They Moved a Mountain so I could meet an Honorable Man

I was in an awesome L.D.S. ward in Salt Lake City.  It felt like out in the mission field, a family of Friends.  When I was put into the Relief Society Presidency I saw things happen that most people don't see behind the scenes.  We would hear about someone with a need...women had already come to her aide without being asked.  So, it was an amazing group of awesome folks.  Last year two stakes in the inner city were dissolved.  In the process the surrounding stakes had to take up the slack and take these extra individuals into our boundaries.  In the process our boundaries had to change.  We actually had converts in our ward that had never seen a ward boundary change, tension was building and people were panicking.  One of the gals in our presidency was so scared that she was going to be cut out of our ward with the cuts.  It is hard being in limbo not knowing which way it was going to be divided.  People would take me aside and say," since you are in the presidency tell me what is going to happen".  And of course we knew NOTHING!  But, I was feeling it too.  Change is hard.  The future Relief Society Presidency called us into a meeting, so that they would be prepared to handle the possible upcoming influx and be able to know in advance who may need help coming their way.  They were also concerned because of Large and Spacious building we lived in, how would all those  people blend in with the lower income members of their ward.  We assured them that it wasn't like that at all, these were loving kind humble members that just happened to live in this taller building.

So the change was made, it was great to not be in limbo anymore and wondering for months and months about the changes.  I was SO grateful for Bishop Garbett and his wife and their service to our ward.  His manner was so loving and kind and many wonderful blessings came from their leadership.

I went to the first meeting our new Bisphop was great and funny, I decided to go out and be very friendly to all the new people that I met that first Sunday.  I walked into the chapel and saw two grey haired people from behind.  I assumed that they were a couple sitting next to each other.  Sooo I went and sat in front of them and turned around to see an 85 year old women and I thought the younger man was either her husband (she then being a cougar).....or it was her son.  I said "HI my name is Cindy."  She said "My name is Eve"...so I turned to him and said "You must be Adam!"  He laughed and said  "my name is Darrell, and this my my neighbor Eve."  Then as the rest of the three hours went on, I was sociable and happy to meet the new members.  It wasn't our old ward, but it felt good to be there.  This was a new building for all of us....the Stake Center location was odd for all of us, not knowing where to go.  But as the weeks went on it got more familiar.

Darrell came up and said Hi and called me by name in the next few weeks.  I was surprised that he remembered my name....and all I could remember was ADAM...I'm not great at names, but I remember other details, like clothes, jobs, location met etc.  A few weeks later I was at the church cleaning on an early Saturday morning after I rolled out of bed...and there was Darrell again sitting in the Relief Society room looking at his ipad,...he was dressed nicely like church clothes.  I couldn't figure out why he wasn't cleaning???  I went up to say Hi, and then he explained that he was in charge of the baptisms, he they showed me how he filled the font and made sure it was a comfortable temperature for the fathers and children.  Later I was cleaning rooms with Kay Rich and we saw a loose open wire hanging near the drapes which made me feel worried for fire danger.  I told the man in charge of the cleaners.  He then went and got Darrell, who came and checked it out and ran home (across the street to the apartments that he managed)  he came back with some electrical tape and fixed the wire.  That was impressive to me that he took care of it immediately!

Meanwhile my cousin's Daughter Tauna Lewis called me.  She had seen some of the things I had been creating and doing on facebook.  She wanted suggestions for a wedding luncheon location for her son, they were getting sealed in the Salt Lake Temple and then everyone had to drive down to Parowan Utah for the evening wedding reception.  We talked about locations, and then I suggested a box lunch for them to pick up and drive to southern Utah.  The numbers were about 65 at the time, I said why don't we have it at my Condo social room,  some light decor and hand over a cute box lunch to get them on their way.  Then the numbers jumped to around 125 people....and they wanted to relax and mingle...Tauna called back and asked if it was possible to reserve Aunt Edith's old ward house. I told her that it was actually my new ward, and I knew the scheduling guy personally and called Darrell to see if it was possible to get that date for her event.

He called back soon and told me I could have that date and that he would move the dance and exercise classes somewhere else in the building so we could have that room.  Then, at that point I remembered his handyman experience....I asked him if he would mind looking at some old round fluorescent lights that were burning out.  He very nicely said he would be happy to take care of that for me.  We set an appointment for him to come visit.  When I got home from cleaning in my stinkie, sweaty, work clothes, I had my hair up in a bun, looking very horrible in my opinion.  He was in the lobby waiting for me, he showed up early.  Which I really appreciated, I like when people are on time!  I assisted him by handing over tools, nuts and bolts etc while he did all the physical work.  ceilings can be a pain working above your head the whole time and the ceiling is hot too.  He said it was great to have an assistant. after he was all finished I got us both a big glass of ice water.  I didn't have anything else exciting in the fridge.  We sat and talked for 3 hours and it felt like 10 minutes.  after he left I felt impressed about him, he was so easy to talk to and sooo nice.

The next day he called apologetically not wanting to bother me and  to see if I wanted to go to an event with him and his best friend and his wife that we had talked about the day before.  I said SURE I would really enjoy that.  He also suggested that we go out to dinner beforehand to grab a bite.  We went to a really nice Italian restaurant at City Creek Center.  High class with linen table cloths, it was so fun and very comfortable being with him..Then we went over to the conference center to see BYU's Vocal Point.  It was really fun, we had a wonderful thing happening right before our very own eyes and everyone else on facebook that had been following us.

Turns out he was very impressed with me and my funny ADAM comment from day one at the new church was last year November 15, 2015.  He had been watching me and decided to build a great friendship first and see how it went.  He hadn't dated in 8 years and had been hoping God would put a gal in his lap, cause he had tried and tried on his own and it wasn't working.  I had been dating a ton of rude, condescending men who were very late, cheap and unappreciative of being with me. and I said if God wanted me to meet someone, he was gonna have to throw him across my path.  So our love story had begun, my friend Michelle Herzog said, if we had to divide our wonderful previous ward to make this happen, she would take the bullet for it.  When other members found out what had happened after the stressful ward division, they were happy for the sacrifice too.  And  I am very grateful, blessing DO come from hard things, you just have to watch for them to happen before your eyes!