Tender Mercies

It's been almost 3 amazing months as newlyweds! With it has come new adventures like getting to know each others pet-peeves, tendencies, habits, moods, and a deeper love and connection than ever before. Living with my best friend and sharing small moments together is my absolute favorite, and what I enjoy most are the simple every day things, like opening my eyes in the morning and seeing his sleepy face, snoozing the alarm to cuddle for just 5 more minutes, laughing so hard I'm practically crying, and binge watching our favorite TV shows (Grey's Anatomy, The Office, & Alaskan Bush People, are among some) But being married has also come with an added list of responsibilities that can be overwhelming at times. Paying bills on time, planning our academic goals for the next couple years, trying to keep in touch with family and friends, etc. Among these things trying to stay on top of our finances has been a huge one. It's something every newlywed has to learn to coordinate and manage (unless they still have their parents helping them with bills like some of my friends do lol) and it's something that Travis and I feel is very strongly about. "Live as poor as we can for as long as we can," is our motto when it comes to budgeting, make small sacrifices now (like buying the generic brands and having lunch dates instead of dinner) so that we can get through school without any debt and save up for our future.

Although we were worried about how we'd manage our expenses in the future, we witnessed the hand of the Lord in many ways these past months. The little savings we did have was what we made from our wedding reception in FL and sadly half of that had to go towards paying Trav's tuition for last Winter Semester. Stressed about driving to Sandy everyday just to work a few hours Trav started looking for a new job in town. At this point we were breaking pretty even with our paychecks and bills, but we were concerned that we weren't saving. Thankfully I was blessed with a half-tuition scholarship next year, but I was still worried about paying the other half in addition to Trav's tuition (my mom offered to help me but with all the wedding expenses I didn't want to place an additional burden on her.) So I filled out my FAFSA with a lot of hope and prayer and hesitantly started job hunting myself, unsure of how it'd work once school started and having to share the car for work and get to class, too. We fasted and went to the temple with a prayer in our hearts that the Lord would guide us so that we could start saving again and not let our finances become a burden in our marriage. Most important of all, we'd faithfully pay our tithing every week along with fast offerings, knowing with surety that if we were honest & faithful we would be blessed someway, somehow, someday (hebrews 11:13). A scripture that gave me a lot of peace during this time was 3 Nephi 13:25-34,

" 25 Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin;
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, even so will he clothe you, if ye are not of little faith.
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof."

Travis showed me this when we were in the temple, and I knew that even though I was so stressed about it all that the Lord would provide for us and never leave us wanting, and he didn't.

Slowly yet surely, the blessings came, Trav got a new job in Orem which helped us save a lot on gas and gave him more hours. My FAFSA had been processed, and I received a grant that would not only cover the other half of my tuition, but we'd have extra grant money leftover that would go into our savings. A couple weeks after that, I got a call from Nuskin, the job I desired most & payed best, offering me the position. We were elated and our testimonies have been strengthened.

So to all my newly-wed friends (or anyone going through a struggle) I want to say. "You can do it!", "You can have it all!", "The Lord is mindful of you!" With just a little sacrifice & patience the Lord will bless you and help you achieve your goals whatever they may be. This is just the beginning for us! There is so much we want to accomplish and that Travis & I are planning for our future, education, and family, that we know we'll need the Lord's help in, and I'm happy we've started building a relationship of trust in our marriage with our heavenly father as we go forward.

Mona

Located in the middle of nowhere Utah, Mona is a cute little town full of local farmers and cows. But what does put this place on the map are the rope swings along its reservoir. The only time I'd ever been here was as a freshman when I came with a group of friends at night making the swing 10 times more intense since you were launching yourself into complete darkness! Travis had never been, so we decided to take a day trip there since it'd been a hot sunny week. I guess half of Provo High had the same idea because it was packed with teenagers doing all sorts of crazy flips and tricks off the rope swings. We weren't half as daring, but overall it was a fun little afternoon swimming, snacking, and  admiring all the nature around us. (check out 'Life in Motion' for a slow-mo of Trav on the swing!)

I'd rather be camping

Summer has been so hectic as newlyweds, I seriously don't know how couples do it mid-semester! Travis got a new job as a sales rep for Elite IT, it's been a fun learning experience for him and a really exciting environment since it's all college students and they do fun games to make selling more entertaining. He's won us a huge bag of watermelon sour patch, a chik-fil-a gift card and was top salesman last week! Not to toot his horn but TOOT TOOT!

I'm still working on campus in addition to doing 2 internships. One is at the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center's Cardiac Rehab. It 's so fun as an aspiring nurse to get some hospital exposure and to work in a setting with real patients. Our patients all recently had open heart surgery, a stent inserted to unclog their arteries, a heart attack, or some kind of traumatic heart event. Our job is to take their vitals and take them on walks around the hospital floor so they can drain fluids from their chest and get their heart rate and oxygen levels to increase so they can recover sooner. It takes a lot of patience to work in a hospital, some of the patients can be cranky and upset, others are so funny and will just talk your ear off telling you their life stories, others are from the ICU and are extremely delicate and have a ton of wires and tubes you need to work around to get them out of bed. At the end of the day I always feel so warm and happy to have helped these people get out of the hospital and back to their families sooner, it truly is the healer's art (Matthew 10:8). My other internship is at a women only gym called Curves. There I help the women use the equipment properly, motivate them to push themselves harder, work out with them, and weigh and measure them to see their progress and set new goals for good health. It's awesome to do both internships because I'm getting both the preventative and internal approach to good health.

Amidst our busy schedules Travy & I have marked our calendar with all sorts of fun events and have found the time to be together and spend some quality time to unwind from the day to day. So for 4th of july weekend we decided to go camping with our buddy Benjamin! We packed our bags the wednesday night before, and thursday after work we headed straight to Payson Lakes. What a beaut!

After some exploring we found a little camp site with a fire pit by the road for easy access to the car. We built our tent, made our beds, and then took out our fishing poles for some dinner! 

Sadly, there were no fish in the pond, only salamanders, dragonflies, and snakes, yup, snakes!

Since we had no luck fishing, the boys had the bright idea of catching a snake, which they did successfully with a stick and a machete. They gutted it, skinned it, and fried it up with some lemon pepper, yum! (fortunately the snake did enjoy a salamander as his last meal before his inevitable doom!)

 Heads or tails?

Quite frankly, as tasty as the snake might have been, it didn't have enough meet on it for 3 people, so we cooked some pizza pockets and hot dogs for dinner instead. Always gotta have a back up when camping!

Sadly, we burnt our pizza pockets, too. So hot dogs it was! Then while the boys still attempted at fishing (they hadn't realized by this point that this lake had no fish) I made a delicious cherry peach cobbler. And as if we hadn't had enough bad luck, we forgot to bring utensils. So we made them out of a stick and foil! Mine got points for most realistic (middle). Travis & I are obsessed with the Alaskan Bush People show on TV, so we felt so accomplished and that they would be so proud of the spoons we made!

The cobbler was amazing, and the leftovers made excellent oat meal for breakfast the next morning after a night of sharing mission stories and experiences from our time in Chile. After breakfast we made some not-burnt pizza pockets for the road, packed up, and headed to some better lakes for fishing. Even though we caught absolutely nothing, forgot spoons, and burnt our first batch of pizza pockets, we made due and had such a blast being away from college town and enjoying the great outdoors! Isn't that what camping is all about anyways? Improvising?