise, to me, trip home just to be with me during the night...again, while finding me crying in bed.  But we prayed, fasted, and continued on as we followed through with what we felt the Lord wanted us to do.  I soon started school, Ruger started to sneak into my bed every night and become more and more difficult, Grandma died, and the pandemic hit.  While normally all those things should break or seriously wound a person, I found myself as the Nephites in bondage in the Book of Mormon.  I found Mosiah 24:14 to become a real life experience.  "And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage..."  Before I knew it, I was settling into school well with the help of Brigham watching Ruger for me so I could do homework, Ruger accepted Daddy being gone so much (He and I even had this little tradition where David would call to tell me he had arrived and then Ruger and I would race down the stairs and out the garage to see who could reach Daddy first.  Then it turned into who could kiss him first, who could hug him first, and so forth.) I accepted Grandma's death a lot sooner as would be expected considering how close we were as I turned my thoughts towards her every time I worked on our genealogy.  Picturing her on the other side of the veil guiding me towards our ancestors brought joy instead of tears of her being gone on Earth.  And the outcomes of the pandemic turned out to be more of a blessing for our little family as we were forced to stay inside with each other and spend quality one on one time without the pressures of outside sources.  

It's a long story but around a month ago, David was offered a new job.  Because of certain circumstances, David accepted the new job.  He would now be able to sleep in his own bed every night.  Before I knew it, things started to break down (or apart) that only David could fix.  David had to work a lot more hours than we had anticipated.  Ruger was throwing a nightly fit because, "Daddy was supposed to be home now!"  More and more people that we love needed help.  I'm not joking when I say that it is a rare night now that David can just come home from work and just be.  It soon became really clear to me how blessed we really were during those 2 years of him working in St. George.  I saw the fulfillment of the end of that scripture in Mosiah 24:14 when it said, "...and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions."

I want to end this by bearing my testimony that I know the Lord was watching over us the last 2 years.  I know He had a plan in place for us and provided ways for us to follow a certain path that would lead to heart ache BUT if we would just turn to Him and His son, He would provide a way to make it more than bearable.  I believe one of His purposes in the last 2 years was to teach me to turn to Him more.  You know, there is that saying that "God won't give you more than you can handle."  I've always hated that saying.  Because if it were true, at least in my life, then He must have forgotten about me or given up.  And another pressing question I have on the famous saying, if its true, then why do people kill themselves?  I think these last 2 years has given me more proof in what I believe the true saying should be.  "God won't give us more than we can handle IF we turn to Him."  This I bear witness of.