These are unprecedented times that we are in. Last week my wife and I returned from traveling along the Central California Coast. We were not concerned when we left, but things got real in the middle of our trip. The Church canceled church services around the world and closed temples save for living ordinances. We saw the NBA season postponed, announced cancellation of flights from Europe, ended March Madness, and called for groups of no more than fifty. This also disrupted General Conference plans and every other big event across the country. I had worries that we might not get home to our children.

Thankfully, we are home safely with our children now. Things feel different every time that I walk out of my house. My semester has been relegated to completely online and it appears that we will forego graduation ceremonies. Work is a concern. I am concerned about the viability of Cinch in the coming months as the economy is going to go through a very challenging time. There are a lot of unknowns currently.

My faith in God is unshaken. I have hope through the Atonement of Jesus Christ that we will be alright. So many things have been shaken up. I just read the announcement that missionaries around the world will be headed back to their home countries. I presume that this is a preventative measure headed into eventually having a vaccine for this disease. But this shows how serious this virus may really be.

There has never been anything in my life that has caused as much shift in the way that we live our daily lives. We are hunkered down in our homes as families. Thankfully, we are not completely confined to our homes. We are able to still go to the grocery store, get take out food from restaurants, and enjoy the beautiful outdoors. We are encouraged to keep our distance from others by at least six feet to reduce the spread of this.

This past 10 days with my children home doing school here at home, me working at home as well as doing my graduate studies from home, has caused us to shift things a little more than usual. We have had to create dedicated desk space for the five of us and learn how to share devices. It has been a joy to help my children to learn away from school. The added freedom has shown me how self-motivated they are. I love watching them push themselves to accomplish what they need to when they could easily just slack off and not do anything.

I am encouraged for the future because of this trial. We have had to learn to adapt. Yes, there are many that use this time to binge Netflix and the like, but there are many that are working to create solutions and inspire others. I am impressed by those that are insanely busy, but willing to help older individuals that may not be able to get what they need, local restaurants that are struggling to make ends meet, and others that have lost hours or even their jobs over this. Yes, it is going to hit us hard in the economy, but there is optimism for the future.

I hope that I can use this time to grow my business as well as dedicate more time to meditation, prayer, study, and creating my own content. I haven’t slowed down, but I have shifted some things and it has been wonderful. Now that we are over a week into this we are starting to find our groove. I pray that we all grow from this time.