Wednesday, July 11, 2012

The most important thing in life = the Gospel!!

So in October I was offered a job at Bank of American Fork. I was so excited my brother Cooper works there and LOVES it. I was so excited to start a job with this company I could start a career with. When I started with the bank my cousin told me "everyone in that department hates LDS people. Don let them know your LDS." So I thought "okay that’s weird though." So I would go everyday and do my job the best I could. My boss pulled me in her office one day and said "I was doing a great job and that after I finished learning the job I was hired to do she was going to give me a promotion and it would give me a 2-3 dollar raise. I was so excited I thought okay they like me and I'm doing a good job. I hurried home from work that day to tell my mom and dad they were excited as well. Well just before Christmas I had had enough of them trashing the church so I prayed one morning asking Heavenly Father for the Strength to stand up to them. I went in and as they started to trash the church I stood up and said "I am LDS please do not trash that religion." and sat down. The rest of the day was so awkward and you could feel the tension. From that point on it was horrible. Just after that i got the flu worse than I have ever gotten it before. I missed 3 days of work and when I came back my boss had changed all the processes of how to do things but I was never informed. she pulled me into her office and told me I was dong things wrong and that the promotion she had told me I was going to get was gone. I was devastated. Then work would come up missing and I knew I had done it but didn’t know where it was going. Then I figured out when I was leaving for lunch one of the girls I worked with was going over and hiding it on her desk then my boss would get mad because I couldn’t give it to her. After that my boss moved my desk right next to her office so she could hear everything I was saying to people and all my emails went to her email too so she could see what I was writing to people. (I felt like an elementary school kid getting in trouble with the teacher.) My aunt worked for the same Bank. When she would call she would always say "thank you sweetheart" at the end of the conversion (she wasn’t the only one to do that either.) Well that made the others mad/jealous so my boss sent out an email saying "you are not to call my employees Sweetheart" at this point I was in disbelief at what I was witnessing. I thought how can 5 grown women and 1 grown man act like this and nothing be done. I talked to Cooper one day in tears I had had enough he sent me to talk to the manager at the Orem branch. She was so nice and after I told her what was going on she asked if she could go get the Regional Manager I said "sure". He came in and I told him what was going on and he told me he wanted me to meet with the Banks attorney and HR. Well HR and my boss were best friends. So before I could get in to talk to them HR had already talked to my boss and had decided to write me up saying "I didn’t know how to do my job." the Attorney was mad. He wanted it investigated and it to stop. Well it was never investigated and it obviously didn’t stop. I put up with work being taken off my desk, no one talking to me in the office, and childish things for so long. Then it got to the point that my cousin wouldn't talk to me when she came in to the department to work. That killed me because me and my cousin were so close. I just couldn’t believe that grown adults acted like this. My poor mom got phone calls everyday for 3 months at my lunch break with me crying begging her to let me quit. She always told me "your bigger than them and they cant handle it because people who work there would rather talk to you because your nice to them." I put up with it until the point that it was literally making me sick from the stress. I had a blessing one Sunday afternoon to help me decide what to do. I didn’t want to be a quitter and let them win I didn’t want to give them that satisfaction. Everyday on my way to work I would turn on Church songs on my IPOD and every time the song I Know My Redeemer Lives would come on and i would feel the spirit so strong during that song every time and start to cry.(in fact i still do to this day every time i hear it.) That was the last song I heard before I walked into my work the day I quit. As i sat down at my desk I got such a strong feeling that it was okay to quit that there was something so much better out there for me. So I went into my bosses office and put my 2 weeks notice in. I had no idea what I was going to do for work to pay my bills but I knew the Lord had something so much better planned for me. That afternoon my boss came in and asked me to go with her and she told me they were paying me out my 2 weeks and to go home. I was so happy to out of that "Hell Whole". I went home and was so scared thinking "what am I going to do for money I have 3 months saved up for bills but that’s it." When I got home I told myself "you have to put your big girl pants on and deal with this head on and have faith everything will work out." I hated it at first not working I was bored the only good thing was I got to sleep in and I LOVE my sleep. The other bonus was I got to spend time with my niece almost everyday and I LOVED every minute of it. I had so many interviews the first 2 months but nothing was coming of it. One day (towards the end of the second month) I was watching my niece and she had just fallen asleep for her daily 2-3 hour nap. I got a phone call from a place I had interviewed with and The company told me they decided to go with someone else and I hung up the phone and lost it, I started to cry for the first time during being unemployed. At that point my niece started to cry I went over to get her out of the playpen and she put her head on my shoulder and laid there. ( Tenley is not a snugly baby at all) I know that that was the Lords way of comforting me at that time. I truly believe that everything happens for a reason but I couldn’t figure out why I was still unemployed and why no one was hiring me. I know now that it was because I wasn’t as close to my brother Cooper and my sister in law Whitney as I needed to be and that I wasn’t as close to the Gospel as I needed to be. I have been taught my whole life that paying Tithing is so important but I never did it. So the money I was making tending my niece I made sure I paid my tithing with. I paid it 2 times and interviewed with a company was offered a full time job at a company in American Fork. It is one of the best jobs I have had. The benefits are amazing and the people are so nice. I also know that it is because of this lesson I was taught in Sunday School one week Cooper was teaching and he said "how many of you have been converted? Truly Converted?" At first I thought well I was baptized at 8 does that count? he said "I feel like I was truly converted when I went on my mission that’s when I knew for sure that the church was true." at that point I started to cry because I realized I had been put through this trial to be truly converted to the church and to have it testified to me that I am doing the right things now and knowing that I will not settle for anything less than a Temple Marriage. Where before I just thought of it as if that’s what the guy wants a Temple marriage I will do it. It wasn’t a must for me. My mom asked me one day "if you could go back in time and just not say anything and not have stood up for the church would you?" Without hesitation I said "NO". In Alma 7:11-12 it says, And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities. This scripture always came to me when I was going through the last few months that I was never alone. Not only did I have my family and friends standing beside me but I had the Lord standing beside me too. I have a key chain on my car keys with the footsteps poem on it. It says: Lord, you said once I decided to follow you, we would walk side by side through life, but when I needed you most, I only saw one set of footprints in the sand. The Lord replied "I love you and would never leave you during your times of trials and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints it was then that I carried you." I often would look at that poem during work hours and know even though I felt alone at work and wanted to quit I was never truly alone. I have learned so much about myself during the last few months i can truly say i have a strong testimony of the Gospel. I can 100% say i know the church is true. I know that I was never alone during the past 6 months of trials. I know that when we put all our trust in the Lord it may take time to see what is going to happen but it will happen the way the Lord wants it to happen. I know prayer is so powerful I know that without prayer and faith i would never have gotten through this trial. I believe that you cant truly pray and mean it without faith and you cant have faith without prayer. They go hand in hand. I am so grateful for the men in my life who are worthy priesthood holders. So that when the time comes they can give me a blessing. I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVES!!! I am so grateful for those in my life and those who stood beside me through this time. I know some thought it was stupid of me to quit before having another job but when you get the strong feeling and knowing its what the Lord is wanting its okay to do. We just have to have faith and everything will work out!!

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