Here's The Story of Lovely Family...

I posted the below really long Facebook post that quickly (believe it or not) told our story about how we ended up here in Florida! 

I wanted to tell those of you that were wondering what happened, but needed some space to figure out how to put it into words.   
For a while now, I’ve been having some seriously hard times at work. Being in law enforcement during the last couple of years (and in Portland, OR to make it that much worse) has really taken a toll on most all of us. To be devalued as a human by the people that you swore to serve is a tough pill to swallow. To then be devalued by your elected officials is just as hard, maybe harder, because you realize that without their support, the loud minority, the small opposition, they get away with whatever they desire. If your elected officials don’t support you, criminals run free to do whatever they desire with no consequences, and this makes my already thankless job, even harder.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for sympathy, I’m just telling a story!
It was several months ago (late last year) when I finally hit my breaking point. I was at work and broke down crying…I just lost it and was crying uncontrollably. A few co-workers were there for me to vent to. I felt like we weren’t making a difference anymore. When I became a Deputy 22 years ago, I did it because I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. I wanted to serve and help those that needed it most. I wanted to be the shoulder for the most vulnerable of society to cry on and lean on. This was no longer what we were doing. We were allowing criminals to go free with no repercussions. Our hands had been tied, almost literally. We were releasing bad people from jail. Voters approved the legalization of possession of small amounts of meth, heroin, and cocaine! If someone had told me 22 years ago (heck, 3 years ago) that this would be the world I’d be living in, I wouldn’t have believed it. I certainly wouldn’t have signed up to take this job if I’d had known.
When I got home from work that day I had lost it, I told Kelli about the incident. She simply looked at me and said everything I needed to hear in one short sentence, “ok, it’s time!” We had discussed the option of leaving Oregon a few times since last summer.
But this was it…it really was time! My sanity, my mental health was in danger (what’s left of it).
We now knew that we needed support from one more person. We needed to know if this was really what we were supposed to be doing. So…we prayed for quite a long time, quite a few months, to know where the Lord would want us to make a new home! Kelli got an answer long before I did (even tho it was my idea). I got cold feet and would go back and forth (it’s tough leaving what’s comfortable) until one night we went to the temple and I prayed about it…again. That night I got my answer! We knew we were supposed to leave our home, our friends, and everything we had known and built and worked for. We knew exactly what city and what state we were to go to and from that moment, everything fell into place, just the way He wanted and according to His time.
I cannot ever deny the spiritual moments I’ve had over the past several months. I know for a fact that He has been taking care of us and our needs. I know that He made everything happen exactly when it was supposed to happen. I feel like He’s allowed me to be privy to some of the intelligence that He holds, regarding my earthly life. He’s been gracious enough to allow me to understand some of what He has planned. It was all very sacred to see things fall into place perfectly, even when I was biting my fingernails off and stressing about it all. If you’d ever like to hear about some of these moments I had, I’d be happy to share but I will not do so here because they are sacred to me…plus I don’t wanna make this post any longer.
I am truly grateful for such a caring, thoughtful, and supportive wife. If Kelli hadn’t forced me to do this, I would have, undoubtedly stayed and gotten more miserable. Who knows where that would have potentially led me…I know for a fact that she saved my life!
My brother, Tim made an observation a few months ago that struck me. He said that this was the second time ever, that I’ve left him, and both times were to go to Florida. We’ve been inseparable my whole life. When I was 19 years old, I was called to serve a two year mission for the Lord in Tampa, FL. and now this time. Leaving all of my friends was very painful, but leaving my brother was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. We had the exact same work schedule, so we saw each other ALL the time, and we double dated with Kelli and Angie almost every Friday night. He is my best friend.
Moving further away from my sister, Sarah was also very hard. I am 5 years older than her so most of my childhood was full of her just being the annoying little sister, but we have grown to be very close, and I am grateful for the relationship that we have!
Life is a painful, yet joyful ride! I know we are here to find true joy! It’s an awesome ride, so try hard to enjoy it.
Today I’m happy to post that we finally made it to our new home, after a very long few months!
Deputy MEdson is 10-7.

From this post, I’ve had people ask me to share the spiritual, sacred moments I’ve had in all of this so I decided to put it into text. I wrote for about two hours tonight so I thought I’d share it so you’ll all understand where Kelli and I, especially me, are coming from!

The thing is, it’s long. If you thought my Facebook post was long, this is general conference long but I hope each of you will read it and get out of it what you need.

Here it is:

It all started a few years ago. I was starting to get pretty tired of my job and some of the changes that were taking place in Oregon. I wasn’t very happy, but I could certainly muddle through because I would end up with a really nice retirement with health coverage. I just had to make it to age 56. That was only a little over 10 years away when this started happening. I suffered through a couple of years. There were times that I would cry myself to sleep because I didn’t want to go to work the next day, but that was very rare and could have just been chalked up to it being that time of the month for me. ;-)

Kelli and I would talk about where we wanted to retire to, and it was always St George, UT. I absolutely love that area. It is so beautiful…I still love that place. The landscape and weather is just so awesome, but after a couple of years, we were quickly priced out. Then we would talk about going to different places like Texas or Arizona. I would look at houses, but that was really the end of that. I would just day dream, I guess you could call it. 

Enter Covid…Kate Brown locked us down. I was in the middle of a basketball season as Aubree’s coach, and Spencer was just finishing up his season in Elite (that is the higher end basketball for the youth that are hoping to play in high school). The kids had good friends and lots of opportunities everywhere. That was all taken away with the swipe of a pen and a tyrannical “two week” order so that we could “slow the spread”. I knew back then that it would not be two weeks. I told Kelli and several people that this was being done intentionally and there was a much bigger reason this was happening. Because of this, I said this will last much longer than what they are telling us and to gear up for the long haul. I just wish I had the gumption at that time to do what I knew I would inevitably do. 

Things at work got worse and worse. Obviously we knew what happened to law enforcement, in general, but especially in the Portland area. We know about that because it was on the news. What wasn’t being advertised was that we were letting criminals out of jail by the dozens. We emptied that Clackamas County Jail faster than you could wash your car. I remember just releasing handfuls of inmates all day long until we were down from our normal capacity of about 540 inmates, to about 150. I think at one point, our lowest population was just over 100 inmates housed in the jail. After that, we hovered at about just under 200 every day for two years. The people of Oregon legalized small amounts of meth, heroin, cocaine, and mushrooms. That was one of those moments when I thought that this was the last straw. It’s funny when you think that you have a breaking point, and then you’re able to get past that and move the limbo bar a little lower. 

Last summer we went on our annual, month long Utah trip to visit family and friends. While we were there, Kelli and I were having another one of “those” conversations where I’m looking up houses in other states. I really tended to do this when we were on vacation. That’s probably normal for most people, I imagine. You’re off work for extended time and you start to wonder what it would be like to live somewhere nice, or different. So, I’m looking at Texas again and at houses because my nephew wanted me to consider it. He said if I moved there, then he would too. I looked at houses for a few days but that was it. I randomly brought up Florida as an option. I had served my two year mission there so I knew what it was like year round with the weather, but I had no idea what it would be like, economically, to live there. So, I started doing what I do best…looking at houses in Florida. Something started resonating with me while looking at homes around the Orlando area. I could really feel the Spirit drawing me in, and it was different from the other plethora of times I had looking at houses in other states that I love. I looked at houses in Florida for a few days and couldn’t stop looking. It was consuming my entire day and if I wasn’t looking at houses, I was talking about it with everyone I ran into. Keep in mind that for Kelli, this was not abnormal still. After a few days of looking at houses, I started looking at jobs. One day I told Kelli about all the jobs that I was finding and she said, “Uh oh!” I asked her what that was all about and she said, “well, I tell people that you’re always looking at houses, but I’ll know you’re serious when you start looking for jobs.” I didn’t know that she was talking about me behind my back to my friends and family. Hahaha 

I decided to pray about the option and never really got an answer. I always felt like He was saying to me, “I don’t care where you live, I’ll take care of you no matter what.” 

Kelli and I decided to go ahead and check Florida out. We weren’t sure what to expect. I was looking at the map and, unbeknownst to me, Kelli was also looking at the map and we both ended up having these stirring and really good feelings about the city of Clermont, Florida. But we figured we better get out there and look, in person. 

So, we ended up going in October for 10 awesome days. If nothing else, it was an awesome vacation. We went to every city in and around the Orlando area, but when we went to Clermont it felt like home. Kelli had been disappointed for the first half of the trip because she wasn’t feeling right about any of the cities that we visited. We didn’t get to Clermont until halfway through our trip and it was then that Kelli really had some great revelations from the Spirit telling her that we were supposed to be in Clermont. We found that this area of Clermont had rolling hills and it was beautiful. It turns out to be the highest elevation and it’s just gorgeous. We found out later that this part of Clermont is actually a city called Minneola. We just thought it was Clermont when we were there. 

Before we even left Florida, Kelli knew that we were supposed to move there. BUT now, now I am not feeling it. I don’t know if I was just getting cold feet or what, but I kept telling her that I wasn’t sure. 

One day when I was having doubts and fears and not wanting to leave what’s “comfortable”, Kelli found a talk (I don’t know if it was general conference or even just from a BYU graduation speech) from a general authority who said, “God cannot guide feet that aren’t moving!”

Then she said, “get moving…” 

She said, “if we’re gonna make this move and expect to be blessed and guided, then we have to take that first step!” 

It’s just like when Peter wanted to walk on water with the Savior! Christ wasn’t going to pull him off of the boat. He didn’t reach in and grab him. He didn’t even go to the boat to help Peter get out. What did He do? He called for him using one simple word, “come”. Peter had to make the effort and take that first step. Peter first showed faith in the Savior’s ability to cause him to have the same ability as the Savior. 

So…I started praying hard every night for the “for sure answer” like Kelli had gotten. But I still wasn’t feeling it. We decided to go to the temple and pray and ponder on it there. During the session, I got an overwhelming response from Him that we were supposed to move to Florida and that we needed to be in the Clermont area (we still thought the area we saw was Clermont). 

Now, armed with an answer from God, we got in touch with our realtor that we found while we were there and had her start the long process. We made the tough choice to put our house on the market in Oregon and off we started. Our Oregon home sold in four days for full asking price and went smoother than a baby’s bottom. Finding a house in Florida was a totally different story. The Florida market had really heated up the second half of 2021 and we had no idea. Home prices out there were going up quick and houses were being sold even quicker. We told our realtor that we loved Clermont and she informed us when she realized what area we liked, that it was actually a city called Minneola. It is really a part of Clermont, but technically it is its own city. It would be like having a BeaverCreek address and saying that you live in Oregon City. It’s like the same thing. We expanded our search because we really just knew what ward we wanted to live in. We went to church when we were there in the ward in Clermont so we limited our search of homes to the ward boundaries. Those boundaries included a lot of Clermont and all of Minneola. So, as long as were in there, were good and don’t care. Every house we put an offer on, we’d get outbid. Minneola homes were a little more expensive because of the rolling hills and nicer neighborhoods also, plus there were very few (if any) homes for sale in Minneola at all. 

The first house we put a bid on, we didn’t get it. I prayed to Heavenly Father about it and I heard him tell me, “wait!” I heard it as plain as day as if I were talking to Kelli. I remember I answered back, “wait?” And the reply from Him was, “just wait!” I remember I said, “well, how long?” And I just heard it again, over and over, “Wait!” I told Kelli about this and told her that I didn’t know how long He wanted us to wait, but that’s what He said. Because I didn’t know how long to wait, we kept on putting offers in on homes. Every time we’d offer on a home, we’d lose it and get outbid. We knew that once our house sold, we’d have the cash in hand and we wouldn’t be a contingent offer for others to worry about, so I kept feeling like this is what we were waiting for. But because He never told me, we kept putting in the offers. Each time we’d get outbid, I’d pray and He would say the same thing EACH time, “Wait!” Prices on homes in the area were continuing to go up every week. It was crazy. I thought we were gonna get priced out within a month so I was seriously getting worried. We had an offer on our home in Oregon and now we were gonna have nowhere to live. I was stressed, even though I heard His answer plain as day. One day toward the end of our house closing in Oregon, our Florida realtor says to us, “Well, I’m going to need to know what it is you are willing to give up. If we stay in the price parameters that we have set, you won’t get what you’re looking for so you’ll need to be willing to give some of these things up.” We were making $480k on our home so we wanted to stay below that so that we wouldn’t have a mortgage. This was important because I didn’t have a job in Florida so no bank would give us a loan, not even for $10k. So, our house HAD to be below the $480k. I asked the realtor what the heck was going on and she said that, in Florida there are 20 buyers for every house. This is causing the house prices to get jacked up and things go very fast. This was on a Monday, I think. Then the inflation report came out, literally the next day, and the Fed had to do what they were going to have to do, and they raised interest rates. They made an announcement though, that they were going to raise interest rates more than they ever have in the past 30 years. The markets went crazy that day, stocks crashed and had a horrible day because of the news. Then the next day, Wednesday, my realtor calls again and says, “well, you’re in luck…remember when I told you there were 20 buyers for every home? The new report came out today and it says that there are now only 2 buyers for every home!” This was all due to the rise in interest rates and inevitable rise over the next year in interest rates, and it affected mortgage rates (which went up almost a whole percent that day). For us? This didn’t affect us because we weren’t getting a mortgage so we were still in the game. But now there aren’t any homes on the market either. 

It was that Friday that our home was closing in Oregon too. We’re in trouble, I think.

Friday came and I became the richest homeless person that I ever knew. I had money in the bank, but no home and no prospect of a home. I wasn’t worried, my parents said that we could stay with them if we absolutely needed to. I knew we’d be ok. That same day, a house came on the market that we really wanted to see but our realtor was going on a cruise and couldn’t go show it to us. We looked at the pictures of the home and from the pictures, we loved the home. It checked every box that we had originally had in our original parameters and yes, even in Minneola, and they were asking only $450k. So I asked our realtor if she would call the selling agent and just speak to her and tell her about our situation and that we would love to put in an offer, but we’re not gonna waste time if we’re just setting up for failure. So, our realtor calls the selling agent and verbally offers them $455k. We went $5k over asking to entice them but we were also offering cash and with their choice on how long they want escrow to be. We could do a quick one or a longer one. It didn’t matter. When she called the selling agent, they came back with a counter offer of $465k. I told my realtor, “Wait, what? They are asking $450k, why would they counter when we offer them $5k over asking? That doesn’t even make sense. Like, I’m going to go to the store to buy a pack of gum. The cashier rings it up and says ‘that will be $.95.’ I hand her a dollar bill because that’s what I have and she says, ‘never mind, it’s actually $1.10’. Like, what? That seriously makes no sense.” I told her to call the selling agent back and tell them that our offer was off the table if they were gonna play that game, I’m not playing that game.

The next day our realtor calls us and says that the seller wants to take our offer of $455k. 

So…the day that we sold our home is the day that we bought our home in Florida and all I kept thinking about was Heavenly Father’s ONE word, “Wait.”

Sometimes we don’t get to see the results of the promptings or revelations that we have…and sometimes we actually do. I am ever grateful for moments like these when I do get to see the results of an answer to a prayer in this way. I know that Heavenly Father is looking out for us, and is actually involved in every aspect of our lives. If we will include Him in our lives, He can show us His unending love for us. He wants to be there for us, He wants to be involved, He wants us to have what He needs us to have so that we can better serve our fellow brothers and sisters, and I know that He wants us to be in Minneola, Florida because there are people here for us to serve that nobody else can serve.