After we had gotten turned down by three different lenders, we were feeling pretty discouraged. I fell in love with the most perfect house in Spanish Fork, and found out we didn't qualify for it. It seems silly to me now, but I spent many nights crying about that stupid house. I was heart broken and never wanted to go house hunting again.
Clayton persisted, and I'm glad he did. Our amazing realtor Bob Allphin never gave up on us. He gave a contact at a different lender and suggested we apply for a loan through him. We did so, and with lots of work on our end and his end, he was able to get us qualified for a rural housing loan. This loan must be an inspiration from God. It's seriously the best thing ever. It does not require a down payment or mortgage insurance, and in many instances, the bank or seller will pay most closing costs. The only disadvantage is that we have to buy a house that is considered to be in a "rural" area, which is basically everywhere that is west of Spanish Fork river. This includes Salem, Payson, Santaquin, Benjamin, Lake Shore, Saratoga Springs, and Eagle Mountain.
Blogs are boring without pictures. Here's one. I really like it.
We LOVED the idea of living in a rural area, so we weren't fazed by this rule at all. We spent hours and hours looking at houses in all of these cities. We made an offer on the second most beautiful house we looked at. It was so perfect. I loved the location - it was a corner lot right across from Payson Wal-Mart. It was a beautiful house and in wonderful condition. It was a multi-level house, and even had a chandelier. ;)
Speaking of chandeliers, isn't this one absolutely breathtaking??
Unfortunately, after we put in our offer, we found out a few days later that someone had put in an offer a few days prior to ours and it had already been accepted. Heart broken, again.
We continued to look for houses and made two more offers on houses located in Santaquin. The same exact thing happened to us again on the first house. The second house had multiple offers and decided to accept the highest and best. We put in a reasonable higher offer and crossed our fingers we would get it. This house was seriously beautiful. I was really really really hoping for this one. Yet again, we lost it. Someone made a much higher offer than we did. Such a bummer.
Not only did we lose three houses in a matter of weeks, but we had a major trial that was looming over us. Clayton's job at the summer day camp was shortly coming to an end because it was seasonal and would end at the end of August. His other job would only be able to give him 15 hours a week. We couldn't survive on that, let alone pay a mortgage.
So, we added job hunting to the list among house hunting. And we hunted hard.
Duck!
We decided to expand our house options to Eagle Mountain. We were curious about the town; neither of us had ever really been there and wanted to see what it was like. It was definitely rural, but many of the houses were super cheap for a less money. We found lots that we were interested in and spent all day looking at them. At the end of the day, we had made two offers on houses in Eagle Mountain. We really liked one more than the other, but just wanted to see if we could get it.
Shortly after putting in the offers, and to our astonishment, we found out the bank had accepted our offer on our favorite house. It was quite large and had a finished basement. It had 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and nice floors. It needed some TLC and we weren't crazy about the outside of the house (or our neighbors) and the location was not ideal. We would be commuting to Provo for at least and hour and a half (without traffic) with one car everyday.
We had a big decision to make.
Last night was rough; we talked about the house for hours. We couldn't seem to come to an agreement. This morning we woke up and felt pretty depressed about life. It seemed like everything was going wrong at the same time. Our bank account, our credit card balance, Clayton's fast approaching jobless situation, living in our hot expensive apartment, school beginning in a few days, dirty house, dirty dishes, and not knowing what to do about the house was all part of the mix of depression and despair. Although we were pretty depressed, we managed to laugh at every depressing thing we could come up with. Yeah I know, weird.
So funny.
After the breakfast prayer I felt a little better. I remember hearing a saying that goes like this, "what if you woke up only with the things you thanked God for yesterday?" I've kept that in mind and always try to thank my Heavenly Father for everything he has given me. From what sometimes feels like we have nothing, we really have a lot. We are pretty blessed people.
After a crazy day a work today, I began walking home and noticed two missed calls from Clayton. I called him back, and after catching up on each other's days, Clayton told me he got a call from the guy he interviewed with on Monday. We had assumed he didn't get the job because we didn't hear from him yesterday (which added to our morning woes). But looks like our gratitude paid off because Clayton then proceeded to tell me that
HE GOT THE JOB!!!!!!!!!!!
He got the job! I still can't believe it. Even before he said it, I imagined him telling me he got it. It feels so surreal. We've been job searching for Clayton for what seems like forever. He's been trying to hard and has been getting so discouraged. I knew it would happen, and I can honestly say my faith was stronger than it's been for a long time. I knew we would be blessed because we were doing everything in our power to do the right thing.
This has been such a testimony builder! Everyone always has those wonderful faith experiences in their life that never seem to happen to me. But they have been, I just haven't been recognizing them! If we recognize God's hand in all things, He will bless us!!!
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