OKC-ing is Believing

Well, hello there! We are in OKC! We got here the second week of April. We had lots of fun road trip adventures driving from Idaho Falls to Oklahoma City. We have already had so many adventures since being here and have learned so much about ourselves and our marriage. I've decided it would be more effective to just list our adventures in a bullet list. :)

• Our first apartment will always be special to us...

So sad to leave the only apartment we've lived in together.

• Road trips aren't always so bad...

We went from Idaho to Oklahoma and we DID actually have fun! We made the drive in two days and stopped in Denver overnight. We discovered that we really like Colorado (neither of us had ever been there before). It is GORGEOUS!

Beautiful, right??

• You know you're in the south when...

JESUS IS REAL

• We have been so spoiled since arriving (and so grateful for it)...

The view of our apartment complex from our very own balcony.
We have two pools, a hot tub, a game/theater room, weight room,
valet trash, gates, a free car wash and vacuum, and that view...

• Our car did NOT get spoiled on the trip...

This is AFTER cleaning it half-way through (including dead bird)

• We've been so spoiled by meeting people from Austin's mission. We've had a different "dinner appointment" each Sunday.

Giant sandwiches!

Austin's giant sandwich at the Bailey's

• There are, in fact, a lot of bugs around here (good thing he's selling pest control, right?)

Squished bug on our wall

• I still love crafting as much as EVER (especially now that I have more time for it)

I'm making a cross-stitch project of Starry Night by Van Gogh.
This is about 1/12th of the whole thing.

I've been making decorations/projects for Stephen & Victoria's wedding.

• Austin secretly loves to vacuum...

...especially if he gets to act like a ghost buster

• I discovered Braum's ice cream and all my summer fitness plans RAN out of the window

Best. Stuff. Ever.

• Maybe you've heard me mention the weather here before...

The weather radar EVERY DAY in May

Watching the torrential rains from our balcony.
It was still fun for me at this point because it was before the tornadoes.

• We have spent so much time with great people that make us better

Once a missionary, always a missionary. These guys are the best!

I understand that this is a dog, but look at him.

We've made some very...special friends

This was such a crazy cool experience. This is Mariah and we have been best friends
 since we were only a few weeks old. Her and her husband actually live in OKC and we
had the privilege of being there when they blessed their new baby boy. Yeah, she has
TWO kids...what am I doing with my life again? haha

• We've been able to see many of the great things OKC has to offer, but this is something special...

The OKC Bombing Memorial

• Probably the most important thing we've experienced since coming here is recognizing the Lord's hand in our lives every day.

Sales can be pretty difficult. I'm sure that's not a surprise to anyone. Anytime your income is solely commission-based it can weigh heavily on your mind. Austin has been doing such a wonderful job. We have had many ups and downs, but the ups always outweigh the downs. He had been struggling with making sales because we got about 20" of rain in May (it basically poured all day every day). He had been doing great before then and suddenly, as is what often happens in life, things go downhill so quickly. There was a week where we had tornado watches every day (frightening for me), Austin struggled to make any sales that whole week (frightening for him), and when we had both finally had about all we could take our car was towed and we had to pay a hefty price to get it back. Even thinking back on that day right now it doesn't seem so bad. It's been a good reminder for us that things TRULY are never as bad as they seem at the time. It took lots of prayers, motivational conversations, and FAITH to keep us out here. We struggled to know what we should do, if we were even doing the right thing, and why the things we were experiencing were happening to us. After this awful week I knelt down in prayer and poured my heart out to Heavenly Father. I didn't understand what we were doing wrong. We had prayed so hard before we came to OKC to know if it was the right thing for us to do and we received so many confirmations and feelings that we needed to be out here. But it's funny how you can know you're supposed to be doing something and then when NOTHING seems to be working out we revert back to thoughts of doubt (self-doubting, doubting in the Lord's plan/will for us, etc) We went from knowing we were supposed to be here to almost packing up and leaving. So in this prayer I told Heavenly Father that I knew he wanted us out here, and that we couldn't stay if things didn't turn around. That very day Austin made 5 sales...he ended up making about 15 that week. There was also a day where he was struggling and I got down on my knees and poured my heart out to the Lord again and WHILE I was still praying he texted me to let me know that he got a sale. So, among all of the many lessons we have learned in our short time here so far, this is the main one:

I think it's extremely easy for us to assume that if things aren't going well at the moment or are really difficult that we're doing something wrong. We think we're being punished for the lives we're trying to live righteously. I had many conversations about this with my very wise mother. She pointed out to me that the Lord gives commandments (so we know we must do them) but when is it ever easy? Are there times when it makes absolutely no sense to us why we're doing it or how it could possibly turn out to be for our good? Of course. That's the way the cookie crumbles. Think of the life of the Savior himself. He knew exactly what his mission on this earth was, but just because he knew that he was supposed to do it didn't make it automatically easy for him to accomplish. He, in his darkest hour, poured his heart out to his Father in Heaven and asked, "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me.." Nothing great that we ever have in this life comes without difficulty, and hardly ever are we asked to do something and NOT have our faith be tested in the process. Since our most difficult time things have gotten much better, but they are still far from perfect or meet expectations we've had. But we have had other blessings from being here. We've been able to meet with members and recent converts from Austin's mission and be strengthened by them, we have been placed in situations where we have been able to help those around us in ways that we never thought possible. We have met people that we would not have otherwise met and learned so much from them. We have seen God at work in our lives and learned that in the times we most feel like He has left us that these are just the times we have been blessed with to grow, and that He has never left us. Even when Christ was suffering for the sins of all mankind and in his worst times, Heavenly Father watched for him, fought for him, but most importantly, he allowed him to do what he needed to do in order for him to accomplish the greatest thing ever done. Sometimes God is blessing us by NOT taking away our trials. I am so grateful for the absolute tender mercies we have seen unfold all around us day by day.

In the words of our current Bishop: "EVERY DAY is a GOOD DAY"

And it really, truly is.