Today My Heart is Full

Hello All,

Aubrey here. I wanted to take a few minutes to write my feelings down for our close family and friends to read. To summarize everything, emotions are running high in our family right now. We have a lot to think about, a lot to be grateful for, and a lot of decisions to make. I don't know where to start explaining everything but I guess I'll just type whatever I am feeling. Heaven knows you don't have all day, and this will be a long one so we won't be offended if you can't get through it all! :) I'll try not to make it too boring.


Life is beautiful. But sometimes, it's hard to find the beauty when you are feeling like a victim of so many losses. And then there are times that we can do nothing but collapse on our knees in gratitude for a God who loves us and blesses us far more than we deserve. One of the biggest lessons we are learning in life right now is that we can not have the bitter without the sweet. We have had an extreme amount of both come our way today and in the past week.

To start off, we decided to head up to Utah last Thursday for many reasons. We had a) An apartment to find. b) Furniture to pick up from Darren & Deann. c) Many more errands to run, and most importantly at that time d) Matt had a job interview at 4:00 pm that day. So we left bright and early on Thursday, just hoping that the sacrifice of a day's work would pay off.

We were feeling good, although ready to be out of the car and on to the interview, at 1:50 pm that day. However, due to the unfortunate occasion of metal in the road, our world and wallet were to be turned upside down. Between Green River and Price a 4' long, 5" high rectangular aluminum box was lying in the road and Matt only saw the small end. There was no way around it and he hit it dead on. The sound was horrifying. I woke up to a popped tire, what we thought was a broken oil pan, dark fluid sprayed all over the road, and no way to get to Matt's interview. But we were alive, so we had God to thank for that. We called up my dad and he dropped everything to come pick us up. We are so glad to have a dad who sacrifices for us. Soon after the accident we called up Matthew's potential employers to inform them of our circumstances. We explained all of it, only to discover that the job position he was to interview for was actually . . . filled.

How were we to feel now? We were sitting on the side of the road with no job potential, a car that couldn't run and hundreds of dollars worth the damage, a wasted day off of work, and a long wait ahead. My natural inclination was to pity myself and sit down and cry, but Matt was in high spirits, as he always is, and we had a good time. We had packed food for the ride so we searched out a tree to escape the heat of the day and ate our fruit and sandwiches. Matt got a phone call from the secretary at the grounds office saying that they had found an opening in another position and that Matt could interview for it the next day at 11 am. We were thrilled. :)



The wait totaled about 3 hours so we went for a walk, during which time I graciously stepped in a cactus. (Don't ever do that if you can avoid it! It hurts a lot.) We also checked the oil and it read FULL. It was then that we realized the seriousness of the situation: the transmission was destroyed. So now we were in thousands of dollars worth the damage.

Once my dad arrived with the trailer, we learned just how low of a rider La Nonna is. She had a hard time getting into the trailer without causing more damage! It took Cameron, Matt, and my dad some time and man power to load. They're awesome. On the way home my dad was so happy that it was hard to feel down. He made us laugh so hard and bought us frozen yogurt at Maverik (his latest craze). :)

Anyway, my dad mentioned Lynn Bishop to us- a man who can weld anything. The next morning at 6 am my husband got up to help Dad take the car into Manti. Lynn worked his magic, but the damage was far more than we initially thought. The car was so nice before, but we aren't sure how much it can be trusted and now we really don't know what to do about it. Sell it? Junk it? Buy a new transmission?



Well, that night we opened our wedding gifts so that got our spirits up. We loved being with my family and it is always so hard to go. :(

Once we made it up to Provo and finally found the office, Matt was basically handed the job because he's very qualified and we think they also pitied him a bit. :) We realized later that he didn't ask about time shifts or when he would start, but we just hoped that it would work out and waited for them to call. I was also blessed to be in Provo at the right time for a job interview that I had applied for, and I interviewed at 3 that afternoon. The interview went ok and I find out Friday if I was hired or not. Pray for the best!

Our next task was apartment search. We drove around for two hours on Friday and not one phone call was answered for 1 bedroom apartments. We were tired and hungry and frustrated so we headed to Honeyville with the sky dark and rainy. There we were showered with love by A. Sherry & U. Mark and we got to spend time with my mom and dad. The next morning we went to Logan where we were again showered with kindness from Darren and Deann. They were so sweet and gave us tons of furniture (and Creamies!) and took us out to lunch. We are so grateful for them.

That afternoon we tried to find housing again and again-driving around Provo was getting old. We returned to Manti sad and discouraged, not knowing what we would do. It was impossible to find a house from New Mexico! They always make you walk through them. We didn't know what to do but we tried to stay optimistic (not hard for Matt! For me, more so).

The next day we found a new listing online for a triplex reallllly close to campus and knew that our prayers had been answered. I called immediately and was the first one to say that we'd take the apartment. I didn't hardly care what it looked like-it was a decent price. But, like I predicted, the man needed us to see it first so we took yet another trip to Provo. The apartment was a humble place; less of a triplex and more of a shack out back of a duplex... but it was a place. It was relatively cheap, and the landlord will pay us to do any fixing up that we want. We feel blessed. We don't know when the tenant will be out of the place but we have lots of work to do on it. We're hoping he can be out by the 25th (school starts on the 30th) but we shall see.

Well, today Matt's employers called to ask if his paperwork was finished and if he could start tomorrow. :( We had no idea the job would start that soon! They couldn't guarantee the job if we came up in 2 weeks as planned. Matt needs to finish work here, making twice as much as he would there, and we just drove into Farmington last night; we couldn't convince ourselves to pack back up and move to Utah without anywhere to live. After much prayer and discussion, we decided that Matt had to turn down the job. Now we are praying for something better to come along, and sending in resumes like crazy.



But now I come to the most emotional part of the day for all of us. We have been saddened by the loss of Megan and Trevor's baby, and I also feel deeply humbled. It makes me so sad to think of the emotional and physical pain that Megan must be going through and I feel shallow for stressing over my little problems. We have all been praying for Megan's health and putting our faith in Christ that she will get better. I know she will. I admire Trevor and Megan so much because they are so strong.

When we went to see poor Megan at the hospital they had made a pin cushion out of her. She'd been pricked and poked and tested so many times that she was absolutely exhausted! Just hearing the nurses talk made me weak; I don't do well with needles and blood and IVs; Megan's really brave. It's been so humbling to realize that life is not all about me and my trivial molehills. There are problems greater than me and mine, and there are times when I need to stop begging others to pity and help me, and learn to help strengthen them instead.

Although our problems can seem many, there are powers greater than those problems. God is always with those who live His commandments, and He can provide a way for all the craziness and tiredness and incompleteness and stress to be made whole and calm. All will be well one day, I know it's true.