Thanksgiving

I am thankful for:

A home to live in, plenty of food to eat, clean water to drink, showers, toilets, heat and air conditioning. Vehicles to drive and gas for those vehicles.

My body. My sight, hearing, voice, taste, touch. I am grateful that I can change diapers, tie shoes, fix lunches, and care for my family with ease because of my health and my body. I am grateful for my mind, for the ability to think, reason, and learn. I am grateful for learning.

I am grateful for Dustin, Abraham, Rigdon, Nellie, and Taggart. I am grateful for the things I have learned about life and about myself with each new addition to our family. Each child ha opened a new chapter of my life and each chapter seems to be filled with more miracles than the previous.

I am grateful for the Book of Mormon. Sometimes I am overcome with the miracle that I am able to sit and read words of ancient prophets. That they took the time to write, that the records were preserved and brought forth, and translated. I am grateful for the inspiration and lessons I learn from ancient prophets.

I am grateful for latter-day prophets and apostles. I love hearing their words. I am grateful for President Monson. I know he speaks the words of God.

I am grateful for my testimony. I'm grateful for opportunities that have strengthened it. I am grateful for my Heavenly Father's love and patience for me. I am grateful for my Savior. My testimony of Jesus Christ and the atonement are essential in my daily life.

I am grateful for prayer. I am grateful for personal revelation, for guideance from the Lord. I am grateful for faith. It can be so easy in our lives to be overcome with fear and grief, but when we are filled with faith, we can not be filled with fear. I am grateful to be learning that.

I am so grateful for Mom and Dad. Mom always says that they were just sent good kids, but I don't think they would have been sent six good spirits if they weren't amazing. We wouldn't have made it through the past few years without them. I am grateful for the opportunity we've had to live with them. It has been a great blessing for our family.

I wanted to let everyone know that we have been blessed with the opportunity to rent a house. It obviously has been our goal since we moved here to have a home of our own again someday. Attached to that goal I had many conditions. I would pray, "Please bless us with A, B, C, D and even E, F, G, H... so that we can have our own home some day." I realized one day while I was reading my scriptures that I was placing my will and my conditions on the Lord. We had spent the past year praying to know His will, praying to submit to His will yet I was still trying to dictate Him. I felt prompted to change my prayer to submitting to His will, and if it be His will to bless us with a home of our own one day. In doing so we commited to follow promptings and inspiration as it came. A few weeks later I was on the phone with a friend from our old ward. She told me that her next door neighbor had come over the day before and told her that they were ready to rent out their house. She said she just thought she'd let me know. I told her thank you, but we never planned on moving back to that side of town, and besides we weren't ready yet. I mentioned the conversation to Dustin, and he pointed out to me that I was still trying to be the one in control, and that we should at least call the guy. To make a long story a little less long, this couple is being very understanding and amazing. Their goal more than anything is to have the right family in the home, and for whatever reason they feel like we are the right family. We told them what we could comfortably do, and they accepted our offer. After fasting and much prayer, we really feel like this is what our family needs to do. We really didn't ever expect to move back to that part of town or be in that same ward again. We are also moving sooner than we had planned. It is a bittersweet move for us. We are excited to remove the crutch and be on our own again, but we will miss mom and dad, and wish that we were moving closer to them and to Marcie and her family. I know it sounds silly that I'm sad to be 30 minutes away when most of you are hours or days away. We are so grateful for everyone's prayers, love, support, and patience with us. We know that prayers are heard and answered. We know that our Heavenly Father ALWAYS has our best interest in mind. We know that if we let him lead our lives that he will bless us with miracles more than we ever could have imagined. We know that He makes life win win for everyone. We know that the words of President Monson are true, Our future really is as bright as our faith.