Finding out about Japan

When we found out we were moving to Japan we felt many different emotions. We were excited, scared, nervous, and terrified. Dave seemed very calm and ready for a new adventure. Me on the other hand, I was nervous and anxious. I have never even traveled outside of the United states let alone live in a foreign country for 4 years.

Right away I knew that I needed to get a blessing to feel comfort. As I was receiving the blessing it was clear that God wanted us in Japan. It was clear that this was part of my mission on earth, and I felt peace. 

The spirit brings things to my mind on a regular basis and one of the things it told me during this time was I needed to read my patriarticle blessing.  Now, I don't plan on sharing that with you here today, but I will tell you that when I read it. It very clearly states that there are people all over the world who God needs me to come in contact with and help.  This was another confirmation and a great help to me, with giving me comfort in this move.

Now knowing that God wants my family to move 1/2 way across the world did not mean that it was easy. I still complained and was nervous, I kind of felt like Laman and Lemuel. Most of the times they did what they were told, but then they complained about it.  As I was reading this story recently to my children it was clear that I needed to not only do it, but have a good attitude about it.

So the next step in being excited to move to Japan was I faked a good attitude. FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT. RIght?! WRONG!!!!!  Who was I kidding. I knew we were going to go. I knew we needed to go, but ultimately that doesn't mean it would be easy.
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I had a long chat with my sister-in-law and something that always stuck with me was this..... "This life is going to get worse. It is going to get harder and harder to stay righteous in it. We are to teach our children how to be strong and if we are always taking the easy road what is that teaching them? Our children need to see us do hard things. To stand up for what is right and fight back against the adversary."

My kids need to see me do hard things and do the things that the Lord wants me to do in my life. If I let my fear get in the way then what am I teaching them.  God has a plan and a mission for me on this earth. If I sit back and stay comfortable then I am not becoming who I am meant to be. I say this to myself but everyone else out there reading. God needs you. He has a plan for you and he needs you to fight for it. He needs you to push yourself and strengthen yourself. Not sit idly by waiting for life to pass. Take action, find out what God wants you to do, then do it.

As this journey has continued, there has been good days and bad. Days I am sad for leaving friends and family. Sad that I had to sell my house and lots of my belongings, but that in itself teaches us it is not about things and possessions, but about family and about relationships we have with people.

When we had to sell some of our belongings I thought a lot about the pioneers leaving family and there possessions. I thought about there faith and what carried them through. I also thought about how lucky I am to be living when I am so I can communicate with those people who I love and cherish.

Still after all these experiences I was still having a little bit of a hard time accepting it. When I moved to Vegas everything felt right. Everything was in order, and I defiantly felt peace.  Japan was different. I wrestled with the spirit. I wrestled sometimes daily with it. I wanted to feel at peace and the excitement for going.

Knowledge it Power. So I studied all about Japan. Read books, asked questions, started to learn very basic words in Japanese. Still I was nervous and anxious. A friend from Ohio recently was stationed in southern Japan and reading her blog and seeing her experiences made me more and more excited.

Even after all these things and knowing we were supposed to go I couldn't figure out why God would allow me to feel such anxiety.

We sold our home, our van, got good homes for our pets, lived in a hotel for a month. Lived in a friends house for another month and a half. This was not an easy transition and it felt like my stable life was in a whirlwind.

Then something amazing happened. My husband got me tickets for Time our For Women. The person who was supposed to come and join me ended up not being able to come. So I went by myself and it was perfect. I was able to focus on myself and really focus on my spirit and what God needed and wanted me to know.

2 Timothy 1:7
" For God hath NOT given us the spirit of FEAR, but of POWER and LOVE and of a sound mind."

I don't need to be afraid. I can go forth with his power and love and take that to Japan and find the people that I am supposed to help in my life. This life is for us to go forth with Power and bring people unto God.

D&C 84:88
"Mine angels round about you to bear you up"

Even through all of the trials and struggles we have we have been given angels from beyond the veil to help build us up and help us. I know this is true, but I also think we have been given angels here on earth to help us. We have friends and family who have countlessly blessed my life and built me up when I couldn't do it myself.

I am going to take this attitude and become an angel for the people in Japan. I have a mission. I never served a full time mission in my life, but I know that these next 4 years I can serve and work hard to build people up bear their burdens and help them get closer to God.

All of these things and experiences has gotten me to where I am today. I am ready to go. I am ready to serve and I hope that I can accomplish what God wants me to do.

Mataauhimade 
(Till we meet again)

Who are we

This post is going to introduce you to our family.

Dave and I met when we were young and have been married for 12 years. We have had some great adventures and some great struggles in our lives.

The first few years we attended college and worked. Dave just couldn't figure out what he wanted to do with his career. He always had a interest in Woodworking and so he looked at that route, but it wasn't going to support our family very well. So he started truck driving, since he had his CDL, but that didn't seem to fit either. So through prayer and faith we joined the military where Dave could become a Cop. We have been in the military ever since, 8 years and counting.

We had a hard time getting pregnant the first few years of our marriage. When we did get pregnant we ended up with a miscarriage. That experience was hard and scary. Then we were blessed with our first son, Landon. He is amazing and we are grateful he is our son. Then right after I had him I got pregnant again. Wow.... What a turn around. Fist we couldn't get pregnant then we ended up having 3 kids within 10 months of each other.  YEP, that is right we got pregnant right after having Landon with twins. They also came a month and a half early making my 3 oldest kids 10 months apart.  We then waited a few years and had our baby Courtney.

The military has brought many blessings like a stable income, great insurance, great friends. It has also brought some challenges like deployment, deployment, and another deployment. Yep in the 8 years we have been in he has deployed 3 times plus his training in tech school for a total of 2 years gone. After being in 5 years and being deployed a lot we decided that we wanted to see our dad more. So we changed careers in the military. My husband is now in the Chaplain corp. We joke that as a cop he used to save lives and now as a chaplain (assistant) he saves souls.

We have lived in many places in joining the military we have lived in even more our homes have been in Utah, Colorado, Ohio, Nevada and Now we are getting ready to move to Japan.  The best part about moving is our wonderful friends that we have gotten to meet that we can call family. We love so many people and God has blessed us with great friends that will stand the tests of time. They give us love and support through everything we do.

We are grateful for our families who have loved and supported us in many different ways throughout our lives.

 And that is our lives in a nutshell!

Start of the Journey!

Starting a New chapter in Life is not always easy, in fact, at times it can be quite difficult. We have had many different emotions. Through them all plus hard work and Faith we start our new journey. We can't wait for the great adventure that awaits us.  Here We come Japan.