A Day I Won't Forget...

-Downtown Kansas City, Missouri where we lived for 5 years-


Today I was thinking back on a day I will never forget. Unfortunately this was not a happy day in the history of the Jones family...

February 2009, it was just a normal day, my oldest was at school and I was home with the two little ones. I heard the garage door open and thought, that's weird! Then my husband walked through the door. I can remember vividly coming part way down the stairs and seeing his face. I don't know how I knew what had happened but I guess his face just said it all, he had lost his job. This came as quite the shock since he had only been with the company about 5 months. This was far from a dream job, but none the less it was a job we were grateful to have. Previous to him getting this job he had sold Alarms for APX for 7 summers, so when this job came along we were thrilled to be moving on to a new phase of life. Not having an income and having 3 kids to care for was one of the scariest things I have been faced with. With this news we had lots of BIG, hard decisions to make. We immediately put our home up for sale. Luckily we were able to get an offer on our home quickly, but at quite a loss to us. We decided that we would go sell Alarms for another summer and then move back to Utah to be near family and look for a new job.

It has almost been 2 years since this trail hit our family. We have been faced with several VERY difficult trials in our marriage but we always seem to make it through them stronger and better because of them. I know that the Lord sends us trails so that we have the opportunity to grow and learn. I truly am grateful for my trials because I really believe that they make up who I am. I think that the good in life is so much more meaningful when you have had a taste of some of the not so good things too. I still miss Kansas City, our friends, ward (church), and at times our home. Although I feel like I have learned so much in the last two years and now have a better understanding of how the Lord works. His plan is not always the same as our plan (in our case his plan in usually much different) but I have really developed more Faith in knowing that no matter what I can follow his plan for me and I WILL be happy!

I NEVER in a million years imagined that I would live in Kansas City, Missouri of all places. I know that the Lord lead us there because of the experiences we would have and the friends we would meet. It was there that I gave birth to 2 of our 3 children, and it will always be a special place to me. The years we spent there my testimony of the Gospel grew immensely through the wonderful missionary opportunities. It was through living there as well that my testimony of the importance of Temple attendance really developed. I can't believe I am saying it now, but I miss those 3 hour car rides one way to attend the temple. Going to the temple took on a new more significant meaning to me when I had to go to so much effort to get there.

After all of our wonderful experiences living in Kansas City I also never in a million years imagined that we would ever end up back in Utah. But like I said the Lords plan and what I think should happen don't always seem to coincide (and I'm ok with that). After coming back to Utah my husband was able to find a great job in just a few days, I know that this was an amazing blessing from the Lord and showed me just how much he loves us and is mindful of us. The Lord has placed some amazing people in our lives to help us through our difficult times and I am always in awe of how things just always seem to work out even when it doesn't feel like they will!