Life's Many Blessings.

I don't blog about my personal life and experiences very often but I have been feeling very grateful lately and I just want to share about the blessings I have been receiving. All these blessings have to do with my Heavenly Father and the gospel. He has blessed me so much this year, 2 months ago I made the decision to take out my temple endowments and it was the most amazing experience I have had. I felt peace and happiness and knew that I was doing what God wanted me to do and since then even more blessings have occured in our lives. Noah has decided to be baptized and become a member of the LDS church. He has been battling with this decision for many months now and last week he decided that he was ready and this was something he needed to do. I could not be more happy with his decision because more than anything, I want our family to be together forever.
 
As I have said before, Noah and I met in Alaska in 2008. From the beginning I knew he was special and that he was different from anyone else I had met. We dated on and off for a couple years after that until he finally moved here to Salt Lake in November of 2009 and we were married in 2010. But before that we struggled with our differences in religion and a few religious viewpoints. One day I would be ok with us and the next I felt that we could never work because of this. Until one day I prayed and prayed and asked God if this was who I was meant to be with and God reassured me that he was, and that I needed to have faith. So I did, I had faith that he was the one for me and I never worried about our differences ever again because I knew this was the right thing for me to do. People thought I was crazy to marry a non-member. I got a lot of grief from friends and people I knew (but never from family, I have the best family). But when I look at Noah I don't think about his religion or what denomination he is. I only see his heart and his amazing faith. He has a better relationship with Christ and a better heart than a lot of Mormons I know. He sees people for who they are without any judgement, he looks deep inside and finds their strengths and accepts everyone for who they are no matter their race, religion, occupation, or status. He is truly a follower of Christ and this is why I married him. I only pray that I can be more like him. Obviously I had hoped one day he would join the church simply for the reason that our family would always be together and to omit any confusion among our children, but I really didn't worry much about that. I knew God would take care of it and it would work out as long as I continued to have faith and do my part. Well, it has paid off because it's here, and he's ready to take the plunge and I am so proud of him and I feel so much peace and gratitude in my heart.

There is one more blessing that I would like to talk about or announce, I guess. We are pregnant, and we couldn't be more excited! We had been trying for a couple months and we were blessed to find out that we were pregnant at the end of August. I am 12 weeks along and rounding out the first trimester. Its been kind of a rough pregnancy with all the sickness and pains and emotions but I don't mind because as long as this baby is healthy then I don't care what I have to go through. We had our first doctors appointment a couple weeks ago and we got to see the baby and the heartbeat. It was so amazing to actually see it, it made it so real and I already feel so attached to this little guy (I think its a boy but we won't find out for sure for another 6 weeks). I have been thinking about being a mom since I was 5 years old. My Great-grandma Bailey said to me when I was really young before she died, you are gonna have a lot of babies, I can just tell. She's right, I plan on it. Wow, all these blessings is proof that God is real and that he loves us and wants what's best for us. Thank you to all of those who have been a support and a great example to me and Noah, we are so grateful for you in our lives.

Hopefully the next year will be full of blessings as well!