2014: A Roller-Coaster of Year

After almost four years of not writing in my blog, a lot has happened.  Of course, Cora was born, which was a huge blessing to my family and me before I left my family for more than six months to a far off place on the other side of the globe due to work.  It was during that time that I missed Cora crawl for the first time.  It broke my heart not to be there.  Then I left for another work trip for about two months during which time, my little Co-Co took her first steps and started walking.  Before Cora entered our family, I already desired to leave the work I was in and move back closer to family in St. Louis.  I was at those moments that I missed large portions of my children's live that I wanted it more than anything else in the world.  However, the Lord always knows us better than we know ourselves.  He knew I wasn't ready to leave my work yet.  So, we ended up in Alaska from 2012 until last year.  It was a blessing to be in such a beautiful spot of the world.  It was there that Nikki was inspired to home school Savannah.  If it hadn't been for Alaska, I don't know that she ever would have attempted such a task.  Now she is home schooling Porter and Savannah, and that is no easy feat when attempting to home school two elementary age children while raising a baby and a 3 year old toddler.  Although challenging, it has also been a blessing in our lives and in our children's lives.  In the beginning of 2014, I found out that my employer was going to offer pay for a certain amount of employees to leave the organization in September of that year.  As soon as I heard the news, I didn't think it was an option just because I thought Nikki wouldn't want to pursue it, and I didn't have any job prospects even in the least.  I mentioned the payoff in passing to Nikki.  It was later that day, she told me that we should go for it.  I was shocked, but pleasantly so.  She told me about how she had been looking at pictures of her family and mine and felt the Spirit with much intensity.  The next day, I handed in my paperwork to separate from my job.  It took about two and a half months before I heard a response, for it wasn't automatic that my employer would allow me to leave.  They had to approve my early separation which was based off a lot of factors and variables.  When I went to talk to my boss about my decision, he was supportive, but told me that he was sure that the submission would be denied.  On April 3, 2014 I received the email telling me that my employer had accepted my application to separate early.  What an amazing feeling!  At first I felt so excited that I jumped and hollered.  Then I got on my knees and thanked Heavenly Father.  I think Nikki felt the same emotions only I'm sure it was times ten, since she was about eight months pregnant.  But after the initial excitement faded, fear began to creep in.  I didn't have any job prospects, and I had from that point until September 29th to find something before my income ended.  Thankfully, I had a good part-time job lined up which could give us great benefits.  I eventually was offered that position in May.  I couldn't start that position until my current full-time job ended in September.  However, I still needed full-time work besides that.  I submitted application after application online, and resume after resume.  I contacted as many friends and acquaintances as I could think of from Alaska to St. Louis.  I even began fasting every Sunday.  It seemed like many opportunities came along, but then they would eventually slip through the cracks.  On July 9th, we left Alaska and flew back to St. Louis.  From there, we lived with Nikki's parents for a bit, then with my parents for a bit, and finally with Nikki's brother, Merrill and his family for a time.  For about five months we lived with family as I continued to search for full-time work.  In the beginning of August, I went to visit the part-time employer I was supposed to start with on September 30th.  I met quite a few of the personnel I was to be working with.  One in particular worked at a full-time job that I was very interested in.  After being introduced to him, he showed me positions that were open in that organization.  In fact, there were positions open in the exact same division in which he worked.  I applied to those positions that very night.  However, I wasn't very optimistic as I knew that it could take awhile to get hired into those positions.  As the time got closer to September 29th, the more opportunities seemed to dangle in front of me, only to be squashed moments later.  Around the first part of September, I became very discouraged, losing much of the faith I had in what I was doing.  I love Nikki so much, for she is the one who always knows what to do when I get discouraged and lost.  She told me to go to my father-in-law for a priesthood blessing.  So, I did.  In that blessing he mentioned many things, but what hit me more than anything was that he told me that I needed to pay my tithing.  The Spirit was very strong.  Nikki and I hadn't transferred our membership records of the Church from Alaska to Nikki's parents' ward.  I had been calculating and saving the money we needed to pay tithing, but I hadn't taken the steps to give it to the proper representative of the Lord.  That next Sunday, I had our Church records transferred and paid our tithing.  Also, after my father-in-law gave me that wonderful blessing I felt prompted to look online to see the status of the job I applied to after meeting the future co-worker at my future part-time job that mentioned earlier.  My status had changed to "referred", which meant I was being considered for the job.  It was on September 26th that I got a phone call from that employer offering me the position that I have wanted since I learned about the organization in 2009.  Although I was going to be taking a huge pay cut, my family and I could still make the pay work.  Especially, since the pay cut would be for a short time, as I would be making up the pay in a few years after being there.  I also was going to have the best schedule I could ever hope for with weekends (most importantly Sundays) off.  The only draw back at the time was that I had to go through the inprocessing phase which meant that I couldn't start the job right away.  At that point, I knew we were probably going to have to go through all of October without any steady income.  Fortunately, I was putting money aside for such a case.  I also found out that there was the possibility of my part-time job offering me full-time work for a few months while I waited to get into my full-time job.  I contacted my part-time job after I started it, but did not get much response in October.  I then fasted the last week of October, that I could get full-time work at my part-time job.  That next weekend, I was offered the opportunity to work full-time until December.  I fasted again the first weekend of December for more full-time work, and again I was offered more full-time work until the end of January 2015.  In December, we also received the blessing of getting into a cheaper townhouse that we could call home for a year.  The Lord also blessed us with a start date for my full-time job to begin February 9, 2015.  What a roller-coaster of a ride 2014 has been.  There are many blessings and details which I have left out and will write about later, most notably and importantly Henry Martin Kelly, the newest addition to our family.  What testimony builder this time has been for my family and me.  I know that it is only because of God and His mercy that we have been blessed so much.  Fasting, prayer, paying tithing, and priesthood blessings work.  I know they do.  I am a witness that they do and that God listens to us and helps us and strengthens us when we go to Him.  "Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God." (Helaman 3:35)

The choice is yours!

I'm going to get a little philosophical this week.  I was at Target with Savannah this past Tuesday.  She had received a gift card from my brother, Jamie, Angie, Madeleine, and Caroline for her birthday.  (Savannah thanks you guys for the gift card).  As we went through the store, we first stopped off at the Wii game section.  Savannah had her heart set on a Littlest Pet Shop Wii game.  When we got over there, we discovered that there were no copies of the game in stock.  We could have gone to a different Target another day, but Savannah wasn't leaving that store until she had spent her gift card.  I then proceeded to show her some of the other kid friendly Wii games that they did have is stock.  Mistake!  Now she couldn't decide between three or four different games.  I called Nikki for help.  Nikki mentioned that she thought Savannah wanted an actual Littlest Pet Shop toy.  My next mistake, was telling Savannah what her mom thought.  We then headed over to the toy section, so that she could look at Target's selection of Littlest Pet Shop toys.  When it was all said and done, we looked at Polly  Pockets, Littlest Pet Shops, Barbies, and a plethora of other 7 year old girl friendly toys.  Oh, and did I mention that Porter was with us.  After about 20 minutes of surveying the toys, Porter was complaining and my patience had about reached their limits.  Finally, Savannah decided to go with a Wii game.  This little experience in patience taught me a lesson.  Everyday we are faced with more choices than we can probably count.  Some of them are small, insignificant choices, such as, what should I wear today, what should I eat for lunch, which type of toothpaste should I buy at the store.  Others are a little more important, from what time should I get up to give myself time to read, ponder and pray, to how to respond to someone at work who offends me, to deciding whether or not to tell the truth about something.  Heavenly Father watches me make these decisions, and what patience He must have in watching me.  The patience I had to exude while Savannah chose how to spend her gift card is but minuscule compared to that of God's patience as He witnesses us make dumb choices in life.  Choices that can affect, not only our eternal progression, but the eternal progression of others as well.  How many lives are affected when I make a bad choice.  But then again, being able to make choices in general is a blessing that God has given us.  A few weeks ago, I mentioned the attributes of God.  I described Him as an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent Father.  But how could God be all of this, and there still exist evil in the world?  The first thing that I realized is that though God created our spirits and bodies, that we are all independent beings from Him.  In other words we have personalities and traits that He does not control.  While our spirits dwelt with Him in the pre-mortal existence, He gave us the blessing of choice, to be able to make decisions on our own even when we were but spirits without physical bodies.  In the Garden of Eden, God did not force Adam and Eve to obey Him.  He desired that they obey Him by choice.  Therefore, He gave them the choice to partake of the fruit of the tree of good and evil.  It was the partaking of that fruit that would give them the knowledge of distinction between good and evil.  They would then be able to experience the bitter from the sweet, the feeling of joy and of pain, and they would do it by their own choice.  Since the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, both good and bad have entered the world.  Though God could control all that happens here on earth, He does not, for He desires that His children decide for themselves how to react to this harsh yet beautiful experience of life.  Some have been born into horrific situations.  Unfortunately, those situations were determined mostly by the decisions of those that came before them, and because we live in an imperfect world where God allows evil to exist with the good.  Is it possible that God, then wants us to experience the bad so that we may better appreciate the good.  An example to think of, would be to picture your own children.  As parents we try to teach them to do good things.  Do we not do that so that at some point they will decide for themselves to choose the good?  I know I receive more satisfaction from watching my children make good choices rather than watching them do something because they felt coerced or forced to do something without choice.  Just like a loving parent, God wants the same for us.  A wise philosopher named Truman G. Madsen once said that perhaps God isn't omnipotent as we think He might be.  For example, He will not and probably cannot do things that are contradictory, like creating a rock that He cannot lift.  It doesn't make sense.  But besides that, there are eternal laws that He will not break.  Otherwise, why would He send His only begotten, perfectly sinless Son to die for some horribly disobedient people like us?  Couldn't He have just saved us without having to have done this?  It goes to show that there is an order to everything and that it all falls back to the fact that He will not take away the freedom of His spirit children to choose. 

2013 was a great year!

So, I didn't do so well at keeping a journal last year.  I wanted to take a moment and remember the many events and experiences my family and I had during 2013.  The year started somewhat rough as I missed another birthday of my oldest.  I feel bad for poor Savannah, as it was the forth year in a row that I was gone for her birthday.  In 2010, I was deployed.  In 2011, I was TDY to Nellis AFB. In 2012, I was TDY to Maxwell AFB.  And last year I was TDY to Guam.  This year, however, I will do all I can to not be sent anywhere with the Air Force.  Of course, like most times that I leave to go TDY, Nikki found herself with a sick child while I was gone to Guam between 31 January and 15 February.  Cora developed a bad cough and practically stopped breathing from a bad case of RSV one night.  Nikki took her to the emergency room.  Thankfully, we had some good neighbors from our ward, Brent Hunter and James Rivera, who went to our house and gave her a healing blessing.  The blessing along with the medication that she received helped her have a quick recovery.
After Guam, I then had to go TDY to do my arctic survival at Eielson AFB near Fairbanks, AK.  Although it wasn't nearly as challenging as the survival course I did in Spokane, WA, it was definitely not a walk in the park.