This post is mostly for me to remember this experience. So if you don’t want to read a short novel, just skip to the final paragraph.

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After grad school, we moved back to Utah following a job that Josh was really excited about at a company called Experticity. He had a lot of fun there for a handful of months, but after a year, he was way ready to for a change. That same summer, my brother finally got permission to hire for a job he had been talking to Josh about for about 18 months, and Josh moved to Leavitt Partners to work as the sole developer on the Torch Insight team. It has turned out to be a HUGE blessing for him and our family! (Thanks David!) But not long after Josh took that job, we talked about how much we had loved living back east, and decided that once Josh had gotten/given what he wanted at that job we would look for our next job/house/life outside of Utah.

In August of 2019, we went with the Muhlestein family on a Disney cruise that left from Vancouver, Canada. The day before we sailed, we went to church in Canada. I loved hearing the stories that people were sharing in Sunday School about how they were sharing the gospel in “normal, natural ways!” On the cruise, I had one day where I actually read my scriptures, and I studied a talk by Elder Christofferson about preparing for the Second Coming of the Savior. That talk, coupled with my experience at church set my heart on fire! I wanted more than anything to share the gospel with everybody I could and do my part to prepare the earth for the return of her King! Thinking back on how easy it had been to share the gospel when we lived in Chapel Hill, and also just how much we loved the whole experience of being there, convinced me that it was WAY time to move away from Utah and back to (I’m embarrassed to type this; but it seems like the best way to describe the idea concisely) “the mission field.”

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But timing wasn’t right, and we knew it. There was a potential promotion at work, I got a positive pregnancy test just days after we returned from the cruise and we didn’t want to move in the middle of pregnancy, etc. So we gave ourselves a “goal” (more like a wish) to move by May 2020. But then we got the same surprise that everybody else in the world got: the pandemic. I know lots of people were still moving and changing jobs and all those things you do in normal life despite lockdowns, but we felt like we needed to stay. As 2020 went on, we felt more and more claustrophobic in our house–new baby #5 + working from home–but also in our present life. We felt from the beginning that our West Jordan house was temporary, and frankly, we felt like we had stayed longer than desired. That is not to say that we didn’t love our life in West Jordan! We did!!! We met so many wonderful people, learned TONS, had amazing opportunities to serve, and had a duck/goose pond in our back yard! It honestly was a dream life in so many ways. And yet, we just needed to move. Despite all those feelings and prayers on the subject, we felt that the Spirit’s answer was consistently a “Wait. Be Patient.” It was hard and frustrating. But I know that we’re not the only ones who dealt with that sort of sentiment during 2020.

At the end of the year, after Torch Insight got acquired by a global company in August and was declared “officially remote” through the year 2021, we finally felt like the Spirit gave us the okay to start looking for somewhere else to live. But then we realized that we didn’t really know where we wanted to live, and had no good reason to go anywhere. But we were desperate to move, so we thought and prayed and discussed and settled on moving back to North Carolina. We liked either the Charlotte area or back to the Triangle area. So, the second week of January, on crutches–because he broke his foot on Christmas Eve, Josh departed for the east coast. He met with a realtor in both areas and saw SO MANY houses! We found one we really liked at first, and seriously considered offering on it. But as we learned more, we realized it wasn’t the place for us. Over the next 3 months, we looked at new installments of houses each day, and got really excited about this new adventure we were embarking on!

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I remember talking to Christina about it and she was certain I was acting according to the Spirit because I was so calm about the idea of moving all the way across the country with 5 kids just for fun. I also remember feeling so much love from Heavenly Father as we were looking for our dream house. I felt like I could be as bold as Jared in the Book of Ether who said “And who knoweth but the Lord will carry us forth into a land which is choice above all the earth? And if it so be, let us be faithful unto the Lord, that we may receive it for our inheritance.” And I felt like we truly were doing in all in our power to be faithful to Him. So I felt like we were going to get it!

One sacred experience I had was after looking at a house that was SO beautiful! It had almost everything we wanted, had a TON of room to expand, was in pristine condition, and we just loved it! It was at the tippy top of the price range we thought we had based on what we thought we could get out of the West Jordan house, and it just felt like it was too expensive. So even though we loved it, and it seemed like we even had a decent chance of getting it based on our timing and the seller’s, I felt like we should not push the limits of our means. I have a HUGE testimony of living within our means and this felt like the prime time to put my faith into action. After Josh and I discussed it, and we told our realtor we would pass on the house, I felt overwhelming peace and love from the Lord. I knew that we had acted according to His will and that He would bless us for it.

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And I needed that experience to hold on to through the rest of the process. We offered on a house in Apex that we really liked and which had, again, almost all our dreams in it. But the market was crazy and even though we bid competitively, we didn’t get it. By this point, we were well under way trying to prepare out home in Utah to sell. And we were astonished by how much work it took, and how much of a payoff it would yield. That time of painting, and decorating, and cleaning, and repairing was the most stressful time in my life except, perhaps, when Fay was in the NICU and I was still in classes at BYU. Josh and I were always tired, physically, mentally, and emotionally. We were starting to wonder if we would ever be able to secure a new place to live.

The light at the end of our tunnel was a couple’s trip to Arizona Josh and I had planned to celebrate/recover from the weaning of Bianca. We left our kids with Monson grandparents to party, our house with our capable realtor team to do the open house, and departed with hopes of being able to enjoy a week free of house thoughts. But we were disappointed. As we thought about how we were really doing this, and as we kept getting texts telling us how the line to enter our open house was down the sidewalk a full block, I felt completely sick. I wondered if we were doing the right thing by selling. I wondered if we were doing the right thing by buying. And I couldn’t enjoy the trip much at all. This trip was supposed to be our stress-free getaway; but I was so weighed down with anxiety that I really couldn’t relax and have fun.

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On Sunday, Josh and I went to a Japanese friendship garden in Phoenix. It was so beautiful and peaceful. After our walk through the garden, we sat on a hill at a park and talked about what we should do. It was during this talk that Josh mentioned that we could just move within Utah. As he said that, I felt peace about the move for the first time since the house went on the market. I knew at that moment that we would stay in Utah; but I was also in denial. My plan was not to stay in Utah. My plan was to have a great adventure in North Carolina! My plan was to get out on our own! And to share the gospel in normal and natural ways with all my neighbors, and invite my kids’ nonmember friends to their baptisms and ordinations, and serve in the ward, and really “Go and Do!” But the Lord made it clear that His plan was for us to stay in Utah.

I was sad. And hurt. I felt abandoned by Heavenly Father. I felt like I was giving Him my whole being, with all the faith of Nephi agreeing to retrieve the brass plates, and He was saying “Nah. I don’t really need you.” I thought that if you had a desire, you were called to the work. But if Heavenly Father didn’t need me, then I wondered if I actually had anything to offer in the first place. If that all sounds like a dark and hopeless place to be, it was.

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But we pressed on. We had gotten quite used to the classic floor plan of North Carolina houses, and they were NOT to be found in Utah. I was actually really frustrated by how “ugly” and yardless all the houses out here seemed compared to the beautiful, well maintained ones with big yards and woods that were in our price-range back east. But we also had exciting times where we would go look at houses. And it was my first time EVER to look at a prospective new home in-person! It is way more fun to actually be there than to go through with a realtor’s iphone.

Then a house came up in Cedar Hills. It didn’t have EVERYthing we wanted and it needed a LOT of remodeling work; but it did have a lot of what we wanted, and it was in a great neighborhood and was a 10ish minute walk to Kathryn’s house! We decided to offer on it! That was Monday evening. The seller’s agent told us that if we bid competitively enough, they would cancel the open house that Saturday and just let us have it. We bid very generously, because by this time we were SO DONE looking for a house (this was mid April, so 3.5 months after we began the process). Well, they were apparently hoping for more, because they went ahead and held the open house. We asked our family to pray for us to get the house, but we also kept looking for other options in the mean time. That Saturday, the same day as the Cedar Hills house open house, we saw a house in Riverton. It was beautiful! It was big and open, and move-in ready, and on .34 acres! We loved it! Plus, staying in Salt Lake County means we would continue to have access to the best library system in the world! So, we offered on it! We again tried to offer very generously; and we waited.

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Both the seller from the Cedar Hills house and the Riverton house decided they would review offers at 5:30 PM on Monday. Around 4:00 PM we got a message from our realtor saying that Cedar Hills liked our offer! Evidently, nobody else wanted “potential” for nearly 3/4 million dollars. (They must not have been as desperate as we were.) But, we didn’t want Cedar Hills anymore. We wanted Riverton. So we waited with baited breath until our realtor finally messaged us at 5:31 that we ALSO got the Riverton house!

The search was FINALLY over!

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The next month was filled with closings and lease backs and trying diligently to prevent our children from breaking everything in the house that was technically no longer ours. (At least 5 major incidents occurred after closing, before moving out.)

And though we were very excited for our new Riverton life, I still felt a little abandoned by the God I had been and continue to be so anxious to serve.

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But over time, and through many sacred experiences, the Lord has shown me many reasons why He wanted us in this corner of the world. As pieces continue to fall together in my mind and heart I feel more and more like Heavenly Father truly didn’t just leave us here because He didn’t think we’d be of any use back east; He has led us here because He has a great work for us to accomplish and countless blessings in store for our family. I wanted to “go and do.” But apparently sometimes what the Lord needs from us is to “stay and do.”

I don’t think I’m to the point, yet, where I’m happy I didn’t get what I originally wanted. But I am grateful that I am again able to feel the Lord’s love on this subject.

So now we’re here! The house is beautiful and spacious! The neighbors are beyond amazing! And I’m hoping that we can “accomplish the thing which [the Lord] commandeth.” But I feel a lot like Nephi when he said he was “not knowing beforehand the things which [he] should do.” I just hope I can be led by the Spirit like he was.

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So, to sum it up for those who skipped to the bottom–we were ready to move out of our West Jordan house for lots of reasons, and originally planned to move to North Carolina since Josh’s company was declared fully remote for the foreseeable future. I especially was looking forward to living in a place where it is easier to share the gospel in normal and natural ways. But we felt like that was not the Lord’s plan for us and that He has important work for us to do here in Utah. So we bought a house in Riverton, and it is great!

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