Raja

My girls ask me lots of questions, some of which need decoding. One such question went about like this: "Mom, are we going to Raja?"

Now my first thought was that Rain was referring to the tiger from Aladdin, which didn't make sense because I didn't think my girls had seen that movie yet. Then it clicked...Russia, pronounced in exotic, childish, parroting of what has been tossed about a lot as of late.

This is our story.

This picture was taken on the spur of the moment, in the last light of the day. It was chilly, but the girls were good sports when I made them take their coats off for the picture. Echo looks a little silly, but I figured we had 4 out of the other 5 looking decent, so it's a winner. I used it for our application and it has since become my favorite family picture of us so far. [Family pictures are a miraculous event for us] 

(The following excerpts may or may not be part of my talk that we were asked to give in anticipation of moving out of our ward. A lot came from my journal, which I felt was blog-worthy as well.)  =)

For the past while, I have been frustrated with the relationship of righteousness and prosperity. I had read in the scriptures many times about it. For example:

2 Ne. 1:20 And he hath said that: ^aInasmuch as ye shall keep my ^bcommandments ye shall ^cprosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence.

The promise was there, many times, so why was it not happening to us? So I pondered it, prayed about it, talked with Shane about it. And I asked him: "Why are we not prospering?" We examined our habits, and looked for ways to improve. I said, “We are reading our scriptures almost daily with our family, we have family prayer twice a day, we attend our meetings weekly, we are trying to fulfill our callings, we fast, and pay our tithing. What are we not doing? What can we do better? Why are we not prospering?"

Now, I know there are also lessons in patience and enduring trials, but to me it seemed like at some point, the law of the harvest would prevail. I also know there are also many definitions of "prospering" and I can't deny that I have been truly blessed in life. Prosperity is not always directly linked with monetary wealth, but I still felt that I wanted to live honorably and be responsible for my financial obligations, which had been pared down to the bare minimums for quite some time, just trying to make the ends meet. I didn't like being in that place, and I was often overwhelmed with feeling powerless to change much of it.  

Now for the past couple months Shane has been looking at different cattle ranches, trying to find something that would suit our family and circumstances better. Moving away from my family and this area was not very enticing to me. But I felt that if it was the right thing for us, I would be able to do it.

One weekend, Shane went to Oregon to look at some ranches, and I stayed to move some cows with my family here. I rode out with my mom to help with my uncle's cattle drive, and while we were driving, we talked about the whole "looking for a ranch situation." I remember telling my mom that "I had had the feeling we were going to move somewhere for a time. I didn't know where or for how long, but I had been having that feeling for awhile."

But along with that feeling was a feeling of disappointment. I didn't want to move away from my family and my home. Shane was in overdrive looking at ranches, figuring numbers, talking on the phone, making these big plans, and yet, my heart was NOT in it. There was no spark in it for me. I kept wondering, "If we are supposed to move, why don't I feel the same energy about it that Shane does?" I started questioning that initial feeling of knowing that we would move. Was I supposed to move just because Shane wanted to? Was the Lord preparing me for that? But I was struck with painful thoughts and questions that I didn't know how to answer. I wondered a lot about my role as a wife and how to best support my husband. But I struggled inwardly. Weren't my feelings just as important as Shane's? What if I didn't want to move? What about my goals and dreams? Shane felt that we were moving in the right direction. I wasn't so sure, and the guilt ate at me daily. Was this one of the times when I was supposed to blindly trust the Lord and it would all turn out in the end? Why wasn't I receiving the same confirmation as Shane? Did the Lord feel that it was necessary to give me one? Did I need one? Yes! I firmly believed that if the Lord wanted me to do something as big as uprooting my family and moving "far" away [read 'far' as in Oregon or Montana], He would not expect me to do it without a confirmation that it was what I was supposed to do. I felt that I was important enough, as an individual, and not just clumped in with my husband, that I could receive my own answer. And so I kept waiting. 

Elder Quentin L. Cook stated:
Heavenly Father and family are inseparably connected. When we understand the many dimensions of this connection, we can begin to comprehend more completely how personal and individual are Heavenly Father's love for and relationship to each of us. Understanding how He feels about us gives us the power to love Him more purely and fully. Personally feeling the reality, love, and power of that relationship is the source of the deepest and sweetest emotions and desires that can come to a man or woman in mortality. These deep emotions of love can motivate us and give us power in times of difficulty and trial to draw closer to our Father. (Full talk here)

The Lord was truly merciful to my unsettled heart. How could I have ever doubted that my Heavenly Father did not know me individually and knew what was best for me. He had something in mind, something far better than I could have ever imagined!

About 2 weeks before Christmas, Shane and I were sitting down one evening after the whole nightly bedtime routine. Shane was flipping through his livestock newspaper he gets every week, and I was probably picking up toys. We ran across a classified advertising for a job in Russia. We had seen it before, several times, and Shane often teased me that I should have gone on to vet school, because I could have been a vet for a company in Russia. We also laughed about it and then went on with our day. But this time, we said, Why not? They are also offering positions as a Cow/Calf Manager. I had the degree they wanted, and Shane had the experience. So we decided to apply as a team. It took me about a week to pull together our resumes, references and everything. There were several small miracles in that process such as finding my diploma, finding contact information to critical references, getting a family picture, etc. The whole time I worked on our application, I had the feeling we were going to get the job. I sent it off. We got a call from the company in Russia 2 days later, offering the job, and we accepted.

I love this quote from Elder David A. Bednar:
"The Lord's tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly, the Lord suits 'his mercies according to the conditions of the children of men' (D&C 46:15).

Faithfulness, obedience, and humility invite tender mercies into our lives, and it is often the Lord's timing that enables us to recognize and treasure these important blessings." (Full text here).

This was really an individualized blessing for me--a tender mercy for my troubled heart--and because I had been so focused on this issue, I could recognize the Lord's timing in our lives, and I have been blessed because of it. 

I know that there will be challenges and trials during our 3 year contract. We haven’t even gotten there and we have hit some bumps in the road. The first major bump is that they want Shane to go first for 1-3 months for a trial period to see if he fits with the company and if he likes it. Then they will fly the rest of the family over. There are so many questions with the house, the van, how are we going to communicate, how do we get three little girls to Russia in one happy piece? If I focus on all the questions, I get doubts and fears creeping in, but if I go back to the feelings we received when we’ve prayed about it, then I know the Lord is taking care of us. He can see more than we can. He can see the big picture, so we can trust Him that He will also take care of the details.

So, a little bit about the job.

We will be working for Miratorg. They are currently the #1 Pork producer in Russia, and are on their way to becoming the #1 producer in Beef as well. By the end of the year they will have approximately 100,000 head of beef cows.

We will be in the Bryansk Oblast, or province, of Russia. To brush up on your my geography, this region is horseshoed by the Ukraine and Belarus, so it is on Russia's western edge, bordering the European block.  

• The Bryansk province has a population of more than 1.3 million. The two closest cities we will be dealing with and their populations are listed below:

Pochep	Почеп	17,064
Trubchevsk	Трубчевск	16,342 (source)

• There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet, which is Cyrillic based. For your viewing pleasure, I've inserted a lovely chart below,  [via].

We are going to have fun learning this language. Haha. I decided that if I was going to be there, I was going to do all I could to immerse myself in the culture, including learning the language. There is a good chance I will be homeschooling the girls for a variety of reasons, so I hope they get enough proper exposure to the language so I won't mess them up too badly. They will probably be teaching me Russian by the time we are done.

The closest connection to the Church is the Russia Moscow West Mission Branch, which I believe is located out of Pochep. From what we can gather, there isn't even a branch in our area. I know there is at least two other families there that are members, so we are hoping we can open a branch in our area.

The closest temple is the Kyiv, Ukraine Temple. Mapquest apparantly doesn't know how to give me directions from Bryansk, or even Moscow, to Kiev, so I'm not sure of the distance. Roughly 300 miles, if my map measuring is correct.

We are super busy getting ready and ironing out details, but we are excited for this adventure.

So, in response to Rain's question, the answer would be: "Yes, we are moving to Raja!"