Some of you have wondered why we are moving and although we gave a very short answer, the Lord wants us in Michigan, some of you wish that you had more detail, so I have typed it up for you and posterity.
For the past three years Andrew has jumped from job to job, finding no satisfaction and not enough pay besides. As near as I can remember these are the ones he held; self-employed, power washer, water meter reader, service advisor, trash can maintenance man, credit card sales and finally farmhand (this lasted one week).
Finally about mid-2007 I was forced to find a job in order to keep the bills paid. I wasn't able to find a job until December, and I began working at Macy's. At the same time, Andrew changed jobs yet again to become a service advisor for Earnhardt Nissan. In August or so of 2008, Earnhart's let Andrew go citing that he was not brining in enough money, which surprised us because he was 100% commission, so what did they care? Nevertheless, he was unemployed for several months, during which he decided that he wanted to go into computers. We quickly found out that in order to do that line of work you need a good degree, so he began going back to school. I followed in January of 2009. In December of 2008, he began working with trash cans, a job was a good thing, but it was far less than we needed him to be making. We made up for it with out student aid money and were surviving however. We hoped to make a deal with our mortgage company to lessen our payments, which they did for us, but it was not enough. In May we thought he had a fairly lucrative offer to sell credit card machines, but for whatever reason he was unable to make a sale, thus effectively making him unemployed as he again was commission only. This time, I really got insistent with him about doing something he was passionate about, as he had already decided that he didn't want to go into computers afterall, though he only had three classes to go in order to finish his AA degree.
Meanwhile as I believe everyone knows by now, I was in a car wreck on May 12th. We chose to have the truck repaired rather then total it. After seven long weeks we finally got the truck back, but we had a $1000 deductible. Also, as most of you know, I was unable to work from mid-November 2008 to early January 2009 and again for a couple of weeks in February, all of which was unpaid. The car wreck was also unpaid time off, so we were really beginning to feel the affects of not much income being generated. In fact, I wasn't able to work for nearly two months, so it was really difficult financially.
Now, back to the other story. Andrew didn't know what to do, but I finally convinced him to go with his passion, which he wasn't sure what it was. I looked at him and kindly said "Duh, FARMING!!!" For all who know Andrew, you know that's his passion. He was concerned that he couldn't make good money at it. I finally convinced him that I didn't care about that part, the Lord would provide as needed, but I did care that he would be happy. I also told him there were plenty of farmers doing just fine financially.
So, farming it was. He met with a farmer, emailed farmers, interviewed farmers and got lots of information. He looked into loans but found he couldn't qualify as he needed at least one year commercial farm experience, which he had none of. He began looking for a job to obtain that year. He applied online to several positions, was referred to several people and got an offer from some of my family in Idaho that they would teach him to farm (but could offer no way for us to live during the process) and one from a member of the chuch in Michigan whom he had served on his mission. He kept looking and trying and we were unable to find him anything except for the offer in Michigan.
Her name is Ronda. She wants to start an Alpaca farm (they are like llamas) and offered to let Andrew become a partner with her. He wants to raise crops, so he can sell his crops to her for the Alpaca's to eat and help out with harvesting their wool when needed etc. He can build up his farm as he goes. She has a place for us to stay. The BRANCH needs us (they only have about 90 people attending). I found out I could transfer. We kept praying and looking. Michigan was not in our plans and we didn't want it to be. We had no desire to move. Nothing was working. Our financial situation was getting worse and worse. We started thinking we better pray about Michigan and secretly hoped we were wrong. Our roots are deep, we just painted our house, we love our neighborhood, our ward and we both have callings. Mine are new, but Andrew loves his more I'm pretty sure. (When Bishop asked him what he would do if he was released now instead of later he replied that he would go inactive...lol). We were unable to shake the feeling that we needed to head to Michigan however and finally decided to take it to the Temple.
Well, we obviously got a confirmation that we needed to move. Megan is super-excited cause we told her we'd get a new puppy. She is also super-excited cause she is hoping for a horse. We keep telling her that's not going to happen anytime soon, but the faith of a child is strong. She doesn't have one yet, but I won't be surprised when we get there and someone offers a free one to us. That would be just our luck.
We plan on moving on October 11th. It is the Sunday after General Conference.
