Our time spent in Seattle

Warning: This post is extremely long, and written 100% for myself and future self to remember.

 

I know this is really cliche to say but I can't believe how quickly this past year went. It seems like nothing and everything has happened. As we often do at the beginning of a new year I started to reflect on everything that happened this past year, and got really focused into our time spent in Seattle and before I knew it had written our entire Seattle story. It feels good to have it written down, it was such a difficult time in our lifes, and I feel like it has taken me a whole year to see the purpose of the whole experience. So I was able to write it with a clear mind. I do write this as though all of this knowledge came to me while we were still in Seattle, however it took this entire year for me to figure this out. Slowly it came together, while Heavenly Father continued to mold me into who he wants me to be as he does on a daily basis.

The beginning of 2012 was really hard on us, or at least me. David had just finished his last chemo treatment, was graduating, and we got rid of everything we owned to fit what we could in our little car for the move to Seattle. We had felt like Seattle was the place for us to go after feeling prompted that we shouldn't move to New York. However from the second we got to Seattle it felt wrong, I was so caught up in being out of Rexburg it was hard to recognize those promptings from the spirit and I believe Heavenly Father took the time to teach us a lesson since I was so unwilling to listen.

We arrived in Seattle a week before Christmas and  immediately started the hunt for an apartment in downtown Seattle,  something to remove the gaping hole in my heart that was no longer the dream of New York. We found the most amazing apartment and I honestly felt like this was the apartment the  Heavenly Father had saved from the moment we felt prompted not to go to New York. A peace offering if you will. He was giving me the New York City without being in New York, I took it as a peace offering and I gladly accepted.

 

(view from our balcony)

But really that's just what I had hoped for. Since New York wasn't possible I was going to get it somewhere else. I could still have the downtown apartment and the city life if I looked hard enough. I believe He let me feel good about this apartment as I pleaded on my knees that he would allow us to have it. I was too broken to come to my senses and he knew it, so he let me have it.

Our apartment couldn't have been better, we lived right above the hustle and bustle of Seattle. Our back door opened up to the famous Pike Place Market and I couldn't have been happier. Only I wasn't. 

Shortly after things were not working out, David didn't get the job we thought for sure he was going to get, and I never heard back from the salon I interviewed at before Christmas. We spent our days exploring our new city, riding the free bus, and getting soaked in Seattles daily rainstorms. We drank hot chocolate and ate cookies at the first ever Starbucks, we received our downtown Seattle library cards and searched its never ending sea of books. We got our produce from Pike Place Market and at night we cooked dinner in our tiny studio apartment and watched Downtown Abbey season two on Davids phone in bed.

Looking back we were not happy, it was an extremely difficult time but we didn't even realize it.  The spirit was trying to speak to us but we would not listen.

Eventually there was a breakthrough. An extremely random job offer in Rexburg came to us shortly after New Years and for the first time in a long time there was hope. We went to the temple almost daily seeking guidance as to weather we should take the job or not. I mean didn't we feel like Seattle was the place we should be, why would He want us to move back to where we just came from?

In those frequent temple visits my heart was softened and I felt at peace with the decision to move back to the place we so desperately craved to get away from. This time it was different though, this time we were making the decision to move back and we were excited.

We spent our last month in Seattle hanging out with Davids parents, and chatting about our new life in Rexburg. There would be an actual income, we could afford to do things. I would go back to school and get my degree. We were able to quickly find an apartment in Rexburg that allowed pets and I was able to secure a job at a salon. Things were looking up. We did end up spending our entire savings on getting out of our contract in Seattle and moving everything we had boughten for the new apartment back to Rexburg. We didn't care though, we were on a mission to do what the Lord had wanted all along, the path that would bring us true happiness.

We were finally able to follow his will instead of the path we thought we should take. And even though I look back at our time in Seattle and wish there could have been an easier way I am so grateful for the hard lesson our Heavnely Father taught us. Because of it I have learned to rely one hundred percent on his guidance, I know we are in the place he wants us to be and I don't look for something better because I know there isn't one. It has allowed us to be a peace with where we are going and allowed us to see that there are more important things than the city you call home.  Most importantly we are bringing a new life into the world because of our obedience to His will, and that will be our greatest adventure yet.