Our family has a "curse" of sorts where everything we own seems to break multiple times. Whenever something happens my immediate reaction is "what do I need to learn from this?" Throughout the years I have tried out different approaches to this affliction thinking that what I need to learn is in the reaction to the problem. The first few years was devastation especially since Nathan was in medical school and then residency so we really didn't even have 2 nickels to rub together. Some miracle would always happen and we would be able to find a way to fix whatever happened to be broken at the moment. So gratitude for the miracles was what I figured I needed to learn. As we got a little more financially stable and the same problem kept occurring I figured that it surely must be a different lesson that I hadn't figured out yet. I tried several different approaches to this problem and it still continues to this day....because my thought process was that if I learn the lesson it will stop happening. haha We just had a string of bad luck with the a/c in the house, the central vac 2x, the sprinklers 3x, the pool 3x (I know, poor me) and the car needs 4 tires and brakes all within a couple weeks of each other. So, when we decided to take the rv on a nice little family vacation to SD why should I have expected things to go smoothly? Well, I'll tell you why. Because I was trying the positive approach not the waiting for the other shoe to drop approach.
We decided to get the rv up and running a few days before to make sure everything was running properly and loaded up. So, the slide went a couple inches out and stopped dead. Of course it is a holiday weekend so taking it in to get fixed was out of the question. We tried what we could think of to fix it and nothing was working. We found an online company that helps you fix stuff over email so we gave that a try because we were out of options at this point and getting down to the wire of needing to get packed up and leave if we were actually going to go on this vacation. That was a slow process that was leading us nowhere as well because we had already tried all the things the mechanic wanted us to.
The day before we were supposed to leave we decided to have family prayer in the morning before school to ask Heavenly Father to help us figure out what was wrong with the rv so we could go on vacation together as a family. Jordyn wanted to say the prayer because it was her "birthday vacation" so we went over what she should say before and then she gave one of those simple child's prayers that makes your heart melt. Later that morning I was talking to my friend about our luck and being tired of it and letting her know that we may or may not be leaving. I had decided that if it were meant to be that we should go then we would somehow figure out a way to get this darn thing fixed and if not that was ok too. Who knows, we could be avoiding some tragic event or something by not going, but I was still bummed and wondering what darn lesson I was missing in all of this. Well, I went on a walk that morning and it hit me. There is no great lesson that you are missing other than this....the only thing you need to learn sometimes is simply to endure and often times it is The Adversary that places obstacles in your path to discourage you and get you to give up. It was a, well duh, slap to the forehead moment! How had I missed this? I have given many lessons on this and applied it in other areas of my life, but this particular life long problem I just completely forgot to remember what I already knew. So armed with my new knowledge it was time to put on the boxing gloves and not let this get me down and really believe that either scenario would really be all right.
It was time to give fixing the rv one last try when Nathan got home from work. Because the slide wasn't out I had to crawl into this little hole and wiggle my way into this small space where the fuse box was and Nate shined a dully lit flashlight for me to see what was going on. We had checked it before and there was 1 fuse that was upside down that had a label of something random that I wondered about, but it had always been that way and it wasn't labeled for what we needed anyway so we ignored it. Well it just kept bugging me that this was a simple problem and it was most likely a fuse problem and there was something up with that upside down fuse. Nate was at this point under the rv looking for the mechanism that allows you to manually put your slides in and out to at least get the slide in. I decided to go and find a good flashlight and crawl back into that hole and check things out one last time. The fuse that was labeled for the slide was fine just as I suspected it would be from previous checks but this time with my more powerful flashlight I was able to clearly see each fuse. What happened when I got to that upside down fuse? It was black and blown! I pulled it out and ran outside to show Nate my discovery. We ran back in grabbed a new fuse and put it in. Then we stood by the switch for the slides, held our breath and pushed the button.......and it worked! We were jumping up and down and I ran in the house and yelled at the kids that our prayers worked and we were going on vacation and we were all screaming and dancing around the house with excitement.
So, what did I learn? Several things. 1st- remember not to forget the things you know and apply them. 2nd- sometimes you just have to endure 3rd- sometimes you just need the opportunity to have a prayer answered in a direct and immediate way which builds faith and testimonies in your family 4th- when you get a prompting, follow it. 5th- having the proper tools help. All that was needed was a stronger more powerful light. 6th- sometimes the most complicated problems have the simplest fix 7th- Heavenly Father helps you to do, he doesn't just do. 8th- give thanks in ALL things because anything good comes from God.
As a mother I am building my own stripling warriors and I want my children to be able to say "We do not doubt our mother[s] knew it"~Alma 56:48 Because "They were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him." ~Alma 53:21
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