a Miraculous Month.

The Miraculous Month: A month in review, one for the history books. The Bryan and Sarah Graden Family History books. :) It was about one month ago, September 18, 2016 that we felt inspired to tell the kids about our upcoming move to Cedar City, UT. The day before we had met with Lana Miller, our realtor who had helped us purchase our home here in Normal, IL. We had had an important discussion about the timing of getting our house ready to sell and listing it.

At this point, my application was still outstanding at Southern Utah University (SUU). The job ad would close on Friday, September 30, at which point the Department would look through their list of candidates and start the sifting process. We didn't know for certain if we would have an interview, let alone a job offer, but we had had significant spiritual impressions that it would all happen.

So, on Sunday afternoon on Sept. 18th, we gathered you kiddos around. Mom had the idea of talking about it in terms of a mission call, so she wrote up a quick letter and put it in an envelope for us to open--like opening up a real mission call. We recorded the opening of the mission call.

Now, to document what has happened since telling you that the Lord called us on a mission to Cedar City, UT. As a brief aside, I remember receiving a transfer call while serving a mission in Berlin, Germany. I was actually in the city of Rostock, Germany up in the north on the Baltic Sea. The call was to go back to Prenzlau, my first assignment when arriving in country in October or 2002. I remember how excited I was to be going back, and I remember being on the train traveling back to Prenzlau and writing down thoughts of inspiration that came as I dedicated my heart to serving again in this area that I loved. As we move forward towards Cedar City, I hope to do the same thing--pay attention to the Holy Ghost and the promptings I receive about things to do, people to meet, experiences to create while living there.

Since our conversation with you kiddos, so much has happened! We continued to work on decluttering and getting our yard and home in order for getting our house listed. Later that week, just five days after telling you of our new mission call, SUU unexpectedly called me and invited me for a campus interview! They invited before the job ad even closed (though I wouldn't be interviewing until after the close of the job ad for legal reasons)! Mom and I had expected that we would receive a call in the first week of October, but here we were, 10 days prior, and SUU wanted me to come out as soon as possible! God is all-knowing--he had already planted in our hearts the thought to arrange the babysitting for a campus visit enabling Mom to come with me. When we got the phone call, we were able to make arrangements within just a few days so Mom and I could both travel to Cedar City to see the area, meet the faculty, and look for homes. Ironically, the phone call from David Christensen, the chair of the faculty search committee at SUU, came in between phone interviews that I was helping with as part of my duties on the ISU search committee (I literally was on both sides of the job table--the hiring side at ISU and the application side for SUU). It was just nine days later that Mom and I would be on a plane flying to Cedar City. Wow.

Interestingly, that day, Friday, September 23, Bompa and Meme flew into the Bloomington-Normal airport for a visit. The timing was absolutely critical. We were able to have them present to counsel with regarding the job interview, about contract negotiations (negotiating on salary and moving expenses), and about looking for homes. We spent some of our quiet evening time (after the kids went down) looking at homes on Zillow and looking into the area. Another crucial aspect of the timing of their visit was Bompa spending two full days doing painting touch-up work to repair dings and dents in our walls to help beautify our home in preparation for selling it.

Bompa left on Wednesday the 28th and Meme stayed several more days. Another interesting thing that happened while Mom was here was that one evening, instead of preparing for my interview, I had the thought to spend time working on our finances. I was able to take our current budgets and adjust them for the salary I anticipated earning at SUU (lower than here at ISU). After several hours and some calculations (including income taxes), I was able to come up with a relatively clear picture of what our financial situation would look like there including an approximate budget for our house.

Bompa and Meme's visit was so helpful and such good timing. Amazingly, Meme left on Saturday during the morning session of General Conference, and Mom and I left for Cedar City the next day after the last session of conference.

In a nutshell, Mom and I fell in love with Cedar City, SUU, and the Accounting faculty. We had a dinner on Monday night with all the faculty and their spouses (except for the Dept. Chair, Robin Boneck), and it just felt like being with family.

The interview went fantastically well, I loved the faculty and the beautiful campus surrounded by mountains, and just really enjoyed the visit.

Mom had been driving around with our realtor, Brett Taylor, all day while I had been interviewing, and by the end of the day, we had not found a house we were excited about. However, on the flight home, we started talking about one of the homes we had visited with Brett's dad on Monday afternoon before the faculty dinner. As we started talking about it, we had a crucial conversation that set our minds on putting in an offer on that house--it was the right size, in a location we liked, and was around the right price (even though the house was not everything we wanted). In the end, we felt like this was the house God wanted for us. That night after getting home on Wednesday, October 5th, Brett did a video walkthrough of the house.

It took us several days to talk through the offer with Brett (how much to offer, what contingencies to put in the contract, etc.), so the offer went out this past Tuesday, October 11.

In the meantime, I had received a phone call on Monday morning from Dean Carl Templin from SUU offering me a job there ("How would you like to come work for SUU?"). In the midst of getting the offer in on the house, I was sifting through moving companies trying to come up with moving quotes to help negotiate moving expenses for our fast-approaching move.

A brief aside about the job offer--SUU pays lower than other institutions. Normally, I would have felt some trepidation about this compounded by the fact that Carl was known to be a tough negotiator and historically offered faculty lower salaries. I had been praying that we would have sufficient for our family's needs. I actually had the thought just at the end of the interview on Tuesday the 4th that I would potentially have to reject a job offer if the pay was too low. I was completely surprised when the Dean offered me all the money he had available. That was miraculous.

Back to moving expenses--I ended up leaving work early on Monday to do a video walk-through/inventory of the house and our belongings with a moving company whose general manager has family living in Cedar City--I can't tell you how many Cedar City connections we've made since we applied for the job.

So Tuesday the 11th we put in the offer on the house that would expire on Wednesday. Wednesday morning, I called Carl at SUU, negotiated moving expenses based on the estimates I received, then later that night, we heard back about house. Turns out the sellers of the house received two offers on the same day, so we ended up submitting our "highest and best" offer.

All the while this week, we were doing more organizing, more cleaning, more trimming of bushes, patching holes in walls, doing touch-up painting, etc. Wow, it makes me tired just thinking about it! Oh, and to back up to Wednesday, the 12th again. Originally, we had scheduled two women to clean the house for the week of October 17th. We had had an impression to get the cleaning (as well as carpet cleaning) moved up a week earlier. It turned out to be providential (again). We wanted to get the house listed and ready for an open house on Saturday, October 22. We thought our realtor would be able to come into the house, snap some pictures, and just hold the open house on the same day. Turns out, she needs several days to advertise for an open house, so she needed the house to be ready a week earlier on Saturday, October 15th. Moving the carpet and house cleaning up one week ended up being perfect timing so the house was ready to go.

So cleaning was done Wednesday, then we had to figure out the offer on the house. Thursday the 13th was a busy day--I was gone at school teaching all day and had received an unexpected email that I was to introduce myself to the cohort of corporate MBA students I will be teaching a condensed cost accounting course to in November the next day. Amidst all of this and trying to figure out what to do about the house, Mom and I were somewhat stressed. You poor kiddos had been SO SO patient all week long with all the cleaning, boxing up, organizing, etc. You all went to bed actually early that night--a big blessing because I was emotionally spent. Mom and I ended up down in our quiet sitting room taking a nap and listening to some uplifting messages. We had a really important conversation and change of heart.

When we had received news of the sellers receiving multiple offers, we resisted somewhat and weren't sure how to proceed. Mom prayed, and her prayer invited a spirit of love and compassion that was very powerful. Instead of talking through doing nothing with the offer, we were actually thinking about our situation and theirs, that we were both trying to get out of our homes with enough sales price to cover our costs, etc. That spirit of compassion filled us and changed the way we thought about the offer. We had some good conversations that night (including a conversations with Brett) while I repainted two walls in our laundry room late that night. Mom had had a thought about the price of the home, and we went to bed knowing we would talk to our realtor in the morning.

The next morning, Mom and I got on the phone with Brett and were able to talk through a revised offer that we had signed and sent to the sellers.

That evening, Sar had scheduled Olivia Ross, our trusted babysitter, to watch the kids and we had Kathryn Kimball (with Jakson and Chase) come in their truck and Andy Goodwin (with Chase and Carson) come to help us move a load of boxes and items from our garage to a storage unit. The kids all helped so willingly and energetically, and within about 20 minutes, we all the boxes loaded between the truck and our emptied-out van. We were able to drop those items off, come home, have some pizza, and then head out on a short date. It was that night that we had some back and forth on the home where the sellers came back with the price they would accept. We chose to send in our acceptance of that price--the very price that Mom had thought of a day earlier.

Yesterday morning, October 15th, we were able to get up and going, put final boxes away, do final sorting, etc. just in time for our realtor here, Lana Miller, to come over to take pictures of the house.

To bring it back to where I started, I hope you get a sense for the incredible miracles the Lord has wrought on our behalf. He has been in so many of the details and has moved along the whole process weeks faster than we even thought possible. Think of this: we listed our house to sell just three days after accepting a job offer! Under normal circumstances, three days would never have been sufficient. However, the Lord knew our circumstances and planted thoughts in our hearts and sent angels our way (including Bompa and Meme) to provide the way. We had already been working for almost six weeks on the preparations for the home even without knowing for certain that we even had a job. We had the assurance of the Holy Ghost, and that was enough for us. God moves in mysterious ways to perform His wonders. He is the Master of heaven and earth. All things are in His power. As we stay close to Him, He will guide us from day to day, hour by hour, back to His presence.

It truly has been a month of miracles, the Miraculous Month going from waiting for a job interview to having a job offer, house under contract in Utah, and house for sale here in Normal. God is indeed a God of miracles.