Finding Home

“I really don't want to live out in the middle of nowhere,” I tried explaining to Moe. “The places we've seen are interesting, but I just don't think any of them would be right for us.”

Moe was not happy to hear me say this. He had been searching Real Estate listings around Snowflake for weeks, making a list of the most promising places for us to look at when we went to our family reunion. I was excited when we first started looking, but after a morning of driving down dusty, dirt roads, exploring desolate parcels of land, and seeing ugly, windblown landscapes, I was getting real discouraged.

“We need to be close enough to town for the girls to go to school,” I tried, knowing Kami and Krissi were Moe's week spot, and hoping I could discourage him from looking so far out in the boonies.

“I don't want traffic keeping me awake all night,” Moe grumbled in response. “I want someplace peaceful, where we can spread out and be alone.”

“Well, let's keep looking,” I sighed, knowing none of the pretty homes in town were going to fit Moe's idea of 'country living.'

We tried a few more places on Moe's list, all of them too far from civilization, too dry, and too run down for my liking, before driving back through town for a bathroom break and something to eat.

“You know what, Moe,” I said after we were back in the car. “We forgot to have family prayer this morning before we started. Maybe we should have a prayer now, and ask Heavenly Father to help us look.”

Moe agreed, so I said a short prayer, sitting in the Maverik parking lot, asking Heavenly Father to help us find a good place to live.

“When I took mom to the beauty parlor yesterday, I talked to some of the women  about nice places to build,” I began as we pulled out onto Main Street. “They suggested looking west of town, along a road called Freeman Hollow. Could we drive out that way?”

Moe shrugged and turned left onto the highway at the end of town. He hadn't found any listings that appealed to him on that side of town, but he agreed to look, just the same. We drove for about ten minutes, at last finding the road called Freeman Hollow.

“Well, lets try it,” Moe said as he turned south. We were higher here, and the countryside was greener, with cedar trees and grass covered rolling hills. We drove over a small hill and found ourselves driving between barbed-wire enclosed pastures covered with tall grass.

“It looks like the road to Young,” I whispered, my heart rising into my throat and tears filling my eyes. “It's beautiful.”

Granted, it was still dusty and dry, but so was the country around the cabin where I had grown up. True, there was no creek sparkling under tall sycamore trees, but I could plant trees and maybe even dig a pond, as long as we had a well. Anyway, none of that mattered. I loved this place. It felt like home.

“If only some of this land is for sale,” I hoped as we drove over another hill and found a side road branching off to the east.

“Malapaii,” I read on the sign as Moe turned right, and then I saw the small wooden board wired to the fence on our right. “Look, Moe! A for sale sign!”

We stopped the car and got out to walk around the piece of land. It was lovely, with grass as high as our knees and covered with cedar trees.

I wrote the phone number listed on the sign on a napkin I had in my purse, then we got back into the car and continued exploring the country. Malapai Road climbed west up a long hill, past more grass covered country, sometimes fenced, often not. It was a good dirt road, until it reached the top of the hill. There it turned into nothing more than two tire tracks through tall grass. We got out again, at the top of the hill, and looked behind us to the east and the south. What a view! We could see the White Mountains far away on the southern horizon, blue and amethyst and sage. East of us the Snowflake Temple stood on a hill, far away, but still recognizable.

“This is so perfect!” I breathed, gazing happily at the panoramic view around me. I loved the feeling of space, of being able to see for hundreds of miles. Distance always made my heart sore, as if it had wings and I could fly.

“Oh, Moe! If only some of the land up here on this hill were for sale.”

“Maybe it is,” he told me, also enchanted with the view. “When we get home I'll get on line and see if I can find out who owns this, and if anyone wants to sell.”

“I hope so!” I said enthusiastically. “Because this just feels right. It feels like home.”