When I Was 10

When I was 10 years old and in primary, our teachers asked us to choose something to give to Jesus on Christmas. 

I thought about it and I decided that I would read the Book of Mormon everyday for a year as my gift. 

I worked really hard to keep my promise even though sometimes I only read a verse or two. Later that year, probably in the fall, I decided I wanted to know if the Book of Mormon was true. I had been taught that I could pray and ask. I felt ready. 

So I kneeled on the floor one night and asked Heavenly Father if it was true. 

I immediately felt a warmth and peace feel my heart and soul. I felt so peaceful and knew by the power of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon was true. 

I have always known it was true since that night I prayed. 

The Lord Knows More Than Dave Ramsey

March 2016 I was driving the kids home from school and the spiritual impression of one word came strongly to my mind. "Daybreak." It caught me off guard and I pondered on it for a week or so. Then at the provo city center temple dedication held that month, I had some time to pray about the impression. After asking the Lord some questions, I learned very strongly that we needed to buy a house and we needed to do it as soon as possible.

This seemed a bit crazy. Newell had only had a stable job with enough of an income to even think about buying a house for three months. We had maybe 1-2 thousand in savings and were renting a home that had a lease up in about four months.

Buying a house at this point in our lives, financially, went against everything Dave Ramsey says and I had learned. However, I knew this was what the Lord wanted so we scheduled a time to meet with a broker.

On the way to the broker I was talking to my Dad about this and my concerns when my Dad said, "Well Heavenly Father is a lot smarter than Dave Ramsey." This helped calm my nerves a bit. If my Dad was supporting what I was doing and saying that Heavenly Father must know something Dave Ramsey doesn't, than I could move forward and not worry about it.

As the process to buy a home continued we felt very strongly about Daybreak. Also in one of my prayers I asked the Lord again how soon it needed to be and I received the answer again to buy a home as soon as possible. I also received the impression that "the worth of souls is great in the sight of God." So for whatever reason, I felt the Lord was telling me that this prompting had a lot more to do with his work than the logistics of wise finances.

There were so many logistical hiccups along the way that our broker said he could feel the opposition from the adversary working against this move. (Our broker was a member of our ward.) However, every obstacle we found a way through and in the end we were in a home within a little over four months from my first impression.

We knew the home we moved into was the right house but things were going to get tighter financially that fall after we adopted the boys (the money from the state would decrease significantly.) I knew we could make it work if needed but it would be very difficult without an increase in income. I prayed to the Lord on this concern.

The answer I received while reading the ensign was to double our fast offering. This was just after purchasing the home and money was tight, our savings was empty. But I took the leap and payed the double amount. The very next day, Newell called me to let me know that his boss came to him and said that it was time to push Newell's promotion forward that had been talked about for a few months. He wanted Newell to spend so much time on it so it could happen as soon as possible.

Newell's promotion with the added pay came into effect the same exact month (October) that we started receiving less from the state. It came to almost the exact amount we were loosing from the state check.

Our Sacrificed Income for Christmas

When we lived in Framingham, Massachusetts, Newell worked at an episcopal church for conducting experience. He worked there for about eight months. Then he felt that he was supposed to leave the job so that he could be more fully involved in our LDS ward and serve there. When he told me this over the phone on his way home one day (he was driving home and it was June) I had the thought that I should pray about it. I told Newell this. Then after we hung up the spirit guided me not to wait for the perfect moment but to just pray now.

I got on my knees and asked for confirmation about Newell's prompting. Was it right? I felt an undeniable yes and was filled with peace. I trust the Lord completely and when Newell got home told him that the Holy Ghost had confirmed to me that his impression was true. He soon resigned from his post. He left on good terms with them and did offer to do the occasional project for them if they wanted.

Well come the following November, we were really hurting financially. I don't remember exactly why but the little bit he made from that job really helped us to make our humble budget work. We had an emergency fund so we made it work for awhile but we were running out of money. I was working from home but it wasn't quite enough and we were getting worried.

Newell and I prayed about it. He told me later that he prayed about it privately too and told the Lord that we were trying to keep his commandments and had followed his guidance to leave that job. We paid our tithing and fast offering and Newell asked our Father in Heaven to send blessings as he promises in the scriptures to help us.

Within several days of his prayer, we received an anonymous envelope in the mail. It had the return address of our church but was not an official church letter. Inside was a check for $1000 and a gift card to target for $200 but no note. To say the least we were a bit shocked but extremely grateful.

Then about a week later we were rehearsing Christmas music at the church and someone left $400 or $500 (I can't remember exactly) with Newell's items when he was busy. A week or so later we anonymously received two other gifts. By Christmas, when all of it was added together, I discovered that we had been gifted almost exactly what Newell would have made between June and December from the job he had left.

The Lord had asked us to sacrifice. We did and then after the trial of our faith, he blessed us himself through the generosity of others with the same amount we had sacrificed.

Floating on the Sand

We were coming home from a trip to St. George. My son enjoys making arrowheads from obsidian. Obsidian can be expensive to buy so the thought was brought up that maybe there was somewhere on the way home where we could collect some obsidian ourselves.

I looked it up and found a blog that said there was obsidian to be found at Black Spring in Utah. We followed the directions to get there and on the way found ourselves having an adventure through an area of Utah we were unfamiliar with.

It was fun to take this side route home in the middle of nowhere with different landscapes. The route ran closely parrallel to a train route for awhile. It was close enough that when we passed and signaled for them to do the train horn; they did to our great amusement.

We eventually found the dirt road that turned off towards Black Spring. We had an hour and half or so left of sunlight so we knew we needed to be wise and make this expedition quick and efficient. The last thing we wanted to do was to be in literally the middle of nowhere with our whole family in the dark and spotty phone reception.

As soon as we started on the dirt road the van started to shake violently due to how bad the road was. We proceeded further but could barely go five miles an hour. We quickly realized that at the rate we wouldn't be able to complete our task before sun down. It was not wise to continue.

However, we had come this far and we desired to find the obsidian for our son. We came to the conclusion that we needed to pray. The Lord cares about us  and we believed cared about our little family expedition. He cares about the big things and also the small things. We knew that if it was his will to help us that we could get there and do what we had come to do.

I said the prayer. It was a simple prayer. I thanked the Lord for various blessings and recognized his hands in all things. I recognized that while this wasn't very important that we were excited about it as a family and wanted to do this for our son. If it was his will, we asked that he would make our way smooth so that we could proceed on our way.

After the prayer we drove onward and found that immediately that our car was no longer having any trouble driving a reasonable speed (maybe 25-30 miles per hour.)

We were no longer being jolted around by the rough road. We made it to Black Spring within about 10 minutes. There we searched for about 30-40 minutes until we found some good sized pieces of snowflake obsidian.

When finished we took some pictures with our discovery and then loaded up and headed back to the main road. Soon we reached the spot where we had prayed and where the road had been impassable over 5 miles an hour. Instead of needing to slow down though, we were able to proceed all the way back to the main road at our continued speed of 25-30 miles an hour without any problems.

We were on the main road a little before sundown. We stopped and said a prayer thanking our Father in Heaven for blessing us and making the path smooth so that we were able to finish our expedition. We thanked him that we were able to find obsidian that was usable and asked him to bless the remainder of our journey to be safe.

Our Heavenly Father does care about us and does hear our prayers. We prayed and exercised our faith in him that he would make our path smooth and he did. It was a small thing, not necessary to our salvation but I am grateful for this experience of faith that we were able to experience as a family.

I am grateful that the Lord saw fit to bless us with this answer to prayer to help us and our children to see first hand our prayers answered.