When Jeannie was 5 years old, her dad drove her to the salt flats and left her there alone in the middle of the night.
Little did she know that this was just the beginning of the incredibly difficult trials and challenges she would face in her life.
But God had a plan for her, and while it would take many years, she was finally able to discover the gospel and realize her true worth. Now in her 60's Jeannie spends her time giving children hope and comfort with her charity Forever Hugs, where she provides teddy bears to kids in hospitals.
*** Please SHARE Jeannie's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/qaY3bzEeC3E
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Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.
When Jeannie was 5 years old, her dad drove her to the salt flats and left her there alone in the middle of the night.
Little did she know that this was just the beginning of the incredibly difficult trials and challenges she would face in her life.
But God had a plan for her, and while it would take many years, she was finally able to discover the gospel and realize her true worth. Now in her 60's Jeannie spends her time giving children hope and comfort with her charity Forever Hugs, where she provides teddy bears to kids in hospitals.
*** Please SHARE Jeannie's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/qaY3bzEeC3E
-----
Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.
Hi everyone, I'm Scott Branley.
Speaker 2:And I'm Alicia Coakley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth and inspire others.
Speaker 1:On today's episode, we're going to hear how a traumatic past and an unexpected suicide led one woman to discovering a brighter future and a life of forever hugs, welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Latter-day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us today and we're really excited to introduce our guest, jeanie Bernard. Jeanie, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3:I'm doing really good. Thank you, it's nice to meet the show of you.
Speaker 2:I know it's really nice to officially meet you.
Speaker 2:We are so excited because Jeanie is actually a referral from one of our previous favorite guests ever, ms Emily Hemmert. Emily reached out and she was like you have to meet Jeanie, you have to hear her story, you have to have to have to. So we did and we love it and Emily was 100% right, as usual. So we just want to say thank you so much for coming on here. I know this is not easy for you because you haven't gone out and done a whole bunch of firesides or speeches or written a book. This is one of your first. Is this right? Is this your first official time sharing it publicly? I've done a speech at church.
Speaker 3:You've done one Okay.
Speaker 1:So, you've done like a talk at church. Yes, wow, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, I promise you didn't have as much time at church as what you have on this podcast today. Yeah, yeah, I think you're going to do great, and so we're so happy to have you come on here and to be open and vulnerable and to share your story. But before we get into that, jeanie, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 3:Hello, I'm Jeanie Barnard and I live in El Conevada. I was born in Salt Lake City, utah, and I am the founder and president of a charity called Forever Hugs, and I'm also a primary teacher now, so I'm pretty excited. Aw, yeah, I love children. I just love them pieces, and I guess I kind of want to be a hero to children. No, I love that You're a big hero, right.
Speaker 2:They do.
Speaker 3:They do yeah.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, aside from your charity, what do you like to do for fun? What's that? I know you have some pets. You have some kitty cats.
Speaker 3:I have a pet, pet and I have a really huge yard and stuff, that I have two and a half acres and I would say probably a leased half of it, if not more, is probably landscaped. So I like to work outside, I like to garden. I feel closest to God while I'm out side gardening, so it's very quiet. You know God is in the stillness, right. I love being out there and I love to do crafts and I just, I like to just make people understand how wonderful they are. It's definitely one of my biggest things in life is to help people understand that they're special. I think there was something very important to me.
Speaker 2:I love that. Awesome, very cool. Yeah, it's interesting because when Emily had reached out and we got connected, elko. Elko is big but it's small. It's a very small place.
Speaker 1:Most people know most people yeah it's.
Speaker 2:It's one of those places and I just thought, well, I don't know Jeannie, like I haven't met her. And then, after we had our conversation, we both realized we were in grief group together at the same time.
Speaker 3:We do know each other. Yeah, crazy, I love it. I've met you before somewhere, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was like trying to connect the dots, and and so we were like oh, we do know each other. And so your story is just mind blowing and definitely something that's so, so, so, so, directed by Heavenly Father, and and I'm glad that- you know that you're here today.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I'm quite yeah Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, the time is yours to share your story with us today.
Speaker 3:No, this is going to be awesome, but it's it's a little rough too. It's a. I feel like if I can help one person understand, they can make it then like it's time to share my story. It's like it probably sounds nostalgic, but I remember my first memories. I was four and a half years old and it was kind of cute because I had a big brother named Tong. I had one, His name was Tong and he was tying my shoelaces and he said to me you know, jeannie, you got to learn how to tie your shoelaces because we're going to get a new baby sister or baby brother. Today. It's like, oh, I really wanted a big sister. They're dull, right. So I was pretty excited. But so, um, my mom had that. I'm the sixth of seven children and my mom had her seventh and her name was April May, but I'm not sure if I think she only lived for a few hours.
Speaker 3:My mom went into a postpartum depression and it was pretty bad. I don't know if there was a name for it back then, but it really is. After it was called. So she just kind of um, she quit taking care of her children, she quit taking care of her house, she quit taking care of everything. She was utterly depressed and, um, there were my dad getting very upset with her because it had gone on for, you know, a long time. You know, I feel so bad for her that I have no idea what it would feel like, you know, to lose a child, and I remember my father not taking it. Well, he did not take care of it appropriately and he had said to her one evening that she needed to stop it, she needed to get herself out of it, and she just couldn't. So he said to her you know, you think that you lost one baby girl. I'll take the other one if you don't knock it off.
Speaker 3:But I remember hearing that and I didn't know. I was five years old and it's pretty scared because I didn't know what that meant, because I didn't know where my sister was, of course, because I was so young, you know. Well, I mean, she wasn't there, she wasn't any worse. So I got pretty scared and I asked my mom. She used to tuck me in bed every night and that night I remember asking her she would. She she had to pray. I had no clue how, I knew how to ask something like that, but I asked her how to pray and she just started crying. But she was crying a lot anyways. But she started crying and she said I had a six kids. You're the one. I didn't know what that meant, but she taught me how to pray and she told me that what you do is you close your eyes and you talk to God through your heart and then, after you finish talking to God, then you get really quiet. I mean, you let God talk to you through your heart. And so I began to do that. She began to tuck me in bed every night and we prayed every single night.
Speaker 3:One night my dad got me out of bed and he told me to get in the car and they I got in the back. He had like a stash of wagon. I got in the back and I fell asleep back there and he did. He took me out to the Graysault Lake and he told me to get out and I didn't know where we were. He told me to get out and I was just sitting there and waiting for him to come back. So you know, you obey your parents. But by then I was kind of scared of him. So you know, I knew something wasn't right. But he got in his car and he left and I was very scared.
Speaker 2:He left you in the salt flats by yourself and you were five years old.
Speaker 3:Yes, I was five years old.
Speaker 1:Were you alone.
Speaker 3:Yes, I was alone. Wow, I was very frightened. I was in a nightgown, so, you know, just cuddled up, put my nightgown over my knees and, just cuddled up, tried to get warm. It's cold out there, you know, in the dark. So I cried a lot and then suddenly I just became calm and I was. I prayed. My mom had taught me how to pray and I prayed and my house, god you know, keep me safe and how. My dad came back, but he didn't. I mean, they started getting bright out. So I know, if that loves me, you knew you had plans for me, because there was a man and a woman with their son, joel Fye, and that was a long time ago. He's Joel Fye.
Speaker 3:There wasn't much traffic out there, you know. You know the man thought that he saw something move and he went to go investigate. It was me and he took his jacket off and he grabbed me up and put me in the car and they took me to the police station and somehow they got hold of my, my dad and my mom, and they came and got me. It was pretty. I think it was pretty traumatic. I think I was in shock. You know, they kept asking me how I got out there and I just told them. You know, my dad took me out there and he just left me out there, but of course they wouldn't believe the child. So that was kind of the beginning of the end, I think, for me. I don't know what it was like for my siblings before I was ever born, because I was the sixth.
Speaker 3:It didn't get better, it just continued to get worse, and I don't know why that happens to me and I'm just a little worried. Then there was no food in the house because my mom wasn't buying food, my dad wasn't buying food. I don't know what they were eating, but my brother Tom and I were super close and we reached the point where my dad had. We had a German shepherd dog and the police officers, for some reason, came out and got the dog, but there was still dog food left. They didn't take the dog food. And my big brother Tom he loved me and he found the dog food. Then he brought some out to me and I'm like, oh York, I could eat that. But it was amazing. You can get used to it. It feels like you're tummy full for a while. Then that went on for a long time and I don't remember how long because I don't remember a whole lot, but it did reach the point where he told me we couldn't eat any more because there was bugs getting in it. There's not a whole lot of it that I remember.
Speaker 3:I do know that my mom stayed with my dad for a couple more years after the Great Salt Lake incident. I don't know how we stayed alive. I know my brother brothers. They had friends. They were quite older than my brother, tom and I, so they would go to friends and the friends would feed them. But it reached the point where my dad was Mrs and Mercy. He ended up going to I'm sure you know where Second Salt Lake is, in Salt Lake City. That's where he went by the prostitutes. So I wouldn't do that. Then my mom started cheating on him. So it was kind of a back and forth thing, Funny stuff. I started going. It was giddy to the point where it was kind of a tit for tat between my folks. He started to my mom funny-said enough, I'm going to get a divorce.
Speaker 3:There was a violent home. It's very violent. My dad beat my mom a lot. They said that I got beat too, but I don't ever remember that. But I do remember my brother's getting beat by my dad, but I don't ever remember getting beat. This is really hard.
Speaker 3:I recently was finding a step. My dad would take me and give me to different people and hide me from my mom for a while. Then my mom would figure out where I was somehow and she would come and get me. Then it was kind of a back and forth thing. I think I became like the pawn because I was the youngest, I think that my dad could see it hurt my mom so bad when I would be hurt, so I would continually do it. My mom ended up with a boyfriend and so my dad would end up. He would give me to the state of Utah for a little while. That is where I would end up in a family named the Coopers.
Speaker 3:That was kind of a back and forth thing. If he didn't have someplace else to take me to, he did take me to a family that did not have children and they fell in love with me and they wanted to keep me, but he wouldn't let them. I fell in love with them too. That was pretty hard. He came in one night to come and get me and the woman had a really hard time giving me up. She would fall in love with me and so would he.
Speaker 3:I kind of end up back and forth to a family named Coopers and I look at them as my heroes because they you know my dad would take me someplace it was a building, it was like a state building and give me to them, to the people in the building, and then they would call the Coopers and the Coopers would have a taxi come and get me and take me to them. They were amazing because they would. I would arrive I don't know what time really late at night and they would come out in their nightgowns and their robes and their pajamas and he would just grab me up and carry me out of the car and they would put me to bed. And they were amazing people. They reached the point where I was there so often that they ended up taking me fishing and I thought it was called family night, but now I realize it's called family home evening. So they were members. I did know that they had told me, but I didn't know what that meant.
Speaker 3:My mom was supposed to be, but I don't remember her ever going to church. But they were amazing people. My dad didn't let them keep me, though, because they were members. He did not like members, and neither did I. I didn't like them either. I didn't like members of the church because my mom she had decided to leave my dad. My grandparents on my mom's side were members, so she had gone to them for help, and they had turned her away and told her that she made her bed and now she needs to lie in it. So I think that that was the beginning of being not liking members of the church. I looked at them as I thought that they were supposed to be family oriented, and why would they want my mom and us kids to live like that? So, because they would not help. But I lived with coopers off and on, and then my dad finally just decided to give me up as a foster kid, and that's how I ended up in foster care.
Speaker 2:So you went four years in and out, in and out, in and out and then finally at year nine, you were able to get in and out.
Speaker 3:Did you?
Speaker 2:go to just one family at that point, or were you still back and forth? I?
Speaker 3:went to families before that, but they weren't foster care, but this family was actually a foster home and I was only supposed to stay in there for just like a couple of years because they were looking more for a permanent home for me and then this foster family had decided to just go ahead and keep me. So yeah, they were getting. When my dad gave me up, from what I understand, the state had told him you can't just give her up, you have to pay child support. So they took money out of his check and plus they also got money from the state of Utah and Utah also. But I remember when I got there they finally got to go to a doctor for the first time that I ever remember going to a doctor. And he came, the doctor. I remember his name, dr Luther Giddings, and I still always wondered when he's like you know a member, but I don't know. But I remember his name, dr Luther Giddings. He was so sweet and he took one look at me and he walked out the door with my foster mom and he said to her I could hear them because they didn't have the door shut all the time all the way. And he said to her I haven't seen anything like this since I did volunteer work in a third-world country.
Speaker 3:I was starving to death. I was absolutely starving to death, but I wasn't people's child, so I think that I was kind of more of a burden to them than anything. I think Now they were getting money and that's kind of what really mattered to them. I think they said she's the way I look at it. That's what happened. She liked to hit. I did go to my case worker and I did tell her. You know she's hitting me and she bought my nose and she ended up right through my neck. But the case worker told me that I just needed to stay away from her and I remember asking her how am I supposed to do that? I lived with her. It was so close to the bar.
Speaker 1:You have to hit somebody pretty hard to break their neck.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we can see that my nose is bruffy. I wear it back for a solid time. I have really good posture.
Speaker 2:It's crazy to me that that was the system. That was what they considered better than what you were in which, yeah, it was actually.
Speaker 3:it really was better. I mean, I remember thinking I'm eating, I have a roof over my head. I did not to stay, but I did end up finally getting to go and see my mom about a year, my mom and my brothers about a year after. So I think I was about 10 years old.
Speaker 2:So all your brothers stayed with your mom or your dad.
Speaker 3:I think my dad gave all of them up, but they all ran away. They all ran away and they all went to my mom. But my brother, tom, had told me not to run away. He's like, just stay, you'll be safer if you just stay in your frustration. So I obeyed him and I'm really grateful to him for telling me to do that, because it was a mess where they were growing up. It would never have worked. I realized that it would have worked. I did finally get to go see my mom and my brothers about a year after.
Speaker 3:I was in the foster home and she was living with her boyfriend and he was into porn real bad into porn, and it was all over his house. And I remember asking my mom can you please put that away? Because even at 10 years old you know better than that, you know that that's just healthy and vile. And she told me that she couldn't because it was his house, it was her house. So I had four brothers living there, so even I knew that that was wrong, that was vile. So I remember going home to my foster home and my case worker asking me how it went and I didn't know it was telling all my mom. I just wanted to stop the pornography. It was just, it was awful. I don't even want to get into how bad it was. It was horrible. And she asked me. My case worker asked me how it went and I did tell her what was all over the house and I says I don't understand why my mom lives like that. Why does she have my brothers live like that? I was, I think I was in shock a little bit by it, because children don't want to see that. They don't want to see that. So it was.
Speaker 3:I never got to see her again for about three years. I don't believe it's here four years after that. I never did to see her again and I realized it's probably because of what I said. But I was kind of grateful in a way because I want to see that. So I finally got to see.
Speaker 3:So they had told her that if she married the man that she was living with, that she could never get her baby girl back, and that's what she always called me was her baby girl. And so she married him. That was really strange. She married him and my case record came and told me that she had married him and I felt absolutely abandoned. I felt totally lost. I felt like I didn't have anybody in this world.
Speaker 3:I think that parents don't understand what they're doing to their children. When they do things like that, they're telling that child they don't matter. They just don't matter to them. So I remember finding a kid and you go and see her again and the magazines were all over the house. Again, he could never be there. Whenever I went ever. That was the decision of the state that he could not be there and I always wondered why that was. But as an adult, you know you figure it out pretty quickly. So I never saw her again until my graduation night from high school and she stuck in and seen me graduate. That was the next time I saw her.
Speaker 1:Did you live with this foster family for that whole time?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did. I lived with them the whole time. I got bigger, where I think I got, where I would learn how to. You'll learn about the time that you can see somebody. You can watch them carefully and you can see when they're going to start getting angry. A lot of times and I would learn just to get out In high school I ran track and I jogged a lot and so I would go for a run or something until she would try to calm down. So that worked out pretty good.
Speaker 2:When she did get really violent with you, did she help you heal? Did you end up having to go to the hospital?
Speaker 3:No, I have bolusperis in my neck. I stopped pinching my nerves. They wanted surgery. But when they said they wanted to do surgery, they said they're going to shake my neck. Well, you know how we don't want our neck shape because we love our hair, right? Yeah, I thought you were going to walk in here. I was like, oh no, I think I'll just take it. So, yeah, like on really rainy days or wet days, you can feel it more. I stopped because they're pinching, because it's cold. So I take a heating pad or something and I put a heating pad around my neck. It helps a little bit. I do wear a back brace at all times. Wow, yeah, I remember when she broke my neck. She hit me. She was pounding me on the corner of a wall and I ended up fainting and I woke up on the floor. What's she thinking of me?
Speaker 3:But there are really good foster homes. There really are. There are really. You know, there's bad ones, there's medium ones and there's incredible ones. To me, I feel like I hit the medium. It could have been worse. I was getting fed, I was getting worse, I had a red filter in my head and that's what was really important to me. That's what's really important to me now. As long as I can paint my bills and I can, I have food in my refrigerator, especially strawberries. You know I'm happy. You know I'm like a female, so it makes you appreciate things. My husband used to say everybody needs to marry somebody that grew in foster care because they appreciate everything. Wow.
Speaker 3:So when I turned 18. When I turned 18, I asked my foster folks if I paid for my own adoption, if I got my own attorney and paid for my own adoption, would they just go to the courthouse and sign papers? When they said they would. So I got my own attorney and I paid for my own adoption and they came to the courthouse and they signed the papers. So I was adopted. So that's how I got adopted and that's really important to me. Every child wants to be adopted and that's how I was.
Speaker 3:And then I ended up meeting my husband. Really soon Not quite when I was quite finished paying for my own adoption they met my husband and it was kind of a whirlwind romance. I met him. I had actually met him when I was 16 and I had said to my girlfriend that she thought he was going to marry her and I said to her I'm going to marry him. And she was like, oh my God. And she had said to me he won't even look at you twice. You're a foster kid, and that's kind of a challenge, I think a little bit it's like oh no, did you just say that to me? Don't say that to me.
Speaker 3:So we only went together for two months and nine days before he asked me to marry him, and he was from Idaho. I started to have a wheelie sign with each other. Every other weekend he would drive down. So I remember the first time that he told me that he loved me. He said it first and I said to him oh really, he think you do. And I said to him you know, by the time I'm 50 years old, I'm going to have a red candle back. And he looked at me really funny, like you're a foster kid, right. But I wasn't anymore. And he said, not, if you marry this awful billy out, you won't. And I said to him you want a bet? I already have a bet I do.
Speaker 3:I do.
Speaker 2:So, funny, that's awesome. So you guys, you guys get married and then things start looking up. I'm assuming what happens.
Speaker 3:Him and I grew up in a religion that women are lesser than men it has. What I love about the gospel, you know, is that we're equals, and that just thrilled me. When I know that, I was like, oh yes, thank you. Yeah, he believed, and I did too, that women were lesser. I think I kind of fought it a little bit in my brain because, like, wait a minute, that doesn't sound right. But I grew up like that, so that's the way it was.
Speaker 3:And not just that. You know, my dad felt that way about his voice too. You know that. You know, we only celebrated my big brother, David's birthday. Nobody else's birthday was ever celebrated. So when my husband and I got married, we never celebrated my birthday, we just didn't, but we celebrated his because, you know, men are the ones that make the money, they're the ones that are important. So you know we don't celebrate women's. So but I grew up like that so it was kind of the normal for me a little bit, so it wasn't like a like he wasn't being mean, because you guys both just agreed that that's just how it was, Is that?
Speaker 2:Well, it was a little mean, but you know there was a time that I just agreed with him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I wouldn't, you know, it was a little bit strange because I saw that it wasn't like that, you know, with other couples. But yes, the norm for us, yeah, you would get like 5,000 odd boots and we would have a discussion whether I needed new shoes, and it was like, oh well, you know what some are you like to go barefoot anyway. So it was kind of stuff like that. He made the awning, so and I did it, and so that's kind of the way that it worked. So kind of a different kind of religion. The women never cut their hair. They don't wear makeup, they don't, you know. They wear dresses. They never wear pants, they, you know it's, yeah, it is. You know, before he passed away, you know, we did realize that it is a cult. It was a cult. Wow, yeah, it's married to him. For we, we traveled around with Daniel's construction, yeah, and he was every where we ever went. He was the top heavy equipment mechanic, he was super smart.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then we were. The last place we were at was Carl's Benning, mexico, and he said that if I helped him get the job here in Elko that he would never make me move anymore. So we got here and then we found out that my mom was in California. So I didn't really know her very well because I didn't have her for very long, but she was going to move to Salt Lake. So we I found out where she was and she was moving, that there's Salt Lake, and I really wanted to get to know her. I really wanted to hi my big brother Tom I, he was him and I were always super close.
Speaker 3:When you know, for the first few years my mom and dad used to say that wherever he was I was, wherever I was he was, and he loved me so much he called me his twin. So when he passed away, you know, then they had a hard time because they would say to me boy, it must be really, really hard on you, because you know that's your twin and I'm like no, he really wasn't, he just liked to say I was because he just loved me that much, and so we were like he worked at a charity. But yeah, we. So I found my mom and so I got to know her for a couple of years. But something that I've always found very special about my mom was that she knew that she was passing away.
Speaker 3:She died actually on. I'm 64 and she died at 66. So that's kind of scary, but I got to know her a little bit. But she did take my, my husband, ann, to her room and she, yeah, she had him shut the door and he later told me that she had told him please get her a home. She's never had one and he did. I have a beautiful home. It's gorgeous and I love my husband for that very much.
Speaker 1:How was your relationship with your mom after all those years Like? Had she softened? Did you get to reconcile, or how did that seem Sorry.
Speaker 3:She seemed sorry, but she never said she was sorry. I remember her, you know. I you know. There's something that I think that everybody should say to their folks is thank you for giving me life, because she was the one that gave me life. Yes, god gives me life, but she's the one that gave me life, she's the one that bore me. And she said to me you know, has it turned out okay? And I said to her you know, he started up pretty rough, but it's gotten a lot better. So I was able to forgive her, and it was hard. I think the way I was able to forgive her was she taught me how to pray and that's gotten me life, and I think the way that she taught me was in a very beautiful way Listen, listen in your heart.
Speaker 3:What is God saying to you? God is in the stillness and that's what's gotten me through. Life is praying a lot. I go outside and I garden and I praying, I'm talking to God while I'm out there gardening, because it's so quiet and you can, you know, just hear. You know the bugs and you know, and I actually have crickets out there. I love listening to and I have frogs, big toes and when it's just kind of us, to the prayer.
Speaker 3:You know, my husband and I were married for 42 years. You know I ended up um got cancer just before he passed away. Um, I think that was very much one of him. He was used to women in the religion we grew up in. Women wait on the men. You are subservient to them. The men do not wait on the woman. You just don't do that the woman could find for herself.
Speaker 3:So when I got cancer it was incredibly difficult for him to take care of me and I wasn't much good to anybody. I mean, we were really happy when we realized that I was making it and he had decided that you know, when you get married you don't really have much of a honeymoon because you know you're really poor. So we had decided that we were going to go. He had decided we were going to go to DC world and celebrate that I was making us through cancer and um for like our second honeymoon and we were going to have a lot of fun and I had gained some weight through cancer stuff, right, and um, I had become pre-diabetic so we were taking walks because they the doctor put me on Metform. Yeah, and Metform was not. My body just did not like it, it wasn't handling it at all. So we had decided we were going to have to try something different. So we decided, you know, to go for walks, see if we can get it under control with that and kind of change our diet.
Speaker 3:He had a really hard time with changing diets because he had a hard time with any kind of change. My doctor has mentioned to me that he might have had like a form of autism, and autistic people have a really hard time with any kind of change at all. So I think that that's helped me maybe to understand my husband a little bit more. And um, there was one night he had been having troubles with one of his hips and we had got taken into the doctor to see maybe what was going on, and they just did not know what it was. So, um, one night he said that he could not take the walk with me. So I asked him if it was okay with him if I just took a quick walk so that I wouldn't get out of the practice of walking, you know, and I could kind of tell that he maybe didn't want me to. But then he agreed to it. And he's like yeah, that'll be all right.
Speaker 3:I said, you know you can watch me the whole time because we live out in the country where you can. You know you can see me, you know everybody can see me walking. And, um, he was sitting at a table in our front yard and I had hummingbird feeders and the hummingbirds were all over surrounding him on top, and you know. So I thought, well, if you'll be okay. And I asked you you know okay, so what we do, I'm gone. And he's like either I'll go inside and figure out where we're going to eat at Disney World, because it was time, you know, because we're going to go in a couple of months, so it was time to figure that out and reserve the restaurants. He was going to go out and do a little work outside and I go okay, I'll be right back, I'll just be gone just a few minutes. And he's like okay.
Speaker 3:So I opened my gate and then went for my walk and I got about halfway done with my walk and I really thought I could feel him behind me and I thought that was really strange. I looked back there and he wasn't there. Because I thought, well, maybe he changed his mind right, but he wasn't there. So I kept walking a little ways and it still kept him like he was behind me. So I kept looking back there and I said, sweetie, did she decide to come with me after all? And I thought he'd be caught up with me. But he wasn't there. So it spooked me. So I hurried home. I opened my gate and I found him. He heart-tickled his life and I ran to him and tried to save him and he was gone. I kept trying. I wish it was really done, because what I saw he was obviously gone. I mean, that was pretty dumb. You know, you love a person so much that you're one with them.
Speaker 1:Right, which is kind of a give up.
Speaker 3:I called the England one and it felt like they took forever. But I did CPR, I did everything, but he was gone. I thought he had an accident, I thought it was a tractor accident, so they had to take me away from him. He said I want to leave him. I didn't want to stop trying, you know, because I was afraid that if I left him for that one second that they wouldn't be trying, that he would leave, he would be gone. You know, you're not thinking straight, right, right. I begged them and I begged them. Please don't stop, please don't stop, please don't stop. Then this officer took me in the house and he had me wash my hands. And I remember, I do remember saying to the cop, you know, to the I think it was a deputy Sure I say this boy has the blood, isn't it? I was so in shock I didn't even understand what was going on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was just. He sat me down in a chair. I stayed there and I had friends and neighbors coming over and never in the house with me and you know there was.
Speaker 3:It's really hard. I remember the coroner coming in and saying that they look like a suicide and I was kind of a denial and I do. I think I did say something to the fact of that. There were suicides in his family, so he's not the other one that has done in his family. He had a one, a cousin of his, committed suicide maybe six months before that.
Speaker 3:And he had asked me do you think that he is in a two picks? And I said no, I don't, as I think that God loves us too much and if we're his children, you know, if our fathers are supposed to love us, I think that he would understand, because God understands us and I don't know how I knew that here and he had told me I will never do that to you. He said to me you have been abandoned so much in your life. I will never abandon you. I believed him. I put my whole trust in him. So I was in absolute denial.
Speaker 3:The way would he do that? He said that to me so often in our marriage. He would say to me I love you so much that there's nothing you can do about it and I will live forever. You know, like forever. He's like yes, forever. I remember when he asked me to marry him, I told him. I said you know, I believe in marriage forever, so if you think that you cannot be married to me forever, go ahead and walk away now. And he said no, I want you forever. There's a song that was called magnet and still. It's like that really says how old I am. Or have you ever heard magnet and still?
Speaker 2:I have.
Speaker 3:That was his favorite song. He said I was the magnet and he was the still. You know some foot.
Speaker 2:And then that's about the time that you and I met in our group. And I remember hearing your story and I remember you at that time. You were still. You were like you didn't do it.
Speaker 3:No, you didn't do it. No, yeah, yeah, it's like I was, like, I remember that. And Billie Jean, you know Billie Jean Crawford, yes, we love. Billie Jean. You know, I asked her a couple of months ago like did you always know that my husband did it? And she's like yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she did.
Speaker 3:She's like I was just going to let you. I knew that you would come to terms with it on your terms and your time, and so, yeah, so I kind of just dripped it for about a year and a half, being upset, you know, thinking why didn't you just wait for me? You know I was going to be right back. You know why would you work on the tractor like that, with, you know, underneath the tractor like that, without me being there? You know why would you do that? I was just kind of in a fog. But there was a brownie point though. You know I was in shock.
Speaker 3:So I had some friends that said to me, didn't you and your? You know, didn't you and Lynn do a wheel? I'm like, yeah, we did. I forgot a little about it because you're a foggy brain, right. And they're like, who did you do it with? I'm like it's like Gerber Law on this or something. And so I got I actually had a copy of the wheel. It's like, oh, yeah, we did do that. I guess if I could do that, so I couldn't drive. I was in complete shock and I couldn't hardly see, if that makes sense. I couldn't really see. I was my. My eyes were just blurry. So I knew, knew better than driving.
Speaker 3:So they, they brought me over to Zach Gerber and I walked in and Zach Gerber grabbed me pretty quick. I thought that was pretty sweet. You know there's Travis and there's Zach, and Zach grabbed me when he took me in and he was the sweetest thing, you know. And you know, wait I, he got everything turned over to me so fast. It was just crazy. But he told me, you know, after we talked for a long time, he told me you know, you're going to have to have somebody to help you with your money. So that's where Tim Hatch comes in. So he brought me over, zach Gerber brought me over to Tim Hatch. So I always tell people that Tim Hatch and Zach Gerber were my first missionaries for Tim, for Tim and Zach. You know they ministered to me, ministered to me. It was really sweet because I would come in. You know Tim would have me come in every single month and we wouldn't talk about money. He was ministering to me.
Speaker 2:And you were not a member still right? No, Like at this point. Like you, and you still didn't really have a good taste in your mouth, I was bad-priced at nine.
Speaker 3:My mom did have me bad-priced at nine years old, just before I went into foster care.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you were technically a member, but you, yeah, I just didn't know that. No, I didn't. You didn't know what, you didn't remember.
Speaker 3:I completely forgotten about it. Yeah, yeah. So my brother, just before it was just a year before, you know, my husband passed away. My brother, we would meet in Salt Lake to take Teddy Bear's for forever hugs. But it was a call for forever hugs back then and he had given me a piece of paper that said hey, you're Mormon, like no, I'm not. That's so insulting. He's like no, I have papers to say that you are your baptized. And it hit me, it's like, oh, yeah, I was, so it's a night. And then he asked he showed me another piece of paper and I had that. I was. It was a blessing paper and I actually saw my uncle's name on it. So he was one of the ones that did the blessing on me. I said, which were my mom's brother, this brother just older, just younger than than her. So I had no clue and I had forgotten all about the baptism. Yeah, they've forgotten all about it because it was out of good memory to me.
Speaker 3:My mom had just picked me up from school one day and said that I was going to get baptized. She took me to this building I still don't remember where it was and she told me I was going to get baptized. I didn't have a clue what was going on and I just remember thinking what are you going to baptize this synonymy or something? The bad enemy? But you know I had no clue what was going on, so it was really a bad experience. But so while later, after that, of course, you know my husband, you know he took his life, and then I had my big brother, tom, to talk to, and he would tell me over and over again he didn't do it, he did not commit suicide, he did not do it, he would never do that to you, he loved you way too much for that and it helped actually, you know. I mean I think that you know there was somebody that came to me and said to me do you ever think that you made it so that he didn't commit suicide for 42 years? And I remember that upsetting me because it's like but he didn't. But he didn't do it, though you know you guys are crazy.
Speaker 3:I went to Zach Gerber and I wanted to sue the student of Nevada, you know to change the death certificate, and Zach was really sweet and very loving and he said to me Jeanie, do you think that your husband worked his whole life to take care of you, just to have the state of Nevada take all of that away from you, because the state of Nevada has more money than you do To go. Yeah, you're right. So he's like you need to leave it alone. I think he was. Zach knew, I think everybody knew about me, you know, I wonder if even my brother knew.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, so I was coming in here to Tim Hatch and he was ministering to me and when it was about a year and a half and I was sitting you know, your brain starts to clear a little bit I couldn't see anything. I couldn't hardly see anything at all. I think there's a thing for it, but I don't know for sure. But I was really blurry. Not only was my head fuzzy, it was like you're so stressed, you know, and you're so confused and you're in shock that you cannot think straight. You don't know what's going on around you. You are just surviving. You are eating, you are sleeping. I need, you're trying to make sure the bills are getting paid, and that's all you're doing. And I just remember being outside a lot, working outside a lot and asking God to please make everybody understand that my husband would never do that to me Just, please, just make everybody understand.
Speaker 3:And about a year and a half yeah it was my head started to to clear a little bit and I realized that, oh, he did it. Because you start seeing things around where he did it, you, your memory starts clearing a little bit and you see things and you realize, yeah, he did it. And then I became pretty ticked off. It's like how dare he? You know, how dare he? And I blamed the church for everything that ever happened to me in my life. That was bad Everything. Because I felt like that if my grandparents had just been grandparents to us, that our lives would have been different, if they would have done what the church, what I feel like the church would want them to do, you know that I wouldn't have been in the position that I was in. So Tim Hatch has all my money, you know, and he's been very kind, he's been very nice and at dawn I mean, I think that I think he's a Mormon I decided that when I went in to see him again, I was going to ask him if he was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had plans because you know, you've worked with Billy Jean. I don't know if you've worked with people that their husbands have committed suicide. A lot of the times, the spouses will do it too Once they realize what happened. You're so alone, you feel so abandoned. You feel like a burden to the world, you feel like a burden to society and you just need to be gone, and then the burden will be gone for everybody. So I had made plans to put my cats to sleep. I had to leave them at the time and because I didn't want them to suffer, I'm just going to come here and ask if Tim Hatch was a Mormon. If he was, I was going to take the money away, give it to another financial advisor, make sure it was going to charity, where I wanted it to go. And then I was going to go home and have my cats go to sleep and bury them. I was going to go home and I know I was sick, but it happens a lot I was going to go ahead and take care of myself too. I was done.
Speaker 3:I felt like I have gone through too much in my life. I know this. I can't handle this too. I'm tired, I'm done.
Speaker 3:But instead I came into Tim Hatch and he was just as friendly and kind as ever, a little sweetheart and I funny as to him. So hey, what church should you go to? And he put his head back, funny, thinking he knew what was coming. And on his side I went to the Church of Jesus Christ the latter day Saints and then he said, huh, that's weird. I think I am too. I don't know why I did that.
Speaker 3:That was not the plans and he looked at me really funny but very kind, and that's what I needed. I needed somebody to look at me like I was of some value, because I didn't feel valuable at all. I felt like a failure. I felt like a failure of a wife, I felt like a failure of a human being and I was tired and I had felt no value my whole life, except from the Coopers. When the Coopers had to let me go, they had said to me that I was to always remember them because they said that someday I was going to do something really big and that I was to remember them and to mention them. And I never were saying to them no, I'm trash, I'll never be anything. But here I am Crazy, right? So, poor Tim Hatch. Suddenly, his stuff, of course he's calling Bishop Kirk, knudsen and Missionaries, and all of a sudden my head is spinning because everything's just moving so fast and I'm thinking what is happening here? No, this wasn't the plan. This was not the plan.
Speaker 3:I think I just loved him so much I didn't want to disappoint him because he looked at me like I had fellow you. It had been a long time since I'd had that look and I remember one day he was saying to me you know, cheney, you are loved. He texted it to me. He's like you know, cheney, you are loved. And I wanted to just argue with him. No, I'm not, you don't understand. I come from trust. I felt like that, if your parents behave like that, that you are of no value. And that's how people look at you. They look at you have no value. Think about the neighbors that you go by and you don't really want to go by that house because it's kind of scary looking and you wonder whatever's going to happen to those kids. Right, I was one of those kids. Yeah, that's what's crazy.
Speaker 3:But yeah, tim Hatch, is that Gerber treated me like I had some value. It was amazing to me, and then it's like everything went into a whirlwind. Sending his job, I met these goofy missionaries, chad Hansen and Ben Spillin, and there was just a couple of good falls that came out and they were chopping my wood and helping me and I would argue with them when they would tell me things from the Book of Mormon, it's like no, that's not true. You don't understand stuff. My name is not written on In there. No, I'm with no value. And I remember Ben Spillin saying to me one day he's like you know, judy, we think that you're worth more than we are. Like what? No, you're amazing. No, you're a man, don't you understand? That's not how it works. You know, I remember. It was so crazy that I remember.
Speaker 3:So I finally was able to get off of all the stuff I had to take for the cancer. So I started losing weight and then my clothes were fitting really big. I'm like, oh shoot, I got a house to new clothes. I always had to ask my husband he has to new clothes. You know we would debate whether you know I needed them or not and I usually lost.
Speaker 3:So I was a little bit scared about asking if I could buy some new clothes. But I came in, I got my courage up and I came in to Tima's office and I said hey, tim, can I buy some new clothes and he looked at me really funny. He kind of fell backwards a little bit against the wall and he said where are you asking me that? You know, if you want some new clothes, go out yourself to do clothes. I'm like I can do that, because some of these, you know, my husband and I grew up in so kind of a different, different ride Right and everything has moved very quickly, my stuff a little crazy quickly and it's turned into wow, guess what? God loves me.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know, you hear, you know many are called but few are chosen.
Speaker 3:I thought that I was one of the many that was called but I would never be chosen. You know, I was just. I wasn't God's child, that he loved me enough to let me have a life, but he, I wasn't one of the special ones, you know, that would get to spend with having with him. I thought that one day I would be an HG double toothpicks after I died and I would be looking up at God and going I still love Tim, no matter what. I was still just going to love him because I always loved him. I always felt like that he took care of me somehow, but I just wasn't going to be one of those chosen. So I felt kind of bad for the missionaries. But they were so goofy I was like I had two goofy, two goofy ones and two serious ones. You know, zach and Tim were my serious ones and Chad and Ben were the goofy ones and they were just he was around with me and it was really sad when they ended up coming to leave.
Speaker 3:But then, I got some work. I got Jerem Baylor and Jacob Gainal and they were kind of the ones that helped me to end up getting up to the temple to get my endowment. But it was amazing, and the first time I got to see the temple was the hatches took me up to Reno so that we could be with Chad Hanson, so that he could help with the baptism. So I thought that was really nice. But the first time I ever saw the temple was in the dark. I remember the hatches pointing out the window and saying stuff, you can see the temple from here. It was like a beacon, I think it was like the most beautiful thing that I think I've ever seen.
Speaker 3:And I grew up in Salt Lake around the temple, right, but I never really looked at it, you know, I just thought it was real, it really wasn't much, even though it was like the center of town. It didn't really mean anything to me. But there was amazing getting to go up there, being equal to eat, you know, and being proxy for baptisms. For some of my grandparents it's like a hope to meet your inner member being baptized. Does it make sense? It was kind of beautiful. It was really beautiful. It was really beautiful. I think I got done about 20 times, so it's really beautiful. So yeah, I'm painful.
Speaker 2:Can I ask, jeannie, has your husband taken his name through? Are you guys sealed?
Speaker 3:Have you done? Work together and everything. Yeah, I have a cousin from Virginia that flew all the way from Virginia. She's my husband's ordinances, so yeah, Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2:How is that for?
Speaker 1:you.
Speaker 2:Like being in the temple being sealed to your husband.
Speaker 3:It was really amazing because it was I found out who I am, you know, and that was one of the most beautiful parts. But I remember feeling so safe in there, like nothing could touch me, Nothing could hurt me, like it's like the whole world was just gone. It was just all of us in there and we were all equals, and that's really important to me. I think, growing up the way that I did, you know, not being equal to anyone, I was the lowest on the toilet pole because I was a fluster kid, so I was the lowest, and then, as a girl also, I was always the lowest. It was beautiful to see everybody in there and nobody acted like they were any better than anybody else.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's the first time I think I've ever felt that in my life. I want to go back pretty bad, have that experience again. Yeah, it was really quite beautiful and I had so many friends that I never expected were going to be there. Even my bishop showed up, which was shocking, and remember turning around and oh wow, bishop, you're just like and he didn't act like he was any better than anybody else. That's really important to me, to know that God loves me as much as he loves everybody else. And it just feels like to me when I look back at my life. It feels like that. It's like my mom taught me how to pray and it's like it feels a little like to me, like as though God said I'm never letting her go, even though it took me 63 years to get back to church, but it's like everything's moving pretty fast. You know, just a beautiful feeling. I feel like I'm belong somewhere.
Speaker 2:For the first time. You have this, you have this glow about you, like you really do. You know that's such a hard, hard story to tell and like you have this strength that just exudes from you where you're able to. I mean, I'm like losing it over here and you are, you know, you're accepting that it's a part of you.
Speaker 3:But it doesn't have to be the thing that holds you back.
Speaker 2:It's just something that Heavenly Father could use to your good.
Speaker 3:I think I'll try to look at it as how did I learn from its experience? And don't get bitter about it. Just you know, learn what you're supposed to learn. Just be better, just be better, don't you know? If you see something that you don't like that happened to you, then you know what it feels like. Don't do it to somebody else.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:No, learn from it. Don't do that. Then Try it something good that came out of it to your life and then move on.
Speaker 2:You know and that's actually a perfect segue for what you did to start your charity. So do you want to tell everyone a little bit about, like, what that experience was for you, that that was kind of the catalyst for this charity?
Speaker 3:You know, in my foster home I found I was kind of passing out a little bit and they couldn't figure out what was going on. So they were doing a bunch of testing to find out what was going on and stuff. So, bonnie, they had to go back into my family's background, medical background, and they figured out stuff that diabetes and cancer runs in the family very heavily. So they tested me for cancer. There was no, you know they. I don't know what they did for that, but then they tested me. They ended up funny Okay, I think she's, she's probably diabetic. So they took me into doctor's office and they had me do a test. You know where you don't eat anything for 24 hours and then you go in and they have you drink some glucose or something kind of yucky syrup, right, and so pretty glad to get down. It's really hard to keep it down too.
Speaker 2:Especially for a kid right, Because you were young when this happened.
Speaker 3:I was about 10 and a half, I believe, and I went in when it was happening. And so then they, they take blood out every hour and then by noon or so they take it it's like every half an hour. So it's an all day thing. I don't know if they still do it like that or not, but that's how they did it back then. And so you know your eyes would get pretty bruised because your veins would collapse. So they're digging around in there. Some of you are bruised and it's very painful.
Speaker 3:So after the first time they realized yes, I was pre-diabetic. So I had talked to the doctor and he's like okay, so it's not over two diabetes yet, but it's very close to diabetes. So let's see. If you know, you get a lot of exercise, eat lots of fruits and vegetables and certain kinds. It's kind of like the Adkins diet really, and we'll see if we can get the thing under control. So I've always been very strong and self-indetermined, so that's what I did.
Speaker 3:So after six months they had to test me again. So each time, you know, I fostered mom. She would just leave me there. So there were still parents on me that was there by myself. So the second time I went in I was like 11 years old. It was the same nurse that was doing it again and she said to me you know, if your mother is just going to leave you here by yourself, you need to bring a doll or a teddy bear in here with you for something to hold on to. And I was too embarrassed to tell her I'm a foster kid, I can't do that. I can't ask for anything, there's no way. So they were doing the testing and I was getting bruised up pretty bad again.
Speaker 3:And I remember thinking to myself all right, that's it. You know what, when I grow up, I'm going to get rich. You know, I'm going to get rich and I'm going to start a charity and I'm going to get teddy bears to all the kids that have to go through this, because I don't ever want a kid to go through this by themselves. I assume that all kids were left by themselves, but they're not, by the way. They're just not. That was a cruelty. I was a bit of a burden and I knew that, you know. So that was the catalyst of deciding and I've always kind of felt like that. God just kind of put that in my heart, you know, and so and it never went away, ever. It's just I was so determined that one day I'm going to get so rich, I'm going to start a charity and I'm going to give teddy bears to kids that are in trauma period. You know, and I didn't know how it's going to do it. But even with my husband, you know, I started doing it after we moved here, just taking teddy bears to the diabetes center at the Premier Children's Hospital, and I got to know a Jenna Asurston there and heard I was actually friends, kind of weird stuff. I started taking them there About the time that I did end up with a tumor on my thyroid, about the time when I stopped that. It's like, okay, that's it, I'm going to take teddy bears, right. But I made sure that those teddy bears got to Jenna Asurston before I went in for surgery. That's just how determined I was to get this thing going, and I'm going to get now for 16 years.
Speaker 3:But one day Tim asked me if there was anything that I wanted to do in my life that I hadn't been able to do yet, and I think I kind of think he thought I was going to go to Paris or something, but I had one for us at one time. But I said to him yeah, actually I want to go to college and I started charity. And he says, you want to start a charity? I'm like, yeah, I'm like, well, I've actually kind of been doing it already, but I want to be official, you know. And I told him that I had some money saved, that I had been saving some money for it, but I didn't know how to get it started. And he said to me well, I know how to do that. And then he says, well, I don't know how to do it, but Zach Gerber and the three of us can figure it out. And it kind of exploded from there. And you know, zach Gerber takes care of anything to do with the charity at all. He does it for free. And Tim any of the money and everything he takes care of all over for me. He does it for free for me. Wow, but yeah, one of the things that I really enjoyed, though, was so Tim took me over to Zach so we could get it all started and named and everything. And Zach said, well, jeannie, what about doing for foster kids that are being adopted in the area? So I go yeah, let's do that too. So I get to do that every year too. And Zach kind of exploded. So it's in Kansas, in California and Colorado. It's been in Arizona, it's been Utah, here now. So it's expanding now, wow. So now we're going to try to get it so that the gold mines give to it.
Speaker 3:But we did have a name for it. So Zach and Tim said you know, you need to figure out a name for it. So all these friends and relatives were coming up with all these cute names like oh, jeannie's teddy bears or Jeannie's this or whatever, and Jeannie's this. I know, I don't want my name on there. It's called charity, right, he's the one to put it here, right, and he entrusted me to do it, so it's God's charity. So we were coming up with all these names that I was writing down all these names, and I had to come in to tell him because I was supposed to have a name for it. Right, we were going to go to Zach, we were going to have a name for it, we were going to write it down. And so Zach asked us you know, we all sat down, tim and I and Zach all sat down, and Zach is like so, have you figured out a name he's like. So I was telling him all these different names and I had, just as I had, left my house.
Speaker 3:I remember thinking I have wanted to do this forever. Oh yeah, forever hugs. And I wrote that down. It's like we were here, you know, came to the last name of the record and then there's forever hugs, and Zach and Tim looked at each other and they gave each other these big smiles and Zach says do you know for that? And Tim and I are yeah. So that's why. That's how forever hugs was born.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 3:Pretty cool, huh. So when I love hugs, I love hugs I feel so bad for people. It's like, hey, can I have a hug, you know? But yeah, yeah, I have.
Speaker 3:I'm amazing and I want to say to you know, a lot of the time that my doctor has said to me you know, I think maybe your husband had a form of autism. God works in mysterious ways. He really does Because all of a sudden this missionary showed up and his name was his Britain Smith, and he was autistic and I watched him. It was really cute because he noticed I was watching him and I said, do you mind if I watch you? He's like, no, I don't mind, I'm like you know. My doctor says that he thinks that maybe my husband had just a little form of autism and then he told me the story about how hard it was for him to get to be a missionary and how he had gone into the mission work for, like I think he said, like three or four days, and then he got called back when the pandemic hit, when the oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you go back. So really I would have met him because he would have been done.
Speaker 2:Right Wow.
Speaker 3:So I met him at the perfect timing. I could not believe it. I the my doctor had just said it about a week before. Wow, and he, he let me watch him. He's like I don't mind. And he told me it's very hard. He had to work to get to me a missionary. They're like it's been an amazing help.
Speaker 3:God brought you to me at the perfect time and I think the matter was a little autistic and I think that's why he had such a hard time with any kind of change in life at all, because he just couldn't handle it. So I had to keep everything the same for him. That was pretty hard, you know, and he liked to score me meals and it was making me fat. You know I needed to stop. You know he couldn't, he just couldn't stop. So it a difficult time with it.
Speaker 3:I've had some amazing missionaries in my life Amazing. I had a very hard time going to get my things for my endowment and they realized that I was going to have to go, you know, up to Twin Falls by myself and I never left town since my husband had passed away. Because you can't when you're, when you're, you're in trauma, you can't go to town. You know you're scared, you're scared of everything. And I recognized that I was going to have to. And I was talking to a friend of mine in Las Vegas and I was trying to explain to her how important it was to me that I had to get these things and it was crying so hard when, yeah, I could hardly see you know.
Speaker 3:I remember looking outside and I told my friend I'm like huh, I think my mission aries just showed up. And I, she's like are you serious? Oh yeah, she knows all about my missionaries. And so she's like are you sure? I'm like, yeah, that's weird. I think they did. She goes, well, take me with you. So I took the phone with me. Why? Why, I tried and turned, it was them and they brought me chocolate. They're going to make really good husbands someday. They don't preach chocolate and yeah, so what are you guys doing here? When they said, you know, we don't know, we just felt like we should come here, and so I told them.
Speaker 3:You know what was going on. I told them how scared I was you know, drive all the way up to Twin Falls by myself and I was terrified of it. And I told them. I said, you know, I'll just keep going to church, I just won't get my endowment. I'll just call everybody and tell them you know, I canceled the airplane rides and I'll just pay them back because my cousin had already, you know, booked a flight. I thought, you know, I'll just pay him back, I just keep going to church, I just won't receive my endowment because I just too scared to bug their. But there were three hearts and they just said Jamie, you've got to get it. You know it's going to be amazing.
Speaker 3:I'm like no, I can't do it, but they, they left. And the next morning I remember my friend in Las Vegas. Her husband took her his life too. So we've bonded through that. She can't leave town either. This is how it works. You're in trauma, you can't leave town. You have to have safety at all times. You have to feel safe. But I got up the next morning and I texted a whole bunch of people and I'm like right, that's it, I'm going. I got on my pickup you were texting Tim Hatch and like hey, guess where I'm at, you know. And he's kind of like go girl. You know, you, go girl. I think what really made me do it was I needed to go to my friend in Las Vegas will be okay, we're going to be okay.
Speaker 2:Man, jeannie, that has just been. You just have such an incredible story and we're we're so glad to see that. You know you're at a place where you are in that brighter future. Now you know you've had those darkest days and now you get to experience the light, you get to experience the joy, you get to find who you are, you know how much you're loved. You've built this, this family around you that just wants you to be happy and and and successful and, and then you're giving back, I mean the charity that you have going on and just the example you're showing for others.
Speaker 2:It's just amazing and so. I'm just I'm just going to tell you I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:Through everything you've gotten through and forgetting your red Cadillac and starting your journey. You've done all these things.
Speaker 3:You're so impressed You're pretending to come out. You sounded like Cadillac.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love my kid.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for for coming on the show and for being so open with everybody. We really we're just so grateful for you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, yeah, I'm proud of you too, even though this is the first time we've ever met. When we were talking before the podcast, you talked about the rear view mirror and the windshield. Can you just talk? About that real quick, because I really liked that analogy.
Speaker 3:You know, there's a couple of Lisa guys coming home from church. You know, I was looking in the rear view mirror and I'm like all of a sudden it hit me. It's like, wow, the rear view mirrors were really tight. And you know, but you, you know, but it's because you've been there, you know you're done, you've been there, experienced it, it's done. But then you look forward and the windshield is so big, you know, and that's your future, that's your present, you know. And to me, you know, I always have to wear sunglasses, you know, because it's so bright out, I feel like, oh, I feel so bright. It's just that's the rear view mirror.
Speaker 3:What did you learn from that? What did you? What did you apply to your life? Was it good or was it bad? Make sure it's good, make those right steps and then keep making those steps forward. And so, because this is a really bright future, it really is, just because you come from what you think is and you know, really is bad. You don't have to, you don't have to get stuck there. Just keep moving forward and make those right steps. Don't don't go on the back pathway. Go the right way. And if somebody thinks that they're that, the Holy Spirit doesn't help you. I think I'm true that it does, because I got baptized at nine and I forgot. I was mad at it, but for some weird reason I can't make it. Last right steps those. Those are my choices, yeah.
Speaker 3:I go to the Holy Spirit, because that's the only thing it could be, because I'm just human. I could not have made it on my own. I'm just human.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:Oh well, you are one of my new heroes.
Speaker 3:I want to be a hero to children. You know there's monsters in the world, but let's make sure that children know that there's also heroes too.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:I think you can check that off on your bucket list.
Speaker 3:I think you are definitely a hero for them and for many others. I don't jump out of there playing this.
Speaker 2:There you go, thank you.
Speaker 3:It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it really, really has been, and I just I know that your story is going to touch so many, so many hearts and so many lives, and that it's definitely going to be the thing that instills faith, invites growth and inspires others, and I just just thank you so much for being a light of you know, to sharing that light of Christ with the world. And for being a light to others.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Westbastion. The two of you Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:You too, and thank you everyone for tuning in to hear Jeannie's story. Hopefully that's touched your heart like it has ours, and you want to share that with others. This is why we do this show is because of stories like Jeannie's that we would never know this story if we didn't have this podcast, and that would be a shame, because she's got such a powerful message to share. So help us get it out there, you know, share it with your friends and let's let's share this light. Let's make the world better by just sharing Jeannie's story with others.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and to all of our listeners if you guys are out there and you're feeling that Holy Ghost, you know, flicker in your chest and you know that you have a story to share too, whether it's like Jeannie's or completely different. I know this one had a lot of hard and a lot of heavy things in it, but it also has a lot of beauty. There's a lot of stories out there that are are completely different too. It's okay, you know, it doesn't have to be hard and heavy. It can be fun and it can be loving and it can be miraculous.
Speaker 2:And I think that the main thing is just if you have that story that needs to be shared and you know that your story can be something that can really help another person's testimony to grow, that can help them to see the savior, to trust that the Holy Ghost is there and to know that our Heavenly Father has a beautiful plan for each and every one of us. Please reach out. You can either go to Latterday Lightscom and fill the form out at the bottom of the page, or you can email us at Latterday Lights at gmailcom. You can also comment wherever you're listening or watching this podcast. You can put it in the comments, and we would be happy to sit and talk with you guys and to be able to share some more stories. So don't be, don't be scared, and even if you are scared, do it anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, jeannie, feel the fear, I'm scared. Yeah, jeannie was scared.
Speaker 2:We normally don't do this. But we had a little bit of a technical issue here and so we were like, well, we can reschedule, you know? And and Jeannie said, no, I've already gone a whole week without sleeping because I'm so scared. We're doing it today, so so it's okay, you can do it scared. And look you, I promise you, jeannie, like not a single person would have even noticed, because you, just you were just so calm and just a source of peace.
Speaker 3:And so you guys, made it easy, oh awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks again, jeannie, and thanks everyone for watching, and we will see you again next week with a new episode. Until then, take care, we'll talk to you soon. Bye everybody, bye, bye.