I have discovered lately that I tend to complicate pretty much everything in my life. For example, I have had this ridiculous conversation with myself for a few years now in which I have told myself that I cannot be both a vocalist and a pianist. I have felt that in order to be very accomplished at either of them, I would have to focus in on just piano, or just voice. Why have I put these limitations on myself?

I started off my first semester of college at Utah State University as a double major in piano performance and vocal performance. I thought I should try to stop putting limits on myself and just go with my gut instinct, which was that I should develop all of my talents and just try to learn as much as I can. I had a wonderful experience at Utah State. I loved it there. I learned so much and grew in so many ways. There were several people that told me I was crazy for trying to do both voice and piano and that didn't help my insecurities at all. One person even told me that I would never be able to do what I was hoping to do with both voice and piano, and that really hurt. Why can't I just do what I want to do without other people being upset with me? I am sure that the intentions of these people were good, but do they not think I have thought of these things already? This was the battle I was trying to overcome, and had been trying to overcome since I was very young.

During my time in Logan, I was contacted by a recruiter from Northeastern Illinois University. I had met her and one of the voice faculty members in Chicago a year earlier at a competition I was competing in. She offered me a scholarship to attend Northeastern and was willing to help me with anything I needed. At one point, she even offered to let me and my family stay at her home if we decided to come to Chicago. As wonderful as it all sounded, I was scared. But I knew that I needed to let it be a matter of prayer. I prayed for months, received a priesthood blessing, and had talked to my bishop. I really wanted to do what was right. It became very clear that Chicago was where I needed to be. It might be surprising for some people to find out that there were moments when I did not want to move to Chicago. I was so scared. But I knew that I had to stick with the answer I had received from my Heavenly Father that I was meant to be there.

 Moving to Chicago was the biggest leap of faith I have ever taken in my life. I had just turned 19 a few days before I left Idaho Falls. I had hardly anything in my bank account and knew I would have to pay for rent, food, etc. This was something I had never really had to do before. I lived on campus at Utah State and had a meal plan. But I knew that it would all work out somehow. I knew I needed to be in Chicago and so I just did it. My first apartment was in Rogers Park and I had two roommates. One was a nurse and the other was a student at Northwestern who also attended the same church as me. I was able to connect with her before I moved to Chicago and that really helped. I ended up living there for only a few weeks because a family that I knew in Idaho Falls happened to move to Chicago at the same time. (Isn't that crazy? This is just one of the many miracles that have taken place since I have been here.)  I ended up moving in with them, which worked out great because it was closer to campus for me and rent wasn't as outrageously expensive. Living with this family was such a blessing for me because I was homesick and having some familiar faces to see each day was so helpful. At this same time, I was hired as a pianist at Mariano's. Things were finally starting to make sense. 

I arrived in Chicago on January 2, 2013. On January 13 (the same day my mom left to fly back to Idaho Falls) I attended a CES fireside. It was at this fireside that I met Paul. We were introduced to each other and that was pretty much it. We talked for a little bit and I just remember telling him I had just transferred from Utah State. As I was leaving the fireside my phone vibrated and it was a friend request from Paul. I thought it was a little weird that it was so sudden and thought that maybe he should have just asked me for my phone number instead (he is positive that he did not send the friend request and says that it was most likely the holy ghost). The next morning I noticed he had sent me a message and he had asked me if I wanted to do something the next Saturday. He seemed nice and so I agreed to it. Plus, I thought it would be a good opportunity to make a friend. We went ice skating at Millennium Park and then to dinner at an Italian restaurant called Volare. We continued to see each other every weekend after that. 

In August 2012 I competed in the Miss Idaho Falls pageant. I was first runner up and it turned out that one of the titleholders had decided to give up her title and serve a mission. I was the runner up that would take her place at Miss Idaho in June. I found out that I would be allowed to accept the position in January, but I wanted to think things through because at the time I didn't know if I would be going back to Idaho for the summer and I didn't know if I could prepare for Miss Idaho while I was trying to adjust to my new city life. After talking things through with my parents, they both said they would help me do whatever I needed to do to prepare for Miss Idaho. I was glad to have the support of my parents but I knew I needed to pray to my Father in Heaven to know for sure. In the end, I felt that I needed to focus on adjusting to Chicago and on whatever else Heavenly Father had planned for me. Let me admit, it was hard for me to realize that competing in pageants wasn't what my Heavenly Father had in store for me.

During my first semester at Northeastern, I had changed my major to Vocal Performance (you can't double major with 2 music degrees at Northeastern). I still took piano lessons and attended all of the events that the piano majors did, but on paper I was a vocalist. I was in the musical Sweeney Todd and made a lot of friends. I really enjoyed that semester and I felt like I was learning a lot but I became very frustrated with myself because I was never producing the sounds I wanted to with my voice. In a nutshell, I basically felt like the worst vocalist in the world. My voice changed a lot during that semester. I felt like I could no longer sing high notes and that was really hard for me. After I had received the scholarship to attend Northeastern, I thought that Heavenly Father was basically telling me that all of my musical dreams were going to come true. I thought that this was my chance to really become the musician I have always wanted to be. Ever since I was in elementary school I had dreamed of going to a big city and studying music and eventually receiving admission to Juilliard. Go ahead and laugh if you want. This is me being very honest. 

Paul and I continued dating, and early on it became very clear that things were working out. We talked all the time and went on dates every weekend. I started wondering if he was the one I was to marry. At first I was confused. Why had Heavenly Father sent me to Chicago? Was it to begin my musical career, or was it to get married? It didn't make a lot of sense to me. I spent a lot of time just thinking about it all and praying. I poured my heart out to my Father in Heaven and desperately wanted to know what was happening. I read in my scriptures everyday for hours. I listened to conference talks. I tried to make sense of it all and sought the advice of my parents, and other people I trusted. One day, I was writing in my journal and I realized that my heart had been set on the wrong things, and I that my heart needed to change and focus on Celestial dreams rather than earthly dreams. It was at that moment I remembered a conference I had attended in Rexburg at BYU-Idaho a few years earlier. It was there that I heard the story of Ruth Funk. Here is her story written by Jeane Woolfenden in 1977:

"Sunday dinner was over in the Salt Lake avenue home. The fast had been prayerfully broken, and Ruth was in the kitchen with her mother. Washing dishes for the family was a daily task for her since her three brothers weren’t old enough to be of any real help. Besides, she really enjoyed that private time with her mother. But tonight was special. Brother Tracy Y. Cannon, one of the Church’s most outstanding musicians, had come to dinner. He and her father, T. Fred Hardy, were in the living room—discussing Ruth.

It was about her possible career in music. By the time she was 12, she had already demonstrated an unusual talent and desire to be a musician. She would often get up at 4:00 A.M. and sit for hours at the piano. Her difficulty was stopping, not starting, her practicing. She disliked scales but knew they were vital to her skill, so she invented a way to add interest to her practice: she would pick a book she wanted to read and set it where the piano music should have rested. While reading, she would run through all her exercises with proficiency.

Brother Cannon knew of Ruth’s skill and promise, and of course, her family was aware of the potential in their daughter. But it wasn’t until Leopold Godowsky (one of the world’s greatest pianists) heard her play and strongly recommended that she be sent to the best schools to pursue a career in music that any real consideration was given to special training for Ruth.

The final decision was her father’s. Her mother had offered the prayer as the purposeful fast was ended. Ruth had been consulted and talked with in depth, and Brother Cannon had been asked to share his concern and deep experience. Ruth very trustingly and willingly submitted to her father’s decision: No—the life of devotion to music was not the Lord’s plan for her.

From then on, music took a new focus in her life—it was never lost, only redirected. And the experience she had with her kind and caring father proved to be a foreshadow of many events to be guided by the hand of the Lord and directed through the priesthood bearers in her life.

Today Sister Ruth Hardy Funk is the President of the Young Women of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with nearly 225,000 young women between the ages of 12 and 18 throughout the world influenced by her leadership."

I remember hearing this story for the first time and will never forget it. Her story touches me deeply and I am grateful for her example to me and her everlasting faith. I knew after thinking of her story again and again that I needed to really  listen to Heavenly Father and do what He wanted me to do. Paul is a wonderful man. I knew it from the beginning, but I was scared that marriage would mean that I wouldn't be able to achieve my dreams. To be truthful, I can't really even put into words what I felt at the time or what I even feel now. This whole event was so miraculous and confusing at the same time that I'm completely speechless. 

While living in Chicago, I was stopped one day while playing at Mariano's by a woman who was looking to hire a pianist to accompany her. I gave her my card and we ended up connecting via email and scheduling our first rehearsal together. At our first rehearsal, she gave me the music to a piece I had never heard before - "Meadowlark" by Stephen Schwartz. Have you ever heard a song and thought that it was completely written for you? This is what happened to me that day. It described exactly how I was feeling about this dilemma between marriage/music/moving to Chicago/pageants, etc. Here are the lyrics:

When I was a girl, I had a favourite story
Of the meadowlark who lived where the rivers wind
Her voice could match the angels' in its glory,
But she was blind,
The lark was blind.

An old king came and took her to his palace,
Where the walls were burnished bronze and golden braid,
And he fed her fruit and nuts from an ivory chalice and he prayed

"Sing for me, my meadowlark
Sing for me of the silver morning.
Set me free, my meadowlark
And I'll buy you a priceless jewel,
And cloth of brocade and crewel,
And I'll love you for life if you will
Sing for me."

Then one day as the lark sang by the water
The god of the sun heard her in his flight
And her singing moved him so, he came and brought her
The gift of sight,
He gave her sight.
And she opened her eyes to the shimmer and the splendor
Of this beautiful young god, so proud and strong
And he called to the lark in a voice both rough and tender,
"Come along,

Fly with me, my meadowlark,
Fly with me on the silver morning.
Past the sea where the dolphins bark,
We will dance on the coral beaches,
Make a feast of the plums and peaches,
Just as far as your vision reaches,
Fly with me."

But the meadowlark said no,
For the old king loved her so,
She couldn't bear to wound his pride.
So the sun god flew away and when the king came down that day,
He found his meadowlark had died.
Every time I heard that part I cried.

And now I stand here, starry-eyed and stormy.
Oh, just when I thought my heart was finally numb,
A beautiful young man appears before me
Singing "Come
Oh, won't you come?"
And what can I do if finally for the first time
The one I'm burning for returns the glow?
If love has come at last it's picked the worst time
Still I know
I've got to go.

Fly away, meadowlark.
Fly away in the silver morning.
If I stay, I'll grow to curse the dark,
So it's off where the days won't bind me.
I know I leave wounds behind me,
But I won't let tomorrow find me
Back this way.

Before my past once again can blind me,
Fly away.

And we won't wait to say goodbye,
My beautiful young man and I.

I'm the type of person who listens to the same song on repeat for several days, weeks, even months. This is what happened with this song. I knew that I needed to marry Paul. I felt so strongly about it. I love him. He is so kind. He treats me so well and is so patient with me. He has a testimony of Christ. He is smart. He is a nerd (I always wanted to marry one!!). He would rent a car every time we had a date so I wouldn't have to take the train home. He opens doors for me. He cooks me dinner when I don't want to. He supports me in my musical dreams. He would do anything for me. 

I can't really explain any of this because I haven't completely figured it out myself. I have thought long and hard about why I would move to Chicago and then get married so suddenly. I honestly can't explain it. I really can't. All I know is that I had to take a leap of faith and in the end it was worth it. I believe that Heavenly Father was really looking out for me. I believe that life doesn't always work out the way you think it will - and it's for the best. I believe that we have to be patient with ourselves. I believe that there is a plan for all of us and we have to be willing to trust the Lord. I am amazed by how much Heavenly Father is in my life. There are so many things that have happened to me that I can't write them all here. There are so many details in this story that I can't even wrap my mind around how crazy it all is. 

These past few years have been a mixture of so many emotions. I never thought I would be married at 19. I never thought I would live in Chicago. I never thought I would go to The University of Idaho. Even still, all of these unexpected events are what have brought me the most understanding of who I really am and what my goals truly are. I believe I was meant to be in each place for specific reasons. I learned a lot in Logan, Chicago, and Moscow. I made great friends. I discovered so many things. I met my husband. I learned that music will always be there for me. I know that God is aware of me. I have learned to be okay with my imperfections. I have learned about acceptance - acceptance of all things - who I am, where I am, and what I am becoming.