Zion's 2018

Having "Spring Break" in March in Idaho is kind of a joke. We're just beginning Second Winter. We wanted something warm and Zion's seemed like the closest such place. We enjoyed it immensely, but the drive-time-to-enjoyment ratio was roughly break even with 14 hours round trip for just a day and a half of hiking. Though I did get to practice my tire changing skills when we picked up a nail exiting Springdale.

My Caleb

My Caleb turned 12 yesterday. Among those who view this blog, most are LDS or familiar with LDS traditions. Age 12 is an important milestone. Later today, I will ordain Caleb to the priesthood. Next week, I will take him to the temple for the first time. Next Sunday, he will participate in passing the sacrament to our congregation.

I am very impressed with Caleb. He is a good young man. I frequently learn from his example. Being his father is a special blessing and privilege.

Posing with his article from The Friend magazine.

Neighborhood Guide

When we got married, Katie already had a higher income than I have been able to achieve in the 15 years since. When Maddie was born, we followed our spiritual feelings at the time and Katie quit her job and stayed home to raise kids. She kept working part-time from home all along, but with income quite diminished. Having her home was a great blessing. As was the additional income.

Always she has talked off going back to full time work at some point but while living overseas it just wasn't practical. And then we decided to have another baby and I recall Katie saying soon after we learned in early 2016 that she was pregnant that we had just postponed her return to full time work by several years. She was sad about this, but we both felt spiritually right about the baby decision and have never had the slightest regret. Michael is a beautiful blessing.

Then, with me feeling consistently frustrated with my work environment, with my bosses unwilling to even discuss our reasonable complaints about our most recent housing and post assignment, and with family developments back home, I followed a spiritual feeling to activate a job search function in my LinkedIn account.

I ignored most of the notifications but responded to a spiritual feeling about a Melaleuca posting. The recruiter replied and we scheduled an interview. Four interviews, including a trip to Idaho, resulted in a job offer. We had been praying for guidance all along and knew that we would accept an offer as long as the salary was in a particular range. It was.

Then we began researching neighborhoods in Idaho Falls. We did a lot of research. There was a time I would have said, "We don't need all this research because the Holy Ghost will guide." But I've learned that we need a lot of research precisely because the Holy Ghost will guide. We asked a lot of questions. We sent my parents to inspect. We had our real estate agent stake out streets and tell us how many kids were playing, and so forth. We followed a spiritual feeling to Stonebrook.

And we followed a similar pattern to this house. It is not a perfect house. Lots of quirks. Lots of evidence of inexperienced DIYers. But it felt right and continues to feel right.

Then our neighbor, who we met because we chose this house in this neighborhood, reached out to Katie because, after meeting us and asking some questions, he knew Katie had specific skills and experience that he needed at work and that are rare in Idaho Falls. Skipping many specifics of the story, Katie is now employed by that neighbor with generous pay and generous flexibility to still be home when needed. Had we not followed spiritual feelings, he never would have known about Katie. He could not have hired her.

God asked Katie to be willing to sacrifice her career. She was. Accordingly, God blessed her with a career she had not imagined. That's how that works...as we sought and responded to spiritual impressions based on sound research.

And it is worth mentioning that I am very satisfied with my new job as well.

Apple A.I. Gratitude

I am a lot more thankful for my life than I deserve to be. Apple's Photo app automatically generates memory slide shows. Over the past few weeks it has given me my year in the Philippines, the trip to Paris, mom's 70th birthday in Austria and Southern Germany, Christmas in Cairo, New Years in Berlin. And I smile. My life has been better than I have deserved. The memories are all happy.

So that last sentence is weird though. Because I remember being not happy several times over the time periods covered by these photos. In some cases, I remember times when I was very unhappy, or really mad at Katie, or super remorseful over how dumb I can be in my parenting. Yet, despite this, all my reflections bring me a sense of contentment, peace, and happiness. I am thankful for gratitude.

I am not any kind of great or special person. I can't even really take credit for choosing gratitude, though I suppose I've tried my best. It came to me as a gift. I am even a bit surprised by the extent of it. I am thankful. I am convinced this gratitude is a gift came from a loving God.

Some say there is no evidence of God. Oh, it's everywhere. There is only to look.

Meanwhile, I am in Shanghai this week and I visited this very fun market today and got Katie some possibly real pearl earrings. They might be fake. But they might be real and they look great. I made sure to get a pic of the garbage sweeper. This market is basically like Nordstrom. People come up to you and ask what you want and you can say almost literally anything under the sun, and then they will take you to that thing. Like having a personal shopper. Then, they pester you about getting more things and it gets a little annoying, but whatever, it was totally fun.