Moved In. Moved Out. Lessons Learned.

The time we moved into an apartment. Sat on our couch for 3 minutes. And then moved out.

Paul and I were living in a great apartment complex that was pretty close to campus and my job was actually a quick walk to the main office of the complex. One night I was doing my usual craigslist scan for cool apartments and there it was. An apartment so unique and so "cool" to this area and for a great price! All wood floors, white kitchen cabinets, loft bedroom... We clicked through the pictures over and over again and thought, "We have to have it." You know that impulse you get to buy that Snickers at the check out of Wal Mart? Like that. Except this was an apartment.

We called and saw it the next day. It was literally everything we wanted. The only downside was that it was about 10 minutes from Rexburg and we would need to drive that every day for work and school. That didn't sound like a problem to us at all. We signed the contract and felt good about our decision.

We didn't want to rush our move so we took a couple days to take each car load of boxes to our new fancy apartment. There was one night where we brought over our clothes and a few other things. We were considering sleeping there for the night for the first time but as I sat there I suddenly felt uneasy. The most horrible feeling came over me. All of a sudden I hated the place. The sounds, the neighbors, the smell.. I can still imagine that smell of the new wooden floors and I get sick. I have never had such a crazy feeling come over me and I wanted OUT.

We went back to our old apartment and I just sobbed and sobbed like it was the end of the world. Paul had no clue what was going on haha. I just kept telling him how horrible of a feeling I was getting about the place and how I could not live there. He wasn't getting the same feelings I was and I was just SO confused! I thought for sure that the Spirit was literally yelling at me to get out of the situation we were in. I didn't understand. Paul and I were married, weren't we supposed to be "spiritually in tune" and on the same page all the time? So I pushed the feeling aside the best I could and we continued to move our things into the new apartment.

The day came and we had our very last load which included our bed and table. We had a friend from our ward help us with his truck and we carried in the last of it. Paul and I sat down on our new sectional that came with the apartment. Instead of a feeling of relief, we both looked at each other and knew.

The most embarrassing part about the whole thing was that we called our friend who had the truck literally 5 minutes later and asked if he would be willing to come back. He said he was on his way back and with 2 other guys who would help us move everything back in one drive. He didn't question us he just did it. I can't believe he actually came back. He was a huge blessing to us that day.

We moved everything back into our old apartment and everything felt right again. My heart was at peace and I knew with everything in me that our Heavenly Father had protected us. From what? I will never know the answer to that question. But there are a few things I learned through this experience.

Number one is that Heavenly Father is SO aware of our needs. Number two is that even if you are married and go to church and read the scriptures and do all that you should be doing... Sometimes you and your spouse won't get the same feelings of the spirit at the exact same time. That doesn't mean one is more in tune with the spirit than the other. It just means that Heavenly Father knows what we need and how we need it.

Paul recently brought this memory up to me in regards to how it was such a big lesson to him. He said that he kept asking himself over and over again why he never felt anything bad about the new apartment until after we had already moved in. But after the experience and later on in our marriage he says he was able to learn that we need to trust each other's feelings as a couple. It taught him to trust his wife's feelings if she (I) gets that prompting and he doesn't, or vice versa. Because sometimes it's not a lesson of listening to the spirit but a lesson of listening and trusting in your spouse.

We've had experiences since where we have had to rely and trust in each other completely to get through some difficult decisions. The experience with the apartment was a huge pain, embarrassing, and both physically and spiritually straining, but the experience was a lesson that we both needed to learn.

Oh and we also learned never to impulse buy on anything ever again. :)

Beef and cheese, toots, and primary

When I think about moving I get sad about only a couple things, one of those things being leaving our great ward and callings. We have the best calling in the whole ward. Here's some pretty awesome moments we've had so far. 

Little girl leans over during sharing time and whispers-"My dad told me that Jesus is made of beef and cheese"

Me- "Jesus is always watching over us!"
Little boy- "alllllllways watchinnggg" (Monsters Inc. reference)

Little girl in other class- "I got four starbursts for being bad today!"
Me- "What? That doesn't make sense."
Little girl in other class- "Yeah, I was bad and I still got four starbursts!"

Little girls starts to pray- "We're grateful for Primary. Please bless me that I'll kiss Gus on the lips"
Me- "No no no start over that's inappropriate"

While trying to have a spiritual moment during the lesson one little girl lets out the most ginormous man toot I've ever heard. Everyone dies laughing. The spiritual moment is gone forever.

Speaking of toots.. Those classrooms we teach in are small and congested and everyone is usually pretty crammed (There's only 6 of us) but we almost ALWAYS have to open the window because the smell that comes from these stinkers  beautiful little angels makes my eyes literally burn! And they are totally proud of their man toots!

After giving a really good lesson on faith and feeling pretty good about how it went, Paul and I stepped out in the hall to make sure the kids got to their parents okay. I over hear a conversation between a little boy in my class and his mom.
Mom of little boy- "What did you learn about today?"
Little boy- "Martin Luther King!"
Yeah, no. That's not what we learned about haha.

Primary Chorister- "Okay children, I want you to sing as loud as you can!"
Little sunbeam girl automatically plugs her ears with her fingers.

One Sunday my patience was gone so I made them take an oath that they would behave in Primary and for their leaders. One little girl shouts out, "We need to put in our oath- no more tooting!" Why is it that we have to talk about gas every Sunday?!

A little boy was super sad in sharing time and didn't want to draw.
I asked him-"why aren't you drawing like the rest of the kids?"
Little boy- "I quit drawing. Drawing is just not one of my talents"

During Sacrament meeting I looked up to see a little boy we had last year staring at me. He then proceeded to use sign language to communicate with me from across the chapel. I had to google how to spell "Hello" in sign language to answer him back.

Me during lesson- "What could we do if we woke up in the night feeling scared or frightened?"
Little boy- "I would grab my wooden sword and run to my parents room!"

Primary leader in sharing time- "How do we know the scriptures are true?"
Little girl- "By taking a shower and eating lunch!"

We're in sharing time and it was the first sunday the sunbeams were there. One little girl must have been bored because she began taking one article of clothing off at a time until she was almost naked.



We love these kids. I'd be happy if we had this calling forever.