When we were driving back from our vacation in San Diego, after stopping in St. George for a small break to let the kids out to stretch their legs and play. I asked my wife, “So when are we going to move here?”

Her response was incredulous. “Are you serious?! You’ve never said anything about wanting to move to St. George.”

I told her I have always wanted to live in St. George. I brought it up a few times when we were first married but she said she couldn’t live that far away from family.

The problem is that the large majority of jobs matching my skill set are in the big cities. I thought the discussion was pretty much over when it started and I was only about 10% serious anyway – just looking for a reaction. I noticed that Rachel was spending a lot of time staring at her phone though. I asked what she was doing and learned she was looking at properties in St. George!

We then discussed it as a reality. Neither one of use likes the cold weather. We don’t ski or snow board or really do much of anything in the winter. Gracie has struggled to make friends in Alpine which makes us sad so we have wondered if moving to a small town might help. She really loves animals. We talked about possible employment. I could work on getting EnvelopeBudget.com off the ground and making it a full time job for myself. I could also look into finding a job where I could work remotely full-time.

We have even started to pray about it. On our long road trip we also talked about having another child. We thought we were done, but it has been on Rachel’s mind pretty consistently the past few months. 

We went to the Temple on Saturday as part of Ward Temple Day. We said a prayer before we left asking to know whether to we should have another child and whether we should seriously consider moving our family to St. George. I also had a prayer in my heart to know where I stood with God.

While sitting in the chapel we were asked to be the witness couple. That was a sweet tender mercy to me in answer to my prayer. I felt approved toward God. It was also interesting to me that they would choose someone with a beard because I have never seen a witness couple where the male had a beard. But, that is neither here nor there.

While in the temple I could not stop thinking about St. George. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Is this the burning of the bosom? I don’t know. But it certainly isn’t the stupor of thought causing me to forget the thing that is wrong.

Rachel spent much of her time in the temple thinking about having another child. So I feel our family is going to experience some change in the future. How near that change happens is the only question. 

I’m still concerned about employment – especially employment that will cover my insurance needs. Neutron is pretty much the best employer in the state. They have the best insurance coverage. They cover our premiums 100%. I have an excellent salary and excellent benefits. I question whether I really want to leave it is that good.

But I feel a pull now toward southern Utah and if it is right I’m willing to give up such an excellent job.

All that said, this decision has not been without its stressors. As we’ve been looking around we have thought it would be great to build a house. Rachel spent all day looking at properties on Monday. When I got home and she was talking about them to me. She said, “I don’t want to sound like a snot, but I don’t want to move to St. George if I can’t have my own swimming pool.” 

I had a freak out moment. I went silent. She asked, “What’s wrong.”

Rachel knows me well enough to know when something is wrong with me. I explained that part of my desire to move to St. George was to downsize and get a fresh start. I felt buried in our current mortgage. In that moment I forgot our plan to use the equity from the sell of our current house to buy property, rent for a year and then build. I was all of a sudden hearing. “Let’s build now and lets throw in a pool.” That certainly wasn’t the case. We just wanted to have a property big enough so that if we could afford a pool, it would fit on that property. It the heat of our discussion I said I didn’t want to move to St. George anymore if I can’t downsize.

Rachel had her own freak out moment at that point. Sadly, we haven’t talked much since. We have these communication issues off and on.

I don’t know what will happen. I’m sure we will each forgive and move forward as we always do, but this situation has led to my back and neck being in so much pain I can barely move. I want to get back to our open dialog.