Ancestors that tend to lead your path

People often ask us why we chose to settle in Tennessee. We never quite know how to answer this question without sounding like a crazy person. How do you tell someone that your husbands dead ancestor lead you here? Truth be told that is the real reason we are here. Haden Wells Church is my husbands great great grandfather. I like to call him my husbands guardian angel because for some reason he tends to follow where Haden lived when he was alive and it's hard to explain but he has a strong bond with him. How can you have a strong bond with someone you have never met on this Earth? To explain some of this we have to rewind 10 years back. Ryan was graduating from college and we were searching for the place where we wanted to raise our family. We had searched different states but didn't feel any of them were the right fit for our family. We kept being drawn to St. George. After much prayer we decided this is where we wanted to go. My father-in-law told my husband one day that his great great grandfather, Haden Wells Church, was the first teacher in St. George. His family helped settle the area when they came from the East. I believe this was after we had decided to move there but nobody else knew we were even thinking of moving there. So this made Ryan even more excited. He had always admired Haden for some reason he always felt close to him and thought it was cool that he was one of those faithful men who had joined the Mormon Battalion. So anyways the months crept by summer was almost over meaning that the teaching jobs were pretty much filled. We didn't know at that time how hard it was to get a teaching job in Washington County School District. He had passed up other offers in School districts around the area we were living in because he was so determined he would get a job in St. George. Two weeks before school started he finally got a job offer in Southern Utah. He was so excited to be teaching in St. George just as Haden had. We loved Southern Utah! In fact our older two kids still call it home and we haven't lived there for almost six years.
Now many of you are wondering how this has anything to do with Tennessee. I'm getting to it I promise. Now fast forward to 2013, Ryan and I were once again trying to decide where to move after searching many different states but none of them seeming right for our family we thought one day what about Tennessee? I wasn't thrilled on the idea but told him to go ahead and apply and we will see what happens. He ended up getting an interview in the district he wanted that we never thought he would have a chance at and needless to say got the job. He kept saying I think my great great grandfather Haden is actually from Tennessee or went on a mission there. So he looked it up one day and sure enough found out that his grandpa Haden was born in Franklin Tennessee (where Ryan teaches) and he died on his mission out here (of some sickness I can't remember what it was at this time). He found the town he was buried and only the words along the Duck River in the Church family cemetery. So when we came out to find a house to live in one day after church we decided to go and try to find this place. We really went blindly. We had no idea where anything was only that his family had lived in Williamsport and our church was off of Williamsport road so we decided just to follow it and see if it lead us to the Duck river. We found the Duck river and a cemetery but it wasn't the Church cemetery so we drove a little further and me being the pessimist thought we will never find this. Ryan said I just want to go a little further down the road so we did and he finally said ok lets turn around in this driveway, he pulled in and the sign said Doug Church Road. I looked at Ryan and said lets go see if they know where the grave is. So we drove up to the house Ryan got out and asked the people if they knew where it was. Needless to say they were long distant relatives. Doug and Billy Church ,they were the nicest people so friendly and just good old country folk, they drove us over to the cemetery, thank goodness because we never would have found it on our own! This was another "sign" I guess you could say that we were suppose to be moving here.

The first week at our new ward was a hard one for me. It had been a long week of adjusting to the new area, being away from family, finding out what true humidity is, and being attacked by mosquitoes. Also trying to be the strong brave one. Ryan was so busy and stressed he was falling apart which was hard for me because he's normally the strong one when we move. Anyways I was sitting in Relief Society wondering to myself did we make the wrong decision? Are we really as crazy as people said we were to move all the way out here not knowing a single person? I remember praying to Heavenly Father to let me know that this was the right decision and right at that time the person talking was talking about a Church family reunion that took place last Sunday. I knew that there was one going on because Billy and Doug had invited us to it but we decided not to go since we had just gotten to Tennessee the day before and we didn't want the kids to be in total culture shock (remind you Billy and Doug had really thick accents. We could barely understand them when we met them the first time.). I found out that we were related to half the word. Heavenly Father knew that is what I needed to hear at that exact time. It made me realize that even though we are far away family and distantly related to the family out here that we are not alone and have family close by. I always tell Ryan that Haden wanted him out here to finish the missionary work that he couldn't finish because of his sudden death. Which may or may not be true. The reasons for us coming here will be known to us through the years I'm sure, but it makes you wonder why has Haden been such an important person in our lives? Why do some ancestors seem to be more closely tied to you then others? These I guess are questions that we might get answers to in the afterlife but for now whenever we feel homesick and far away from family visiting Haden's grave always makes us feel close to family. This might sound crazy to you but for our family it is what keeps us knowing that we made the right decision.