Dear Sister Elgaaen,
Wow this feels so funny calling you the same thing as I call Ann, but its both of y'all's title haha. I know I just emailed you but I'm sorry I have to send you another one. I was driving and felt the need to tell you about how I met Ann. You can share this with the whole family, it doesn't matter to me. :) This goes a little back. My life has been a strange one for sure. I was originally baptized into the church in May of 2017, a couple of weeks before I graduated high school. I went to college in August of 17 and I met what would turn out to be my best friend, Mikayla. I was granted many scholarships to college but I had a really hard time my first semester, during that time I had gotten into a bad wreck and became really depressed, so I was far from home and unmotivated. I was not active in church much. My second semester I had lost some scholarships and had to take out some student loans. After May of 18 I didn't want to go back to school. I moved in with my friend MiKayla and her family because I had no where to go. Her family was very worldly and I had started going back to church. I met someone online through FamilySearch and move to Utah in with her August 2018. I had the worst 9 days of my life and I moved back to Texas, Fort Worth, TX with Mikayla. I LOVE Forth Worth soooo much and North Texas. If I was going to live in Texas it was going to be North Texas. A month passes and Mikayla found out she was pregnant. I lived with them until Jan on 2019. In January I went back to school on student loans, on the weekends I went back to Fort Worth and worked on the weekends, staying at my room at Mikayla's house. So it gets around May and she was about to have her baby. My room at their house got turned into the baby's room, which meant the second my semester was up I was going to be kicked out of my dorm and be homeless again. I didn't have much money saved up since I had to use my checks for bills and food. I asked everyone in my classes if they had a room for rent. A friend of a friend had a room for rent in Galveston, TX. Without her telling me anything about her house or family, I jumped on the offer. A week later I had moved to Galveston, TX. I was so heart broken. I DID NOT want to move 5 hours away from my best friend, to a new place that I've never been before. I moved here and worked. I thought Mikayla's family was bad, haha I had never met the Hansons before. I lived in HOT Galveston with no AC working 60 hours a week. I was extremely lonely. I really didn't enjoy life at this time. I was SO mad that I had to move here. I was mad that my friend got pregnant. After a couple of months I was crying at one of my jobs and a girl asked me what was wrong. I told her my living situation and she offered me to rent a room from her and her boyfriend. On September 13th I had the Spirit tell me that I needed to go back to the Church. I learned from the Galveston Sisters until I moved to La Marque, TX (which is about 15 mins from Texas City). I moved the 23rd of September to the new area. I was supposed to go to Boston that weekend, but I canceled my trip because I wanted to go to church instead (Sister Elgaaen and Lewis don't know about that) and was never refunded because I didn't buy the protection plans. I had called the Brach President's wife on accident (thinking it was the Sisters) and she gave me their #. I had called them that week and went to church that Sunday (Sept 29) with them and its gone from there. I haven't missed church since the Spirit told me to go back (sept 15-now). I had reached out to the Sisters to re-teach me. I've spent time with them multiple times a week since that last week in September. This is the story for how I met Ann. I see now that Heavenly Father sent me to Galveston so that I could return to church and meet her and everyone else. I don't think I would have rejoined if I had remained in Fort Worth living with Mikayla. Heavenly Father had to separate me from everyone telling me not to go back and those negative environments that I was living in so that I could be where I am today. Now, Im not exactly thrilled to be living in the Houston area, but I'm soooo blessed that all this happened! I'm so blessed. I was brought very low and Heavenly Father used those lows to lift me higher and show me the way back. I know that Heavenly Father has a unique plan for all of us, that He loves us, the Joseph Smith Jr was a prophet, that the Book of Mormon is true, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is His restored church. I type/say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Thank you so much for for everything!!
LoveRachel
