So it was like, incredible how Sam found a job after graduation. His friend saw an ad for a management position in a landscaping company that's based in California but has grown a lot so has business in Utah now too, and they were looking for someone who spoke Spanish. Interestingly, his friend really felt like this was for Sam. The Spirit must have told him! So anyway he forwarded it on to Sam, and Sam called the number listed on there. Turned out the woman in Sam's friend's ward who had listed it actually did for her brother, who is the CEO of the company. She just thought she'd plug it in the ward newsletter because she knew her brother was looking for someone to do it: the job hadn't been listed anywhere else.
So anyway she gives Sam her brother's number, and his name is Ralph. Probably one of the nicest guys I'll ever meet, and REALLY has the gift of gab. So Sam had never talked to him before and was only talking to him on the phone, and Ralph did most of the talking anyway, but the guy liked Sam. And the neatest part about this company (to me) is that the guy is LDS, and pretty much everyone who works there is LDS. He uses that to get business: it's called Deseret Landscape for that reason. They do the landscaping for a couple temples down in California, actually. And just good LDS people can associate the business with LDS standards and want to hire them. So anyway I really feel like he was just listening to the Spirit, but he told Sam that he was going to hold the job for him for now, and they'd meet in person that weekend when Ralph was up here in Utah (since he lives in Southern Cali). And he was even like "Bring your wife along, I want her to feel comfortable with this whole thing too." Amazing guy!
So we went to this house that Ralph's in-laws own, but don't live in, in Provo (where Ralph and his family stay when they're here in Utah). And we got to meet him and his wife and the kids still living at home, and then Ralph and Sam kind of went off and did an interview and he hired Sam. Woo hoo! It's not perfect-we're still not quite what you'd call financially stable, mainly because it doesn't have any benefits and is only 25 hours a week. But it's been a wonderful opportunity for Sam nonetheless, and it really has felt like this is exactly where he's supposed to be right now.
So Sam's actual job has not been a labor job, which he's been very grateful for. Instead it's been basically a step above that: he talks to the people in charge at all the businesses and figures out what they want, then makes sure the laborers do that. Basically.
But anyway we weren't sure what we were going to do this winter, because obviously there isn't landscaping to be done in Utah in the winter. Nothing's growing! So I kept feeling like a move was coming, but I didn't know where. I thought either there was a chance we'd be moving down to California (though we hadn't talked about it with his boss at all), or Sam would be finding a different job and we'd be moving to some other state, or something. We even checked out some other places we could live here, but it just didn't feel right to me. I thought we'd be leaving.
Turns out that feeling was correct: the guy who does the same job as Sam but down in California, they had to fire because he turned out to be kind of a crazy man. So they suggested Sam could do his job for the winter, but the cost of living down there is so expensive it didn't seem plausible for us to do it. But then the CFO of the company (the financial guru) is just as amazing as the CEO, and even though she's never met us in person she's been so impressed with Sam in their phone calls and business interactions (partly because she had the crazy guy who was not very nice to her to compare Sam to) that she decided she is going to offer us one of her houses to live in for the winter, for really cheap! Serious. It's insane. She's a very wealthy, very generous woman who owns properties all over the place, but this is still really really extreme and kind of her. But she's LDS too, and she really felt like this is what she's supposed to do right now. So who knows why, but it seems we were meant to move down to Orange County, California for the winter! I'm pumped. :)
That's the biggest news: we'll be driving down that way this weekend, and other than coming back for Christmas will stay until March. There's the potential for us to stay there longer, for Sam to just keep that job after the winter instead of going back to doing the work here in Utah, but only if he were to get a raise since we can only live in her place for that long and otherwise couldn't afford it. Anyway. Crazy.
So other than that, I'm just scrambling to try to finish up the semester (since I'm still in school, remember) and get ready to move down. Next semester I'll take all Independent Study courses. Right now I'm taking Survey of World Religions and Intro to Social Psychology just as normal, on-campus classes, but my Independent Study course is an English course that's kicking my butt. I've gotta really push to be able to pass this one, because I have to be done with everything and have it all turned in by December 14th or I automatically fail. Even if I completed 14/15 assignments and the last one's only worth 8% of the grade, automatic fail. Bah.
