It's been a rough... year.

Life is so weird. There's no greater feeling than having your prayers answered. Knowing that Heavenly Father hears you & knows what you are going through is an amazing thing. But as I look back at the big & important answers I have received in my life, I see a pattern emerge. With every prompting, there is an inevitable in-between period that always KILLS me! I know where I am supposed to be going & have a fairly decent idea of what I am going to do once I get there but that indefinite time between having made the decision & actually getting to follow through with it is like torture to me.

My mission was probably the first time I really experienced this. I knew I was supposed to go, felt it was where I should be, sent in my papers, & even received my mission call but still had to wait several months before I was able to go & serve.

When I knew I was supposed to marry Sherawn it was better however "engaged but not yet married" (as any young Mormon kid will surely tell you!) is about as hard as it gets!

When I knew I was supposed to move up here to the White Mountains to do Fire & EMS, I was really excited & couldn't wait to leave my hated job doing pest control for an evil soul-sucking company. Everyday seemed like agony!

Then, this last answer that I should pursue medical school has been such an amazing feeling. But now, I am again consumed with frustration at having to wait to begin another new chapter in our family's life! When I broke my foot a few months ago, it was, in many ways, a great blessing in disguise as it allowed me to reconsider my future in firefighting. I recognized that, as much as I loved firefighting, as much as I knew I was prompted to come here to Snowflake, I also felt like Heavenly Father was providing me with a unique new perspective. He was helping me to realize that He had other plans for our family. So, again, I searched out my feelings & prayed. The answer came like a flood of understanding & I know that we are supposed to be going back to school right now.

But this is where my current frustrations come in. While that broken foot allowed me to get this monumental answer to a question I didn't even know I had, it also put me out of work for nearly two months. Since we had been living little better than paycheck to paycheck, we got seriously behind on our bills & whatever savings we had were quickly depleted. Our landlords had been really great, allowing us to pay when we could but it was quickly apparent that there would be no way for us to recoup our lost income much less be able to pay our outstanding bills. It was time to eat some humble pie & we moved back in with my parents.

My poor parents. They've been so great helping us out. Helping me to find work & even allowing me to work around the house & yard to earn money when work outside the house has been scarce. Yet, it has still been a huge struggle to stay ahead of (even with) what we owe. But each day we work at it & I have the hope of deploying on several wild fires this summer as an EMT on the fire line. But no husband feels like much of a bread-winner when he begins to receive calls from creditors 3-4 times a day.

I just have to stay positive I suppose & remember that if Heavenly Father is aware enough of me to guide me this far, He is not going to abandon us now. So here's hopin'. ;)

Another Week Done & Gone!

So it's Sunday night & I am pretty beat! Another good shift on the Ambulance Friday for Taylor Fire & EMS. Then, covered for a few of the guys at Show Low Fire so they could come here to Snowflake & participate in the local community college's talent show. SLFD has a Pipe & Drum Corps (a bagpipe band) that is fantastic to hear.

What stinks is Sherawn was singing at the show as well & I had to miss it. I heard she did really well though & I am very proud of her & all the hard work that she has done this year with the three different choirs that she's been singing with this semester! Everyday I try to take some time just to think of how lucky I am to have her in my life! She may not seem like it because she presents herself so well but she has had to overcome so many different trials in her life. I am amazed by her strength & her constant support of me as I drag her around the world following after all of my crazy dreams! There is a song that makes me so happy every time I hear it & it seems to sum up how I feel about her so well. It's called "The Girl" By City & Colour.

When I first decided that I wanted to pursue firefighting, Sherawn was initially very resistant to the idea. Her own home had burned down the summer between her junior & senior year of high school. The idea of me dying in a fire scared her to death. But we both prayed & fasted about what we should do because I had felt this to be the right decision for our family. We went to the temple & she told me she still had her worries but that she couldn't deny the feeling of peace that she had after she had prayed & she has been so supportive ever since then.

A few months ago, I broke my foot on a family vacation & it really scared us both. What would happen if I had an even more serious injury? As it was, I was out of work for nearly two months. It gave us time to stop & think about our options again. We both felt very impressed to reconsider trying to get into medical school. I know that I was impressed to get into Fire & EMS & that it was the experiences that I have had with the different departments & people that I work with that have pushed me & helped me to realize my potential. I would never have felt capable of handling the school & workloads that pre-med & medical school bring with them had it not been for these experiences.

How grateful I am to our family who have all been so supportive of all our crazy dreams! But most of all, I am

grateful to my girl. She is my strength when I feel unable to continue, my inspiration to excel, & she is where my empathy for others stems from. She follows me wherever I

go & asks for so little in return. Everything I now am & hope to become, I can confidently credit to her loving influence & support. I love you Princess

!

Long Weekend!

Well, Sherawn has started her own blog that she is using as her personal journal & so I thought, rather than let this blog go to waste, I'd start using it as my own personal journal as well as a family journal for us both. I can't promise to post as often as Sherawn, but I'll do what I can for you guys!

This week was a long week & this weekend was even longer! First, Wednesday & Thursday, we prescription burned large areas of reeds along the golf course in Snowflake. Then we had a huge training day with the Snowflake Fire Dept. at the Jake Flake Emergency Center then a 36 hour shift on the Taylor Fire & EMS Ambulance. All in all, it's been a really productive few days!

I just recently had a great training on preparing for wildfire season with the Show Low Fire Dept. too. I'm really excited for this wildfire season this year. I'm all set up to be deployed with Snowflake, Taylor, White Mountain Lake, & Show Low Fire Departments as well as with the Wilderness Medics company. There's already 12 wildfires spread across Colorado & it's shaping up to be a really active wildfire season. Hopefully I'll get to deploy as often as possible & make some good money for us so I can go back to school this fall.

For any of you who haven't heard, I'm going back to school this fall to pursue a pre-med degree through ASU!We're really excited & I have been overwhelmed by all of the support that I have had from the Chiefs at the different departments where I have been working. It's been a very bittersweet thing to be leaving Fire Fighting but I know it's what I was supposed to do & it, more than anything else, has showed me that I am capable of going back & excelling in school. I'm truly thankful for all of the experiences I have had here in the White Mountains & plan to return here when I complete my schooling.

We are so excited for everything that's coming for us & can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us!