Decisions, Decisions.

I am a mother of three beautiful little girls. And ever since the birth of my second daughter I have been staying home taking care of them, but I have ALWAYS wanted to find a way to contribute to the family finances. I tried everything you can think of . . . scrapbooking, make-up sales, party planning, and the list goes on and on . . . When my 2nd little princess was 1 week old we had a friend come over and take some pictures of the family and our newbie. She did a great job and these are pictures we will forever treasure and I still have the family one hanging on my wall ( I know I need a new one especially since I am a photographer and there is ANOTHER CHILD involved, I just don't like getting my picture taken.) But I remember getting these pictures and seeing how happy they made me and seeing how well the girl was doing and I thought HEY maybe I could do that. I had always liked to draw and have taken art classes all my life. I never got raves reviews from my teachers because all I ever drew were portraits of people (seems kinda funny now). So a dear friend of mine (a wife of a guy my hubby works with) helped me talk my husband into spending our tax return on a camera (not the nicest one out there mind you, we don't have THAT many deductibles.)

But before I bought the camera I remember praying and praying about it and whether it was the right thing to do. All my other hair-brained ideas didn't have that much money to shell out at the beginning, so this was a sacrifice for us. Was it the right thing? Now I remember taking my scriptures with me down to the bus stop as I took my oldest to school one day and reading while we waited in the snow.

I have always heard about people who just open the scriptures and read a verse and get an answer to the question . . . so I decided to test this theory. I plopped them open and read the first verse that came to my eye. I don't remember the verse or where it was located (I wish I would have marked it) but it said, "Seek God, before you seek riches." This was an answer to my prayer. I had been using God as the backburner for my quest for riches, when in fact I needed to seek God first and the riches would follow (if they were to be).

So after more prayers and quiet whisperings from the Holy Ghost (and direction from my patriarchal blessing) my husband bought me the camera and the rest is history. It didn't boom quick but three years later I am able to provide some supplimentary income for my family's needs. My photography has been a gift and continues to be a gift from my Heavenly Father so I am always trying to find ways to give back, ways to use my gift to further his work here on earth.

Another prayer answered (a little comedic).

I was thinking I wanted to move (I know crazy right, we live in such a beautiful place) but my kids don't have a lot of people to play with and summer is hard! So I was visiting my sister in law and watched my kids play with like a trillion other kids and I was thinking that they were missing out. So I went home and told my hubby that I wanted to move down to her neighborhood. Now I always say my hubby has good guts, meaning when he has a gut feeling it's the way we should go, I do believe this has something to do with the priesthood he holds :) But we'll call it guts :) And he responded to me, "really because I don't feel that way, why don't you pray about it". Oh darn it, I wanted him to say "OK, my lovely wife whatever you say!"

So I prayed and decided to do the scripture magic again, I plopped open my scriptures (and this one I did mark) and it fell to Alma 46:24, which starts out, "Yea, let us preserve our liberty . . ." Now this may not seem like an answer to some, but think about this. I live in Liberty Utah! Now people can laugh (because that's just what I did when I read it) but the Lord can guide and direct us in our decisions if we will only listen.