A crazy year in summary

What a crazy year I have been having. It all started in Oct of 07 when I got called as YW pres. That felt like a huge calling as I contemplated all my responsibilities including needing to train the ladies who were called because they had never served in YW before. In January I discovered that I needed to have $2000 ready to give to the stake to pay for girls camp, which was held at the end of March. This required me to put on 2 fundraisers in 6 weeks which turned out to be an exhauting task. I did it and we pulled it off amazingly 2 days before girls camp started. So I didnt get much time to recouperate before being responible for my 16 YW and being the tent mom for the 3rd year girls ( whom I adored). I left girls camp comletely and utterly exhausted, although I enjoyed the experience. I ended up sick and in bed for a full week as I tried to recouver.

Then the packing began. I started packing up the house becasue we had decided to move to a bigger house that we could settle more comfortably in. I was exited because we would have a pool, lots of room and two bathrooms for the 5 girls in our house. We were pretty eager to get out of the house we were in as it felt so small.
We packed everything up and then on May 30 we moved to the house. John went to the storage unit and brought all the boxes from our house in Canada and then the entire contents of the Florida house all into the one house. We had lived for almost 2 years in the the US so we had accumulated a whole lot more stuff.. I HATE STUFF!
The house we moved into was a disaster. It was left filthy. I had a wonderful group of friends who volunteered to help me get it cleaned. Dont forget I also had to clean the house I was leaving. As we cleaned this house though we discouved what looked like huge amounts of black mold in the bathrooms. Then we found more in the master bedroom. In dispair I realized that we could not stay in this house, that it was unsafe to sleep in a house full of black mold.
That night we slept at a friends. It took us a week to finally get in contact with the Landlord. We offered to do the work for free to get it fixed if she would pay for materials. Then she informed us that not only did she not have the money to repair the problem, but she had spent all the $5100 in deposit we had given her on the house and could not pay us back.

It was at this point we realized that we were pretty much homeless. We could not use anymore money for a deposit on another house, becuase John needed it for running his business. I had 2 housefulls of stuff in a moldy house and no place to go. For the first little while we stayed at a dear friends house (the Zanatta's), but I didnt want to overstay my welcome so we looked for another arraingement as quickly as possible. We discouverd another frined who had an empty condo, they allowed us to stay in it for a few more weeks. So we moved some of our stuff in there as we tried to make some decisions about what to do and where to go next.

To make a very long story as short as possible, we moved 4 times in one month. At the end we put everything we owned back into storage and we flew off to canada to celebrate with Gok his highschool Graduation and then off to mexico (to stay with my mom and dad) for the rest of the summer while JOhn worked to try and get our family back on its feet.

Now we are living in a 2 bedroom apt in fort lauderdale. Its far from nice or the comfort we are used to, but we are here because John wasnt able to catch us up as fast as he would have liked due to 3 cars breaking down and a number of medical expenses I encured in Mexico treating all my kids dental needs.

At first I hated being here, It seemed like prison. But now I see it as an opportunity. It is cheaper that if we were in a house, and the costs of being here are low enough to help us get on back on top.

I am trying to be more grateful for what I do have, and not so grouchy about the past and the trials in my life. It is hard sometimes, but I feel myself making progress. I am learning that I cannot control my life. Its the Lord who runs the show. If he feels its time to prune the Carter's to help them to grow. Then I cannot stop the prunning. It hurts to be pruned, but the Lord wants us to bring forth more fruit (good works) and the sciprtures teach us that it is through this pruning that the Lord helps his people to produce the best quality fruit of the vine.

Im sure I am in for more pruning in my life. Im sure Its not downhill from here, but my prospective has changed and improved and I am growing.