Humility

If you had asked me back a couple years where I would be in my career today, I would certainly not have told you that I'd be seriously considering a career change. Two years ago, my plan was to make about 10 times what I'm actually making right now (and it wasn't that unrealistic.)
I can hear the words of Alma ringing in my ears...."Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently humble? (Alma 5:27)" Apparently I haven't because the past year and half has been more and more humbling.

A few months back, my Mom and Dad asked if they could come over to our house to talk to us. (is that EVER a good thing?) They shared with us some new things they had learned and told us that they were determined that their children have a food storage. They knew that most of us kids weren't really in a position to just go out and purchase a years supply of food. They had started the process of liquidating my fathers retirement account in order to make sure that their children had a food storage supply.

I have to be honest that at first I thought they had gone off the deep end (luckily they found a life preserver somewhere and have their feet planted back solidly on dry ground.) But I tried to open my mind to what they were saying and Kelsey and I have really tried to do what we can to get our food storage in order. We went from having a couple boxes from the cannery to having a year supply of most of the basic food items within a couple months. This is largely due to my parents drive to make sure that we are all prepared.

I used to think that food storage would come in really handy if there was an earthquake and I couldn't get to Harmons. I thought that it was for an emergency. I cannot tell you how important having our food storage has become. As I have seen more and more of my clients quitting the business and our families income and savings hit rock bottom, I have truly realized that food storage is absolutely for emergencies. It is just that sometimes those emergencies are only emergencies for our family. We used to spend a couple hundred bucks at Harmon's every time we went shopping. Without the ability to do that, we have started looking at our food storage like our own grocery store. We spend only a few bucks at the store when we need produce or a particular item, and we have tried to structure our menus around what we have available in our house. I can't tell you how good powdered milk tastes. (Yes...it does actually taste good...especially when you know that it's helping you to get through the tough times) Our food storage is a huge blessing to us and we owe that 100% to the drive and passion that my mother feels about having an adequate supply. Rick and Kaye have also helped by taking us to Costco and filling our freezer with veggies and meat to help us get through this.

Alma asks "Behold, are ye stripped of pride?" Apparently not. But I can promise you that I'm making progress. Thanks largely to the amazing love and support I feel from my beautiful family and both sets of my parents.

Now I'm trying to make lemonade. :) I just passed my test to get a license to sell Health and Life Insurance with a great neighbor of ours who has offered to mentor me to get me started in the business. So if anyone needs health or life insurance, give me a call. I'm determined to make some really good lemonade. (Just don't plan on catching me in a funny striped outfit with a weird hat on squishing lemons in a bucket....I'm still a little too proud for that.)

I don't want this to come across as "Oh woe is me" because when you compare our troubles to what our savior endured for us, ours is insignificant. Instead, I really want you to understand how grateful I am for parents (both mine and Kelsey's) that are in tune enough with the spirit to help us to prepare when even we weren't looking far enough into the future to see this coming.