For those of you who are not close to me, whether it be physically or whatever, you probably don't know the reasons of why we are moving to AZ. I'm sure some of you thought it was extremely random and are wonder why the world's whitest person would be moving the the hottest place in the world.... Sometimes I wonder myself.
For all of my non-mormon friends.. this is a heavy Mormon religious-y post.. you have been warned.
Moving close to family has been on Justin and mine mind for about 18 months now, but it hasn't been the right time for us to pursue it. We had Jacqueline and couldn't move with her, or we were getting ready/waiting for a foster child, debt to income wasn't good enough, needed to stay longer at jobs.. etc. But it has always been in the back of our mind.
Two months ago, my niece, Kristina, caught meningococcal meningitis and has been in the hospital recovering from it. She is doing much better, bur prayers are always needed.
I told Justin if he wanted to go visit his sister and her family during this time. He left for a weekend and spent time with everyone. I know everyone appreciated it and it was good for him to see his family. When he came back he told me he needed to talk to me.
So in Mormonism, it is believed that the father is the head of the household and can receive revelation for the family. It's a lesson that has always stuck with me since seminary when I was younger. Who can receive revelation for whom. I guess this is the reason it always stuck with me.
He told me that while he was in AZ with his family he got that overwhelming feeling again that we need to move to AZ to be with his family. So I asked him "Is this because your emotions are high because you saw Kristina in this state or is this Heavenly Father telling you" he told me the latter. I asked all my questions of.. Did you pray about it? Did you fast about it? Are you joshing me (does anyone say that anymore??) He told me yes he had prayed and fasted about it and the feeling go stronger and stronger. So.. I asked him if this was something we needed to do.. could we go sit in the celestial room for a while in the temple and just think and pray. It's the one place I like to go when I have a big life changing decision to make.
But I looked at him and told him "if you have done your part and you are still getting this feeling and it's getting stronger and stronger.. then it's something that we need to do" So that night I started looking for jobs in Phoenix and it's surrounding areas. I applied for 20 or so jobs and heard back from a few the next day.
It took me about 2 weeks to finally get the phone call that would get me my job that I will be starting in August. The principal called me on the bus on the way to the Heritage Festival with my music students. We had just gotten back on the bus after the Love's Station north of Las Vegas.. kids were rowdy and loud. I apologized to her that it was noisy and told her I was taking 90 kids and chaperone's to California for the festival. I think that sparked her interest. She set up a Facetime interview with me for Monday and was willing to take my tired self for an interview. Interview went for about 45 minutes and I was offered the job right there! A huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. At least one of us had a job and Justin could start looking in locations for work. I was offered a job at Moon Mountain Elementary School in Phoenix teaching General Music.
The day that I was offered my job, Justin applied at the big hospitals in AZ. He also applied for 12-15 jobs and the next day he was called for an interview. The day after that he did the initial interview, the women told him his resume was impressive and they wanted to hire him. He did his second interview and he was hired to work at Banner Gateway Hospital in Gilbert as a cook II.
Banner wanted Justin to start as soon as he could and had to make two trips to Phoenix to sign paperwork, get testing done, and do orientation. He was able to start work on May 9th. He left Sunday afternoon with his Dad.
This in its self is its own blessing.. as he will not have a laps in pay! He will still get paid this Friday, but will also have a weeks worth of his job under his belt and will get paid again in two weeks.. on that same pay day he will get his check for all his PTO he has accrued at work.
With my job I will not have a laps in pay either.. my last paycheck from UT will come in Aug 1st and that's the same day I start my employment in AZ.
We have also had these little blessings come in to our lives these past 6 weeks. We have been fighting with Social Security for almost 6 months now to get Jack's death benefits from her dad. For some reason the government couldn't make it work, and we finally put in a new application for me to be her Payee and within a week-10 day of putting in the new application, we got our first back pay check and a letter that stated when the rest of the back pay was coming and how much she would be getting a month and when it should show up! We have this nice cushion just in case anything happens.
We were able to hold a yard sale and get rid of 3/4s of the stuff we didn't want to take. All the big heavy furniture , lots of winter stuff, etc. We made enough to pay for the rest of the rental truck.
Housing... We wanted to look and renting first and then buying a house when we got our debt down a little more. We've been working on this for sometime now and we are getting closer and closer, but that's another blog post. One of the best places I found to look for houses is actually Craigslist, but don't worry I look on all the other rental websites too. But we found this beautiful house that was being rented for $1000 a month and he wanted $900 for the deposit. It was a beautiful 4/2 house with a pool and a entertaining area in the back. It was in Chandler... oh I was in love! (Sounds too good to be true... yeah just wait)
I sent an email to the guy and asked for more information and he told me he was living in another state and wanted someone to live in his house and keep in clean (yeah Debbie that should of been hint number 2)... so I filled out his application and he wanted first months rent and deposit right away... (yeah Debbie.. hint #3).. and then he wanted Western Union to a man that wasn't the name he gave me. He was calling and texting me from a number that wasn't in the state he said he was in... (yeah I feel dumb).. and of course he wanted to money sent to him as cash... Thank goodness when I tried to send him the money.. my bank declined it because it was over our daily spending limit on our debit card. I was reading the guide lines from Western Union and right there is says.. don't pay anyone any deposit money or rent money through here.. It's totally a scam. And that yucky feeling came in.. Debbie you're probably being scammed. Justin and I talked about it that night.. and decided before we send him any more we were actually going to do our research.. which we should of done first. But turns out the house he wanted to rent out to us was on the market, the picture he sent us had no data behind it, the phone number he was using was a Voip number and it was last used in Georgia, not the state he told us, and the public records showed that he didn't own the house. We sent him and email back that basically stated, please give us proof that you own the house and we will give you the money. He responded back with.. once you send us the money I will give you the proof. Yeah nice try. So apparently he waited a few more days and I get this email again asking for immediate payment and to tell him what was going on because he wanted to send us the keys. All I responded back was the same email I sent him.. Give us the details and we will give you the money. I haven't heard anything since. Saved us over $2000 :)
I sent a email to the realtor of the house and let her know that this guy was using this house to scam people and she thanked me and asked me if she wanted to help us find a house.. What??? a house now... come on I'm not an adult yet. She sent us the name of a mortgage guy and we are currently working with him to get pre-approved. It's a complicated case due to us working in two different states and student loans and fun adulty stuff.
So with Justin being in AZ and Jack and I being in UT it makes it hard but easier all at the same time. He can work with the mortgage guy and take his dad and BIL to look at houses in person and I can stay here and finish up school and pack the house.. Justin did give me permission to get rid of whatever I wanted :) Wa-ha-ha-ha.
Justin also decided that it was time to sell the ghettomobile.. aka the Volvo that is older then I am. He knew that it wouldn't be able to keep up in the heat of AZ and we wouldn't be able to use it 4 months out of the year. So keep your fingers crossed that we sell it. He was able to get the Volvo that we purchased for his parent when I *ahem* ran their car into a phone pole. He loves that car and wants to work on it like he did the blue Volvo. So we now have two work cars that are perfect for commuting.
But I will keep everyone updated as we enjoy this lovely adventure! As of right now we have a truck rented to the house we were going to rent before we got scammed but we have a truck.
Everything is falling into place which can only tell me that we are doing the right thing and we are following the path that Heavenly Father wants us to. I often pray at night that we get this loan figured out, we can get a house quickly that we want, that the old Volvo will sell, and that I wont have a complete break down before the end of June comes.
