Moving to Logan

Before I start this next post I just have to tell you all thank you so much for your support and moving words of comfort that you left for me in the comments on my last post. You have no idea how much that meant to me. It kinda felt like a good idea at the time I wrote it to get EVERYTHING out and I hoped it would be somewhat therapeutic (which it was), but the next day I had one of those "Oh no" moments. Like, what the heck was I thinking writing such crazy stuff down for everyone to read, but at that point it was too late to delete it, too many of you would have already read it! :) But I really don't regret it, and I appreciate how kind you all were in response to my honesty and I am comforted by the fact that maybe every once in awhile you have hard days too. I love you guys!!

Moving to Logan-Part 1:
There is A LOT that happened during this time so I'm going to break our move up into 2 parts. The move from Provo to Logan and then moving in and our experience the first week or so in Logan.

Several months back I posted about our decision to move to Logan. We had been praying for 3 months about where, when, and how Bobby needed to finish his education. Which path would be the best one for not only Bobby's education and his future employment, but also for our family as a whole. I won't re-hash the decision making process because that's all in that past blog, but as you know we ended up deciding upon Logan, UT where USU is located. Once that decision was made and finalized there were lots of other things that needed to fall into place in order for that to happen.
1. He needed to find a job 2. We needed a place to live 3. We needed to sell one of our cars
May/June 2008-We were planning on making the move sometime in Aug. since USU classes begin Aug. 25, so we began working on #1 and #2. The ideal situation would have been for Bobby to be able to transfer to a Wells Fargo in Logan. That way he wouldn't have to bother looking, applying and interviewing for jobs which saves us TONS of time. However there is a little bit of a downside to our ideal scenario. He would have to take a "demotion" from personal banker to lead teller, because a banker is a 40 hour week job and he can only be working part time while he is taking his major classes, but on the flipside we would get to keep our insurance (major plus!!!). Since it is a "demotion" that translates to pay cut. Ouch! So not only would he be making less money, he would also be working only half as many hours. Double ouch! (And to be honest, I was pretty comfortable with the lifestyle we'd been living for the past 4 years!!) But he would still be making more than he would be starting brand new at some random job, and the amount of time we would save moving up here with a guaranteed job could just not be passed up. So he immediately started looking for job openings at all the Wells Fargos in the Logan area and applied for several of them with NO positive response. All the positions that were open wanted people to start working almost right away and we wouldn't be able to move for another couple months. (Bobby was in the middle of summer classes)We were getting so discouraged. I found myself a little disgruntled with my Heavenly Father, questioning why it was that if we were supposed to move to Logan (which I KNOW we were) why were things not falling into place for us immediately?! Isn't that how it works? You pray for something, you receive your answer, you act on it in faith and you receive an outpouring of blessings for being faithful. Well hadn't we had to wait long enough for the answer to our first prayer (where to go to school?)? Didn't I patiently wait for that answer? And once that answer was received didn't I immediately accept thou's will for me even though it is not at ALL what I wanted the answer to be? (The absolute LAST place I wanted to move was Logan. It puts me on the very opposite end of the state from my family and we know NO ONE in the entire city) But I did not question. I said (happily even I might add), "I will go where thou wants me to go dear Lord, I will do what thou wants me to do!" So where are all my blessings?! (insert stomp of foot here)

Thank goodness for my ever so faithful husband! I'm sure I would have been struck down by lightening numerous times if not for him. He never wavered. Not once. It drove me nuts, how I was always the only one worrying about this move. He would always just say, "Angela,you need to quit freaking out. We both know that this is where our lives are supposed to be going and we know we are going to be moving sometime this summer. Everything else along the way is just simple details. Heavenly Father has always taken care of us when we have been doing our part and I know he will not leave us alone this time. We just have to be patient a little longer." Which of course did not really ever give me hope and remind me to be more faithful, it just made me more angry that I was the only one that seemed to care. (I told you, struck be lightening!) But sure enough everything DID fall into place. And so miraculously I might add, that I will spend the rest of my life asking my Father in Heaven to forgive me for my weak spirit and poor faith (as well as my husband).

July 1, 2008-no sign of anything on the job front; however we do have a place to live. Since I had been so sick we never had a chance to come up to Logan and look for housing like we had planned so we had to do the next best thing. Find something online. Since we didn't know the area at all (like where the ghetto places are, etc.) we decided it might just be best to live in their oncampus married housing for the first few months till we can get a feel for things here and then if it's really that bad we can move. And rent is SOOOO cheap (a big plus since Bobby gets that awesome pay cut!) with pretty much everything included (cable, Internet, most utilities), so we decided that was probably the best we were going to do with the limited time and knowledge we had and signed ourselves up for that. Done. Downside? We have to accept a move in date of July 12 (less than 2 weeks away). We don't necessarily have to move in that early, but that is when we have to start paying rent, which means we get to pay rent for 2 places in July; yea!

July 2, 2008-An opening shows up online for a job as a part time teller at a Logan branch and Bobby applies

July 3, 2008-Bobby gets a call from the manager of the branch and has an "interview" over the phone with him, says she thinks he would work out well at their branch, but she would need him to start the following week. He tells her we can't move in until the 12th so his first day couldn't be till the 14th. She says she thinks that would work and she'll call him next week to let him know for sure.

July 7, 2008(Monday)-Bobby gets the job. Our landlords don't know we're moving, we need to pack our entire house, we need to drive to St. George and pick up all my furniture from my parents, and we need to sell our car. By Saturday. Let me just tell you. That week was MAYHEM and to top it all off I was still sick so Bobby did EVERYTHING! Every night Bobby came home and packed non-stop, made plans to get a uhaul and drive to St. George, called our landlords (who were very gracious, but still made us pay for a full month of rent for July), took care of Tyler and I, and put the car up for sale. 2 days later we sold it and it sold for more than we thought it would.

July 11, 2008-We get in the car early Fri. morning and drive to St. George where we pick up the Uhaul and load my furniture at my mom's. We stay for a couple hours because it's probably the last time we're going to see them for a long time (we can't go down for Thanksgiving OR Christmas :( ) and I just don't care that we're not going to get back until late that night and still have to pack our whole house into the Uhaul! We get home at 9:45 pm and Bobby calls a couple guys from work, who offered to help us load everything up, to come over. I put Tyler to bed and they work for almost 2 hours! I still can't believe they came over that late and worked so hard for us. We never would have been able to do that without them! (Jana, give Adam another BIG hug for us. We really appreciated it!!!) Even with all that help, we still had our whole bedroom to pack and load into the Uhaul, but we were too exhausted and decided to just do it the next day.

July 12, 2008-Moving day! My sweet visiting teacher was out walking her dog while we had been loading the Uhaul the night before and found out we were moving. Everything had happened so fast that we really didn't have time to tel anyone! She offered to watch Tyler for us this morning so we could finish packing and then clean our apartment, which turned out to be a HUGE blessing! There was so much going on that it would have taken us double the time to do everything if Tyler had been home. So after we dropped Tyler off at her house we got busy packing up our room. (I do not recommend taking only 1 week to pack your house!) Around 10:30 my sweetest most dear friends Jaime and Maranda came over just to say goodbye and ended up staying to help us clean. Actually I shouldn't say help clean. They did ALL the cleaning. I was really sick Sat. morning and Bobby was loading everything that we had just packed and they saw we needed mega help and just jumped right in. Cleaning toilets, showers, walls, filling in holes, you name it-they did it! What was I doing you ask? Sitting on the floor watching them. That's right. I have the best friends in the WHOLE world. And when they were done cleaning did they just leave? No way! They stayed and entertained Tyler (who had just come home) for the next couple hours as Bobby and I finalized everything. And even then, did they say goodbye and leave? No way! They stayed with us as we did our last walk through, as we locked the door on our house forever, as we buckled ourselves into the Uhaul and then they waved to us until the Uhaul was out of sight! Now, not once I had cried about moving or leaving friends or Provo or my family or anything. I think everything happened so fast that I didn't even have time to think or let it register that we were really leaving, but the second I buckled my seatbelt and we began to pull out of the drive it all hit me and there was no controlling the flood gates. I cried all the way to Salt Lake! I waved goodbye to my friends and the second we drove past them the tears just started coming. A couple seconds later Bobby said, "Hey look in your mirror, they're still waving." And I was so touched that I had friends that cared that much. Even though we couldn't see them, they could still see us so they didn't stop waving! It's been a really long time since I have that kind of connection with anyone besides my family. You two are such a special part of my life and I know that we were in each other's lives at this time for a reason. I love you both to bits and miss you horribly!

We left provo at 5:15 that evening and arrived in Logan around 9:00 that night. It's a bitter sweet thing I guess. Moving on. A necessary evil I say. If you're not moving forward in life you're not progressing, but if you do move forward you're taking a chance. A chance on the unknown. A chance on others. And even more scary; a chance on yourself. If we never move or change we don't fully recognize how much we are capable of. How able we are to overcome challenges and trials. When we sit still in one place for too long I think our spirits can become numb which hinders our progression in fulfilling our mission on this earth. I was so comfortable in Provo, so comfortable with my ward, my friends, and my family. So comfortable that I wasn't allowing myself to be challenged, developing my talents, or taking on new hurdles. I was content with where I was and where I was going. Nowhere. That was safe. My spirit was numb. Accepting this new challenge, no matter how hard it has been (next post) has been exactly what I have needed. Change is necessary. I'm sure many of you recognize this in your daily lives and make the necessary adjustments and continue growing without needing something as dramatic as moving to a new place to jumpstart you. I However, am grateful to my Heavenly Father for patiently teaching me this lesson. He knows what will touch our spirits individually and provides us with tools to grow and draw closer to him. For that I am truly grateful.