Tag Archives: Miracles

Architecture, Family Life, Photography, Temples, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Rexburg Idaho Temple at Sunrise

January 7, 2014 Hubbard's Cupboard 9 Comments

This is a picture of the Rexburg Idaho Temple at sunrise taken on Thanksgiving morning 2013. One unique thing about this temple is that there is a big wheat filled in front of it. There is also a bunch of wheat in the temple garden and wheat carvings in the architecture. Wheat is a symbolizes the righteous people being gathered together in the Parable of the Tares in the New Testament.

I haven’t felt like blogging the last couple of days because I lost about 300 gb of data while I was backing up my pictures. I accidentally unplug my 1TB hard drive during a massive data transfer. When I plugged it back in the computer went ahead and tried to fix the corrupted files but instead half of my pictures/videos disappeared. I was emotionally distraught for a few hours before I could stop moping about it but actually do something about it (I need to get over my picture addiction… haha!). Over the last week I’ve been able to recover around 15,000 files after consulting with my family and friends. I also read lots of online forums. A lot of the files I found were corrupted but I’m grateful for the ones I did find. This experience has been a blessing in disguise. First, because I did have a back-up of most of the pictures so I didn’t loose too many… just about 4 months worth of pictures. Second, I got to use the skills I learned studying computer science in school about data storage and data deletion. Third, I learned NEVER to use ctrl-x for video or picture transfer. Fourth, it made me more humble and also grateful that only half the files disappeared and not all the files. Fifth, I am never letting that happen again!! I’m so grateful I found so many files but it is going to take days to organize the files and check for duplicates. It would have been much easier if this never happened but of course, life doesn’t always work that way. God does want us to learn from our mistakes.

I was able to recover pictures I took back in November when our family took a trip up to BYU-I in Rexbug, Idaho for Thanksgiving. I prayed hard that I would find these temple pictures because I knew I only had one copy of them. I felt confident that I would find this folder but all the methods of data recover I tried didn’t work or the files I did find were corrupted. I guess my faith was tested.

Finally, last night I found these files while searching through ~121,000 possible deleted files using Recuva.

What a big blessing! I know Heavenly Father answered my prayer. He really didn’t have to but I know God is very merciful and full of grace if we are willing to pray to Him and have faith.

What blessings have you seen in your life lately?

Family Life, Ireland, Landscape, Photography, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Travel

Ireland Miracle #3

December 5, 2013 Hubbard's Cupboard Leave a comment

Sorry I realize that I never finished my Ireland miracles. I’ll just schedule these stories in once in a while. Better late than never right?

For the first month in Ireland, we solely relied on public transportation which was mainly double decker busses and the Dart which is a fast train. Dallin studied at the University College Dublin and we lived in Dun Laoghaire. It was about 45 minutes by bus but only a 15 minute drive. The bus system was fantastic and there really wasn’t much to complain about except for the fact that Dallin took 1.5 to 2 hours or more commuting everyday depending on traffic.

We felt like the Spirit was telling us we should buy a car. We researched it out and miraculously found an old Nissan Almera (aka Nissan Centra in the USA) for 1000 euros. We registered it and bought insurance from Liberty Mutual Insurance which was the cheapest insurance we found. Buying a car was easier than we thought it would be and it eventually ended up saving us money even though the gas tax in Ireland is like 50%.

Driving in Dublin, Ireland is super fun… well kinda. So you drive on the left hand side of the road and the roads are very narrow. Parking is pretty much just parallel parking. You have to get really good at parallel parking. You can use your native driver license for one year before you need to get an Irish license.

We took this old cheap car to every shore of Ireland and Northern Ireland. We drove this car from Dublin to Giants Cosway in Northern Ireland. Then to Cork, Cliffs of Moher, Dingle and the Ring of Kerry. Fortunately the only problem we had with the car was the windshield wipers and a mechanic in Cork fixed it for 10 euro.

On one of our last adventures in Ireland, we were driving to the Blarney Castle in Cork. A local guy rear ended our car and made a dent in the back bumper. The insurance company said that the car was totaled. They let us keep the dented car and gave us 1000 Euro. So in essence we got this car for free. This is what the bumper looked like and if you look around on the streets of Ireland…everyone has the same dent in their car because the roads are so narrow!

We thought purchasing this car was a tender mercy of the Lord. We drove this car everywhere. We drove it to church and drove the Dublin area missionaries to their visits. Dallin used this car to go home teaching and we used this car to drive to the hospital when we had the baby. We ended up giving the car away to a friend and then he was able to use the car for a few weeks while his car was broken. After that he ended up selling it for 200 euro. We thought we got our money’s worth out of that car. What a blessing!

Writing about Ireland again brings tears to my eyes because I miss Ireland so much!

Child #2: Quentin, Family, Family Life, Ireland, Photography, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Travel

Ireland Miracle #2

September 11, 2013 Hubbard's Cupboard 4 Comments

Now that we’ve had some time to ponder about our time in Ireland. I’m going to do a series of stories about miracles that happened on our adventure in Ireland. We feel like our trip to Ireland was one big miracle made up of a bunch of small miracles. The first miracle I blogged about happened within hours of our arrival in Ireland. You can read it here.

This post is about one of the final miracles that happened in Ireland and I’ll fill in the rest later. I felt like it was a miracle to have little Quentin in Ireland. He has been our favorite and best souvenir. You can see his newborn pictures here.

We initially didn’t plan on having the baby in Ireland. We thought we would just fly home during my last month of pregnancy…. but Irish airlines wouldn’t let pregnant women fly internationally after 28 weeks. That was a problem. Dallin wasn’t finish with his research assignment in Ireland when I was 28 weeks pregnant so we decided to stay. We changed our airplane tickets to July 25 which is one month after the guess “birthday” of the new baby. We thought since my first baby was 2 weeks early that it wouldn’t be a problem to fly home on July 25. Well, things didn’t go as plan and the baby didn’t arrive until July 4th which is 9 days after my “due date”.

At first we didn’t realize how much paper work and processing time it was going to take to get the baby home to the USA:

First we needed to get an Irish birth certificate (processing time 4 to 6 weeks)
Then we needed to schedule an interview with the US embassy (booking 4 weeks in advance)
We needed to take the Irish birth certificate to the US embassy interview to get a US birth certificate abroad and a US passport (processing time 6 weeks)
Lastly, we had to wait for the passport to come in the mail

The total estimated time to get the baby’s passport was 10 weeks after birthday which would’ve put us to Sept 12th! We didn’t want to pay more money to change our flights and we really wanted to get back to Utah. So we prayed and I got a priesthood blessing. My husband and I both felt at peace that the Lord’s timing is always right.

We acted on faith after the baby finally arrived. We miraculous got an US embassy interview for July 11 (14 days before our flight date) but we still needed an Irish birth certificate. So we called and requested an emergency Irish birth certificate. The hospital faxed our information over to the government offices instead of waiting for the information to process in the system. We managed to get a copy of the baby’s Irish birth certificate on July 8th. We went to the interview and told the people at the US embassy that we want to fly on July 25 so they marked our application as “urgent” but they didn’t guarantee that it would happen by then. Our faith was indeed tested while we waited for the passport to arrive in the mail. I checked the mail everyday hoping that the passport have come.

I was in distress because we needed to change our flights at least 24 hours in advance! Well to make the story short, the passport arrived within 48 hours of our flight and we flew home on July 25th when our baby was shy of 3 weeks old.

Yep we made it home with a toddler and a newborn infant alive. How in the world did I just give birth and get on a plane to move our family across the ocean? I have no idea except that I felt the grace of God helping us every step of the way.

Well that’s it for now. We have many more miracles to post about!

Family Life, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Living a life guided by revelation

April 19, 2013 Hubbard's Cupboard 6 Comments

Today marks five years since I got baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was one of the most difficult but life changing decisions I have ever made. I was never a religious person. My family wasn’t religious either. I didn’t know if there was a God nor did I care to find out. Whenever I saw missionaries I would run and hide behind the couch. I was an epitome of the “disappointing investigator”.

Growing up in Utah, most of my friends were “Mormons“. They invited me to church, activities, dances and camps. The social part of church was fun and all but I was never interested in learning religion. Most of my friends tried once or twice to teach me the gospel but usually left me alone after I told them I wasn’t interested. Some of them were more persistant than others. 🙂

Yet, like most people I went through a series of hard times in my life. I was plain miserable and depressed. No matter how hard I try to pick myself up, I felt hopeless and my life was falling apart.

I could go on with details of my conversion but the details don’t matter as much as how it happened. Eventually after years and years of people inviting me to read the Book of Mormon, I was finally ready and willing to read the book. Along with reading the Book of Mormon, I started to pray everyday to ask God if He exist and if the Book of Mormon is true.

It was March of 2008 when I started reading the Book of Mormon and I got baptized on April 19, 2008. I didn’t know very much doctrine and I didn’t have a sure knowledge of God when I got baptized. I just knew that I felt the Holy Ghost a few distinct instances during the time I was truly investigating the Church. However, the feelings always left me and I had to act on pure faith. It was not an easy decision! I felt very criticized and doubtful at times but that just lead me back to my knees to pray to ask God again. On my baptism day, I felt dark and lonely but all the darkness went away when I made it to my baptism and received the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Now after five years, I can truly say that I know without a doubt that God lives and that He does answer prayers. I know without a doubt that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church on the earth and is lead by apostles and prophets that are called by God. I also know that Jesus Christ is the foundation of this Church. I know all this because I have lived the last five years of my life being guided by revelation from God through the gift of the Holy Ghost.

My Original Plans

Graduate from high school, go to the University of Utah
Graduate in 4 years in Electrical Engineering
Get a nice job and make lots of money
Get a MBA and be promoted
Become successful!
And hopefully get married sometime around 30 if the right guy comes
And may be have kids sometime

God’s Plans for Me

2008 – Get baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints

2008 – Move to Logan, go to Utah State University on a scholarship and meet lots of new friends. Attend church, institute, read scriptures and pray everyday, be part of lots of clubs, and here have the best roommates in the world!

2008 – Grow spiritually so here are some callings: Family Home Evening Mom, Primary Teacher, Ward Missionary, Bulletin Board Specialist

2009 – Meet Dallin, your future husband

2009 – Be an EFY counselor

2010 – Get engaged, go to the temple and get married in the temple

2010 – Transfer to the University of Utah and study Computer Science

2010 – Live in the University Village and meet lots of happy families.

2010 – Have some more church callings: Relief Society Presidency, Stake Primary Presidency and Ward Missionary

2011- Have a baby and name him Micah!

2012 – Graduate from college and be a full time mom

2013 – Take your family to Ireland and serve in the Bray Branch.

Has my life been easy the last five years? No. I still have lots of trials and problems. Were the decisions I’ve made easy? Not really. But has it been worth it? Most definitely! I know by experience that because the atonement of Jesus Christ my burdens can be made light. Living a life following God’s plan is not always the easiest but it has definitely been full of joy, blessings, fulfillment, and miracles.

Can you believe what I would’ve missed out on if I never decided to get baptized five years ago?! I would not be the person I am today or have my family or be in Ireland for that matter. I would be completely lost in my own world.

I love the quote by Presiden Hinkley that says “When you save a girl, you save generations.” It’s so true!!