Recently some things have happened in our family that have made me think more and more about how I am and the decisions I've made in my life, and how they have affected me and my family. Growing up, I was a very shy child. I didn't say much, and I didn't even learn how to look someone in the eye until I was in high school, and it was a goal of mine to learn to do that. I did it with every intention of overcoming this issue of mine. As I grew, and through different situations in my life and the friends I made I was really able to come out of my shell and be a little more outgoing. I won't say I'm an extrovert, because those situations still make me uncomfortable sometimes. I have learned how to put my fear aside for the great unknown. Sometimes that is how the Lord needs me to learn and to grow.
When I was young and thinking about who I would marry, it never occurred to me that I would end up living outside of the Brigham City area. I had a goal to serve a mission, and I was trying to be brave enough to do it, and I did a lot of things that make me nervous or stressed in order to get my papers in. ( Dr and dentist, yuck!) But I did, and I thought, no problem, I'll get sent to the states and everything will be swell. I received my mission call, and it was definitely not to the states. I got called to serve in Chile. That was very exciting for me! I couldn't believe the Lord trusted me that much. I didn't really believe in myself I think at that point. I just went and did as I knew I needed to so I could be ready to go out. I asked my brother's help, since he had just come home from serving a mission. I prepared lessons and spent time reading out loud in Spanish, even though I didn't understand hardly anything I was reading. I went to church every week and went to the temple at least once a week if not more than that. When the time came, I felt I was as prepared as I could be, but I was still scared. I had learned, though, how to put away my fear and just do. I did fine through the MTC, and when I was on the airplane to Chile. When I got there I was too jetlagged and tired and excited to be in a different county to really think twice about what I was actually doing. That first morning that I woke up I didn't know where I was, and I started to panic inside. Once I finally realized where I was and what I was supposed to be doing there I started to freak out! I was panicked! I didn't let my companion know, but I told myself that I made it all the way out there, and I was going to see this through with the Lord's help if it killed me. So, I talked myself through everything that first day. "Just get out of bed and pray." I did that. "Just do your excercises," and so on and so forth all through the day. I didn't understand most people and things were kind of a blur, but I made it through my first day. I knew if I could do that, everything would be alright. It was a lesson to me that sometimes we pray to know what we should do in this life, and sometimes we have a straight answer. I was to serve a mission. Was it still something unknown to me? Absolutely, just not in the ways one might imagine.
When I came home from my mission I knew I was supposed to marry Matthew, and we had finally made it to the point of being able to do that. Only a month passed and Matthew proposed and we were engaged for 5 months. I knew that once we were married we would be living in our own place, doing our own thing. I knew that he was attending BYU, and I knew that was the course laid out for me in agreeing to be his wife. I was excited to be going! I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing or what that would entail. No longer in the nest of our parents we had to try and make sure we understood things that we had never had to do for ourselves anymore. We had to find a place to live, and make sure we had enough money to secure it, and to move all our things down there. Once that was done, I actually was scared, because neither of us had any jobs. I had been offered a very substantial amount of money to stay at Maddox, and without a thought I turned it down, because I already knew what the Lord wanted from me. And that was to go with Matthew to Provo to study at BYU. So down we went, without jobs or a clue as to how things were going to work out, which kept me on edge a lot, because I am the type of person who likes to have a plan, and plan B and plan C. So, I put my life completely in the Lord's and my husbands hands, and we struggled to make it together. We had a place to live, even if only for a month and we had to try to figure out how to survive. We knew it was the right thing, but the Lord didn't give us all the details. I did pray often about it, and He just helped me to feel peace. I did get a job, and so did Matthew. They were minimum wage jobs, and we applied for FAFSA for school to try and pay for that and we were just making it paycheck by paycheck. When you are young and first married it is hard to do all of that on your own and it's hard to think you will actually make it. There were times Matthew and I didn't eat because we didn't have money for food. There were a couple of times we thought we may have to go back home because the money was so tight, but we just did all we could and asked Heavenly Father to help us, no matter the outcome. And He did. We eventually told ourselves that we could do anything, and even though the original plan was to move back home to Brigham City after school, it didn't feel right. We felt Provo was the place for us to stay, even though I hated it so much when we first moved there. It is our home now, and it wouldn't have happened if not for those scary experiences of jumping into the dark, not knowing all the details, but praying that the Lord would help us work them out. It was hard, and scary, but I wouldn't change any of those experiences for the world. It is hard to do something different than the normal things we always do, or to think outside the box. It is hard to try to be the one the provides, because I have had to do that too, and make sure that the money goes where it needs to, not where I want it to go. It is hard to be a grown up, but I am who I am because I decided, alongside my husband, to make those things happen. We only relied on each other and the Lord. We did have help from family, for which we are eternally grateful and we will never be able to pay you all back for everything you did to help us. But we are in a good place now because of all those things, and I am so happy for all the things I've learned, with Matthew, and that we are a strong couple and can still try those scary things together and continue to grow.
We just took in a foreign exchange student for a week and that is something that I never dreamed we would do! I am uncomfortable with people that I don't know that well, let alone have a communication barrier. But, it was a good experience and I learned a lot, and I hope that our student, Keisuke, also had a lot of fun. He left us with some beautiful things that we will always treasure.
And on and on in life goes the things that we are completely in the dark about what will happen. We just know we need to make the step. And other times we know what step we are taking, but it can still be scary and we don't really know what we're doing. Either way, the Lords needs us to learn to rely on Him, and rely on our spouse in order to gain the full knowledge of things that we need to in order to try and attain that ultimate goal of perfection. And the greatest gift of all is that we have someone who ALWAYS knows how we feel. Jesus Christ has suffered it all. And no matter what situation we are in, He will have felt it and know it. We can ALWAYS trust in Him.
