I Knew It

Six months ago I would have been feeling overwhelming joy at the thought of leaving Utah. I had come to a place in my life where I was "done" with Utah. Or in particular, Utah County. Don't get me wrong, it had it's moments. I met my husband there, my babies were born there, I had great friends there and many other wonderful memories from my college days. It's just that I had out grown it in a sense. Provo is the youngest city in the US and with me being the 30 something that I am I felt like an old woman. There is a certain sense of immaturity that goes along with the young age base there as well and that was what annoyed me the most. Yes, I would have thrown a party six months ago, danced in the streets and shouted for joy from my roof top had we gotten this job then.

I knew though that the Lord wanted to teach me to love Utah. I knew he would wait until I would be sad to leave before he would let me leave. He would wait for me to not want to leave and then He would make me leave. That is exactly what has happened. When we moved to Grantsville 6 months ago I came kicking and screaming. I did not want to move here, nope, not one bit. I wanted what I wanted and that was a great job in some great place far a way from Utah. Instead I was getting Grantsville. I didn't understand it at the time but now I do. There were reasons I had to come to this place. Things I had to learn and relationships I had to develop. My children needed to get to know their cousins and my husband and I needed all the free babysitting they provided. We all needed this place. So now, yes, I am sad to leave. I have made great friends, been in a great ward with a wonderful bishop and grown to love my dear sweet sister even more. I had to learn all the things I was taught in our "Monday" group and I had to learn to love myself again.

Turns out that I am indeed grateful I came to this place. I hate to go. I hate to leave the wonderful friends I've made here. I am sad that I have to leave Utah. I feel though that all of my time here was for an even greater purpose. I feel I was being prepared to go out into the world to be an influence for good. Perhaps I was learning what I have learned so I can teach my sisters in Wisconsin. Who knows, but I do know that the Lord knows best. He sees the big picture and he is in control. I know that he pours out blessings on us even when we don't recognize them as such. How blessed I feel that He saw fit to have us wait so long for that "dream" job because in all that time He was teaching and preparing us and blessing us immensely. And in the end He did give us just was we wanted. Perhaps even more.

The Decision

Well, I'm sure most of you know by now that we have decided to move to Wisconsin. The decision did not come easy. Nope, not in the least. Here we had an offer sitting on the table for 3 weeks. We actually accepted that offer even though we knew we had things on the horizon still. We figured that the first offer would be our last anyway so we went ahead and took it. After much council with friends and family members we were advised that even if we took the offer, we weren't bound to anything until they gave us money. So, when Trek bicycles wanted to fly Ivan out for an interview we were all over it.

How could we turn it down? It just sounded cool and Wisconsin seems a much more desirable place to live than Kansas. After his interview Ivan called me to tell me it went terrible. I couldn't believe it. I felt bad for him. I asked him what went wrong and he told me that it was so bad that they offered him a job before he left. WHAT? His plan in all of this was just to go to the interview, network and get to know some people and be headed off to his new job in Wichita. He figured Trek would take a couple of weeks to get back to him anyway and that by that time we'd be on our way to living in Kansas. So things didn't go as planned. The next day we received the official offer and the day after that another offer from a company in Texas. Three good job offers sitting in front of us. Wow. We would have never dreamed of it. Deciding was a difficult task but we finally felt best about going to Trek. I am so glad that Wisconsin was the answer. I would have accepted it if Kansas or Texas was the answer but truth be told, Wisconsin was at the top of my list for where I would most like to live. Ivan had a really hard time turning down our first offer though. He felt like he was going back on his word and burning bridges. Hopefully they will forgive us.

So now things are happening fast and we'll be leaving in 11 days. I am excited for the new adventure that awaits us and am really excited to live where it is green. I am sad though to leave Utah. Funny thing is that 6 months ago I would have been jumping for joy at the thought of leaving this state but I have grown to love it here. OK, I've grown to love Grantsville and the people here, I still have my issues with UT county. It may have taken us 18 months but we finally did it. We got a real job. I feel so blessed.