We've Made it; Thank you.

This weekend we accomplished the daunting task of getting into the new house. We had so much help from the ward, it was ridiculous. We started about 8:15 and were done by noon.

We got up at 6AM and dressed and fed the kids. Roxann dropped me off at U-Haul at 7:15, picked up 2 dozen doughnuts for our movers and dropped the kids off with Cammie Walker. I got back to the apartment a little before 8. Grandpa Westmorland showed up at 8AM sharp. We waited for about 15 minutes and then our home teacher, Bro. Cloward and his wife showed up and we drove to the storage unit. I was a little worried that no one would show up, but by the time we got to the unit, at least 6 more people showed up. Chris Westmorland, Mike Arnold, Dave Fite, Mike Stuteville, Owen Fisher, a couple of others whose names escape me (sorry). We had the truck loaded in about 15 minutes and then drove to the new house to unload. By the time we got there, the Beyal family was there along with the younger Kelberer kids. All in all, I think that we had between 15 and 20 people helping. We moved to the apartment to load the rest of the stuff. We had a line of people stretched up the stairs handing down boxes and furniture. The truck was loaded in approximately 30-40 minutes. When we got to the house, we backed the truck up to the front door. By this time, I think we had reduced our force down to about 10-15 people. We had a line stretched down each hall and we called out the destination of each box as it was handed out. Roxann and Sister Cloward got real chummy. She speaks very little English, but is from South America and speaks Portugese. She taught Roxann some phrases. Roxann has been practicing them all weekend. With the truck unloaded, the guys helped up position that beast of an entertainment center. Good news. It was out of square due to our last move. Now it is back in square from moving around this time. Awesome. David took me back to U-Haul. I got the truck back with 10 minutes to spare. While I was gone. Sister Liddell and her kids came over and helped Roxann unpack the kids' rooms as well as put the beds together. Later that evening they brought us dinner.
We are so blessed to live in and be a part of our ward. I am so glad that we were able to stay. The outpouring of love and help has been a real blessing. It is a strength to our testimony of the gospel and charity. Thank you all so very much. We love you all.

Spencer, Roxann, and the kids.

Manna.... pure manna...

You always hear people stand up and tell these stories in Fast and Testimony meeting, but you never really expect it to happen to you.
As you have read, Roxy and I are struggling to get our of our current living situation and into a better one. All the stars have aligned. We have found a house. We have been able to break our lease with a minimal penalty. We have been able to come up with all the money to get into the new house. But there was one thing that is vexing us. That is our Car payment. We had it split up into 2 payments for this month to ease the burden. We had already sent in the checks before all this happened. This week we have worried about whether or not we were going to be able to afford the deposit and the car payment this weekend. Both of these things MUST be paid or this whole thing doesn't work. With my salary, we can afford to do both, but we would be short on our tithing. We were not sure what to do at this point. I had decided in my mind and I am sure that Roxann did as well that we were going to pay our tithing anyway and just pray for a miracle.

Today, we went through the daunting process of calling our car creditor and asking for the check (read: ach) not be processed. They told us no, but we could either let the check bounce or put a stop on it but be behind in our bill either way. So Roxy and I talked about it this afternoon and we decided to go ahead and put a stop on the check. So I hung up the phone with her and tried to get back to work. She called 10 minutes later. Through tears, she informed me that we had recieved a check in the mail for the exact amount of the car payment. THE EXACT AMOUNT. Now Roxann hasn't checked the mail on her own since the criminal incident as the mail box is 10 feet from where it took place. She told me that she felt like she should go and check it because someone could have sent us money. I have to tell you that there are several reasons why this happened. We have been praying for guidance and success in our move, we have been paying our tithing and our children have also been praying for success in this endeavor. When I called our contributor, I was informed that a lesser amount was to be sent, but a prompting for that exact amount was received and was followed.

Words cannot express how much this means to us. We have been directly blessed by the Lord for paying our tithing and communicating with Him. To our contributor, you have been an instrument to answer our prayers. Thank you. We appreciate all of your prayers but we still have a week or 2 to go so don't stop now.

--Spence

Things I hear my children say..and then don't know what to do...

So, this is my first contribution to our family blog. Please forgive the lack of sarcasm, I just don't have Spencer's "talent". (Although, after almost 10 years of marriage it has started to eek in.)
I believe it was Monday when we were in the van after dropping Ben and Spencer off at their respective areas, when Matthew inform me that "when Jesus comes he is going to be Barricade." (Transformers, for those not in the know.) Matt precedes to tell me all about how is is going to share his Transformers with him and they are going to play all sorts of games together. He can't wait to play "membory" (Memory), Whack-a-Mole, and Candyland with Jesus when he gets to our house.
Now my first thought was to tell him that Jesus was not going to want to play a tournament version of Go Fish when he comes. But, then thinking about it a bit longer, I figured it was rather sweet and that it was pretty neat that he thinks of Jesus as a friend. And, Hey, as long as Matthew is willing to share, what could go wrong?! -MotherMonkee

The Great Escape

We have been trying to find a way to unwrap ourselves from our lease this last week in order to find a safer dwelling. Initially we called the management office of our apartment. They basically told us to stick it in our ears. I sent Roxann in to plead our case after my visit failed. We were told that we would be responsible for the remainder of the lease if we moved out. We called the Corporate office in Ohio. I called first and was given an unsympathetic answer. I was also told that the situation had been handled. Later Roxann called with much the same result. However, we were told that we could only be responsible for one month extra rent according the Rutherford County law. They also told us fun things like: "you should have checked the crime rate before you moved in" and "We cannot be responsible for crime". Awesome. We gave our lease to Christopher Westmorland who is our Sunday School teacher and a Lawyer. He was able to confirm the apartment's claims of our responsibility but was unable to find a loophole in the lease under the circumstances.
So on Saturday, we were on our way to Parent-Teacher Conference with Ben's teacher. Our neighbors in the next building were moving out. Roxann stopped and talked with them. These guys have been really good neighbors. They are 2 college guys who have always been pleasant and fun, love the kids and love to play. They said that they were also involved in the altercation; trying to stop it from happening. They explained further that not only were 2 other families aside from themselves moving, but the original perpetrators had not been charged with a crime because the victim would not press charges and continued to hang out in the area threatening people who "got them in trouble". These bad men are friends of a girl who lives in C building. They were her guests and no action has been taken against her that we know of. Her friends continue to lurk, making us all uneasy.
What to do. We took counsel with our Bishop on Sunday and told us flatly that we should leave as quickly as possible. So today we are finalizing our escape. We have found a place to live that is north of us in a subdivision. We will be at least 3 miles from any retail civilization with a fenced yard and 1600 square feet inside the house. The Bishop offered to help us with part of our escape funds owed the the apartment complex. Now we are doing our best to come up with the rest. Please pray for us. We have been fasting and praying and we know that this is the right thing to do.

By the way.... Brian... Good Luck, we have been praying for you...