2020-09-03 — The Long Journey Back

Good evening, my lovelies! 🙂

I am once again dictating my journal entry tonight on my cell phone as I drive, this time through the deserts of Arizona.

It is currently 9:35 p.m. Pacific time, and I just filled up for gas so that I’m not stretching it trying to get the Flagstaff tonight, which is my intended destination for the evening.

Realistically, I will get there about 12:30 a.m. that will leave me a very long 16-hour drive back tomorrow, not including stops for gas, food, and to work.

Given how long the day looks like it might be tomorrow, I may not get back to Arkansas until Saturday sometime.

I guess we will see how it goes.

Anyway, it’s been a really good day today. I slept in a little bit. I had a great morning prayer during which I felt like I got a bunch of insights into some of the challenges I’m facing in my life today. I had a great little conversation with a friend of mine. Had breakfast with my dad and Cindy, and chatted with them for quite a while.

After that, I had a really inspiring conversation with my friend Brittani. I felt the spirit several times as we talked, and I felt like I got some understanding and direction about what the future holds a little bit in my life, not specifics, but some general understandings that prepare me a little bit for what is coming.

I’m grateful for that experience today.

Cindy helped me a little bit with some family history work trying to find some of my McConnell side ancestors, specifically information about Hiram Whitney and Susan Stanton. It looks like there might be a new person on ancestry.com that potentially could be a good contact for information on that family. However, there’s also a chance that he’s just found the information that I have online. Cross your fingers. Hopefully one of these days soon I will find something to help break through the brick wall we’ve been smacking up against for so long on those particular lines.

Had dinner with Dad and Cindy and chatted a little bit more. Then I left on the long journey back to utah. I stopped off on the side of the road pretty much immediately to try and get tomorrow scheduled at least a little bit for david, so there isn’t a whole bunch that I have to do in the morning.

I’m somewhere in Arizona right now. Not sure exactly where. Still quite a ways from Flagstaff for sure. But on that note,

#1. I’m grateful for air conditioning. It got up to I think 112° at Dad’s house, but we spent the whole day indoors in the air conditioning, so I didn’t notice the heat really at all.

#2. I’m grateful for dry heat. Honestly, even the crazy hot temperatures of overton Nevada feel better to me than the humid heat of arkansas. Perhaps I will feel differently when I get back. I am looking forward a little bit to getting back. It’s been a long time away, and there is a lot that I need to do when I get back. I never would have guessed when I left almost 3 weeks ago that I would be gone for nearly 3 weeks. But it’s been a good trip, and I’m glad that I went.

#3. I’m grateful that thus far, my car is doing okay. I just turned over 199,000 miles a little bit less than an hour ago, and I’ll turn over 200,000 mi if the car makes it all the way back to arkansas.

#4. I’m grateful for the little insights that I felt like I was given today that inspired me and I feel like also prepared me a little bit for what’s coming in the future.

#5. I’m grateful to feel like I’m growing steadily and surely more and more into the man I want to become. I feel like I’m seeing progress each day recently, and I’m grateful. I made the commitment today to, no matter what, get up and do my dailies at the appointed hours, whether or not I got to bed at a decent hour. Unfortunately, that commitment is probably going to have to start on Saturday morning, as I will not fully prepared work tomorrow, and I will have to be working early at 5:30 when my dailies start at 5:30. So, I shot myself in the foot a little bit not getting everything done tonight, but I tried, and it was important to have dinner with Dad and Cindy.

Well my wonderful people, it’s the end of another day. Well… Kind of 🙂. I still have about two and a half hours of driving to do before I get to Flagstaff, but the only thing I will be doing between now and then is pondering and trying to war game through the many things that I’m trying to work on personally in my life. So, unless something crazy happens, there’s not much exciting going on other than hopefully coming to some understandings about some things as I ponder.

Loves and hugs to all of you. 🙂

Lift the world.

~ stephen