“by the power of the Holy Ghost that you may know the truth of all things.” Moroni 10:5

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

My father's greatest desire was to have his children learn and understand the concepts of Napoleon Hill. My father had applied them and knew they worked. I had studied them while I was young and not married. I thought about them over the years but had never really taken the time to apply them until this next experience in life.

While I worked for my sister Deanne and her husband, Hal came to me and asked me to build a database. I asked him what one was and he gave me a book. He told me to read the book and build it. I had to read the definitions of the words in order to understand the instructions in the book, but that was the beginning of my learning how to build databases. For some reason, I loved the challenge of seeing how much time I could save people by building a database and making managing data easier. Since that time, I have built many databases.

Over a period of nine or ten years I was involved in building databases for Mountainland Dept. of Aging Services. I started out with small ones that I built in a program called Microsoft Access. This program is geared for a one or two person usage. The database I built in Access to monitor all of the data for the in-home services worked for several years. When I had to bring all of the case managers onto the program, the problems began to occur.

After consulting with the IT department and trying several different approaches to solve the problems, they informed me that Access would no longer work. I had to move into a database that would handle multiple users.

Because we had no funding for the project, Jake, who worked in the IT department, suggested that we use a programming language called php/mysql which was a free program. I had no background in programming other than the little visual basic that I had studied using Microsoft Access. Jake had some background in php/msql but had never built a database. I asked him if he thought he could teach me to manage the database. He said “yes”, so I proceeded to put a proposal together for the director and the assistant director of the aging department.

Jake and I put together a presentation showing the project that we had outlined. It was broken down into four modules, each taking about 4 to 6 months to program and then another 3 or 4 months to beta test. We would build it on our down time and there would be very little, if any, cost to Mountainland.

Taking on this project is where I began to understand the power of the "Master Mind" theory. I came to understand the concepts my father had been trying to teach from Napoleon Hill that "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe he can achieve." This is also taught in the scriptures many times over.

Neither of us alone could have completed the project. By using the "Master Mind" concept of bringing a group of people together with different skills and talents, we discovered that anything can be accomplished even against a lot of odds. I will add that this is especially true when our Heavenly Father is a part of it. Jake had the programming skills and I had the knowledge of the aging department and databases. Bringing these elements together made it possible for us to create something that was literally bigger than both of us.

There were times over the next five or six years "where I asked myself the question “what have I got myself into?” The teachings in the scriptures that state that there is opposition in all things are true. For the first year or so, all I hit were brick walls. In Proverbs 23:7 it states "For as he thinketh in his heart so is he." Fear, doubt and frustration entered my heart and could have blocked the project. This is Satan's tool and it is powerful. At points in the project all I could see was the negative side of things, and I began to lose faith in myself, in Jake, and in our Savior and His infinite power.

At the beginning of the project, the assistant program director decided that he would keep me so busy that I would not have time to work on the database. When I would get approval from the director, the assistant director would go to him and change the director’s mind. He would tell Jake that he could not work with me, and I was not allowed to speak to anyone in the department.

After several months of this, Ted Livingston (the director) finally retired and Scott McBeth came to work for the department. After a couple of months fighting Jim Johnson (the assistant director), I told Scott to make a decision and to stick with it because I was not going to fight Jim any longer. He pulled us into a meeting, listened to both sides, and then told Jim to leave me alone. I had the authority to build the database and he was not to interfere.

Once we had Jim off our back we began to make progress. There were times when it would get very difficult because we did not have the knowledge we needed, and I was afraid we had bitten off more that we could chew. I thought of quitting, but we were too far into the project. I felt like I had sold my soul to even have the right to build the database and had put my name on the line for it. I knew that we needed this database and that there was no turning back.

When Jake would come and say he did not know how to do a particular part, I would cringe because there was no one else in the agency that could help. It was then that I truly learned how to rely on my Father in Heaven. I would sit in my office and cry and then I would close my eyes in prayer and plead for the direction to proceed. Over and over again I would either be given the solution to the problem, I would be led to someone who knew the answer, or I would be told what needed to be done. I would tell Jake “this is the solution”, and he would take it from there. I knew that the Lord wanted us to be successful in this project and was there to help when we needed.

Our Father in Heaven will always be there in all of our righteous endeavors and will give us aid. All of the teachings my father had given me came into play and I learned that they are true.

Face your fears, make a real plan, and let others help. There is great power in gaining a testimony of trusting in the Lord in all things. As I experienced this and many other situations, a love of the Savior began to burn within my heart as He became my best friend. This can also happen to you if you will let it.