My Life Monday - Week 2

The question this week is - Week 2 - The story of my spouse.

Man, my story is so boooorrrring. It's a typical Mormony way of meeting. Can you guess? I bet some of you can! We met at a drum roll please - singles ward! At the time, I did not know that a lot of Mormons met at singles wards like we did. I really didn't know what a singles ward was. My time with Mormons had been short. At the time, I was a new member of about seven months and had been converted to the church back in the Peekskill, NY Area. There was no singles ward back in the area that I was in at the time, so when I got back to Seattle and I was trying to figure out what ward I needed to go to one of the bishops directed me to the singles ward.

Lets start from the beginning though. In the early summer of 1991, I had just gotten back from living in New York for about a year and a half. It was a riot. I loved it and it was one of the best experiences of my life. To make a long story short, I had gone there to be a nanny for a family from India and then stopped doing that and started working as a bill collector/secretary/physical therapy aide for a small physical therapy/spine clinic office. I still lived with this family and rented a room from them and they hired a new nanny and she was LDS and that is how I ended up being introduced to the church and joining.

Right before I got back, I had been going through some struggles on whether I wanted to stay and settle down in that area or go back to Seattle because I really liked it and I had friends and a good support system in place, but I did miss my family and the Seattle Area a lot. Anyways . . . one of my friends suggested that I get a blessing from his dad. For people in our church, you can ask a priesthood holder for a blessing for guidance, for illness, etc. Well, as soon as he was done with the blessing, I knew that I needed to go back to Seattle. It just felt like the right thing to do.

When I got back home, I started going to the singles ward in my area and started going to activities and met my husband Jon. We were at a dance and he asked me if I liked fish and if I had ever gone to Spud's and wanted to go with him and a couple of his friends. Another interesting fact is that Jon and I went to all the same schools until high school and grew up a few minutes from each other, but our paths never crossed. His sister and my sister, from what I remember them saying, rode the same bus to school. We just never met.

At that time and in the way he asked me though, I was not really sure if he was asking me on a date or not or just to come as a buddy. I was clueless. Well, he picked me up and his friends were not with him and he said that they couldn't make it. Likely story. We still debate about this one. Was he just trying to lure me into his trap, which I thought was a safe bet because there would be another couple with us on our date or not? This question has never been truly answered.

On our first date, we went to play miniature golf, ate at Spud's, and we went for a walk on the beach and he sang. That was it, I was sunk. Before I tell you the next part, which is corny and probably cliche Mormony stuff again, I have to tell you that I had no designs on getting married. I am a very non-romantic person. My husband is far more romantic than I and I have come to relish his corniness. I am a very realistic, non-fluffy kind of girl. I always felt that my feet were planted firmly on solid ground and no one was going to sweep me off my feet. I did not want to even get married until I was 30 or 35 or maybe never. I would also like to add that my husband had gotten out of a relationship and broken off an engagement with a girl that he had grown up with a few months before I came home and had no plans to be engaged/married anytime soon.

On our second date, we went to his uncle's house in Yakima with his sister and brother. When you go to Yakima, you drive by the Seattle temple. Anyways, on the way back, I looked up and saw the temple and I had the strongest impression that Jon was the man that I was going to marry. In all the time since then, I have never had an impression that strong. Yes, I have had impressions about things but NEVER that strong. It was a very different experience for me. God needed to get his point across to me and it took a sledgehammer for him to do it.

Well, two weeks after this, we were at his parents house and he asked me (please don't think less of him) hypothetically, if I were to ask you to marry me, what would you say? Okay, how lame is that proposal but I said yes. We were only engaged for about five months. I had wanted to set the date for my grandparents anniversary which is April 2nd and then we moved it up a few months and a couple more months until we settled on December 18, 1992. He did surprise me later that summer and asked me to marry him at a beach in Oregon with my ring that I did not know he had yet.

I never would have thought that I would get engaged to someone two weeks after meeting them and married five months later. This December, we will have been married 14 years and I have never regretted my decision for one moment. We have had good times and bad, but I knew he was the one for me and I am glad he is my partner. My life has been better than I ever expected and we have three fantastic kids to show for it and I am looking forward to growing old with him. He truly is my best friend.