A longer post. . . sorry! - I usually try to keep them short!

What do the following have in common?

If you guessed that these are all the things that have been stolen from our house since we started building it, then you are right. I hesitate to put this on here for two reasons, one being that I don't want people to think that I want them to feel sorry for me and the second one is that I don't want people to judge us and call us idiots behind our back because this happened over a few break-ins.

In fact, once all of our windows and doors were put in we thought that we could leave some tools (the generator, the tile saw, the drill), but boy were we wrong. The first break-in occurance happened a couple months ago (this does not include the wire theft where they did not have to technically break in). We obviously learned that we could not leave the power tools there, but little did we know that the people who had robbed us would be back for anything. The second time they took a first aid kit and my MP3 player that I accidentally left on the counter there. I guess I kind of figured that they had left the extension cords and stuff the last two times (my mistake) and that they did not really want it, but no more than two or three days later they came back for some broken (they did not know this) work lights, a beat up shop vac and our extension cords. We realized that they were popping our master bedroom window open each time to get in so Richard cut up some boards to stick in every single window. We hoped this would keep them out for about one more week until we would be getting carpet and then we would start sleeping there. (Just for reference, our appliances had been in our garage the whole time and we probably should have moved them, but we really did not have a good place to store them). We went back to work on the house on Saturday morning, and the last time we had been there before that was late Thursday afternoon, and we discovered that our garage door was wide open and our appliances were all gone. I am not going to lie, I bawled like a baby and I felt like this house was too much and I did not know how I was going to be able to finish. It was one of the hardest things I have been through in my life - I do realize I am blessed if this is one of my hardest trials, but it still was very devastating.

The real reason I wanted to share this was because I just wanted to share a little bit of the positive experience that came with this trial. Like I said, Saturday was very hard for me, but I had one of the most spiritual experiences of my life and although I feel like parts are too personal to post online, I can say that I felt the love of my Savior and my Heavenly Father more strongly than I think I have ever felt it! I felt so comforted! I know that Heavenly Father knows of me and that he loves me so much. I know of the power of the priesthood and that priesthood blessings come from the Lord. Richard was able to receive the most wonderful, comforting blessing from his dad and I was able to receive an amazing blessing from Richard. This reminded me how blessed I am to have such a wonderful husband who honors his priesthood and to have two beautiful, healthy children. I was also reminded of how blessed Richard and I are to have wonderful parents and siblings and other family members and we also have the most amazing friends (even though I consider them family). People were not hesitating to offer help (babysitting our kids so we could get some relaxing time, letting us live in their trailor in front of our house, letting us use their house nearby whenever we want to shower, sleep, do laundry, etc. since we don't have electricity or water yet) and to pray on our behalf and I can testify that the prayers help so much and I could feel the strength from those prayers and I am still continuing to feel the strength. Like I said before, I know that my trials are nothing like a lot of people are going through (and I am very grateful for that), but I do know that my Savior loves me and I love him and as I was so upset by everything I was reminded that Jesus Christ knew exactly what I was feeling and that gave me great comfort. I am so grateful for this Christmas season when we can really reflect on our Savior, Jesus Christ and on all of the wonderful sacrifices he has made on our behalfs.

Sorry again for the length of this post and if you did not read it all I completely understand, but if you did thank you!