Here is Good

Life after graduation started with a bang with a family reunion and then almost instantly off on my family's trip down to LA and Disneyland. Then it was off to Utah for my grandpa's 85th birthday celebration (which Josh was able to join), back up to Billings to get my stuff, and then heading back to Rexburg to work as an EFY counselor for two weeks. It was all so much fun and the best way to start off being done with school forever! I didn't get to see Josh very much during all of this because I was so busy, and one weekend, he went out of town for his best friend's wedding in Washington. But we were constantly texting, calling, or chatting on Facebook to make up for it. The hardest part about working EFY was that I was staying at an apartment complex right next door to where Josh lived, but I couldn't go see him! Absolute torture! My EFY girls would beg me to bring Josh over, but I instead bribed them with the story about how we met if they got in bed o...

An old roommate of mine had a sign hanging in her apartment in Provo depicting the different stages of love, called The Love Stick. It goes from Limbo (don't like anyone) to Celestial Marriage, with various steps of "like" and "love" in between. Anyone who stopped by was welcome to put their name on a clothespin and place themselves on whichever step they desired. It's pretty well understood that you don't just jump from a crush to loving someone. Some people try to jump straight to the top, while others are perfectly content hanging out on the "crush" phase forever. The bottom few steps are pretty easy to fly through, but the farther up the ladder you go, the harder it can be to distinguish (or admit) to which step you're on. It was safe to say that by the end of June, I was definitely in the "Really Like" with Josh. Every minute in between our crazy school and work schedules was spent with each other, or at least talkin...

In the middle of June, Josh and I went on what is still one of my favorite dates we've done so far. We decided it would be fun to go back to R Mountain and have a picnic, and so on a Saturday afternoon, we packed up some sandwiches in Josh's backpack and headed up the mountain. Once we worked our way over to the R, we set up our little dinner and kept talking. I commented on what a beautiful view of the valley it was, and I started taking some pictures of it on my phone. Josh pulled out his phone too, and said "This is the view I like the most" as he snapped this picture of us: Dang, he was cute :) After we were finished eating, we made our way about halfway back around the top of the mountain when it started to get dark. We found some rocks to sit under and we played with a laser pointer Josh had brought along, tracing the constellations and seeing how far out we could get the light to go. And we just talked for well over an hour before we made the much harder...

Lately, I've been feeling the need to share what Josh and I have been going through. This is very close to my heart, and I haven't wanted to talk about it at all. But over the past few weeks, I've had the feeling in my heart that I need to be more open about it. And I've found that the more I talk about it, the better I feel. I'm not sharing to make you feel sorry for me - that's the last thing I want. I just want you to be able to understand. (I'm going to be very blunt and open, so if you don't want to know all that many personal things about me, you might want to skip this post.) Growing up as the oldest of nine children, I learned from an early age how to care for kids. I helped feed my brother when I was 2, changed my first diaper when I was 8, and by 12, I was babysitting for my parents as well as others in my church. I grew to absolutely love babysitting! I loved getting to be with all these adorable children. And so I went from watching...

The next day after my interview with my bishop, May 23rd, Josh asked if he could come over after he finished work that night to talk. He didn't get done with work until after 10 that night, and so it was getting close to well after 11 before he made it over to my place. My roommates were all still out and about, or already in bed, so it was just Josh and I out in the living room sitting on the couch. I was a little nervous about what he wanted to talk to me about, but he seemed to be his normal happy self. We didn't have much time to talk before curfew, so Josh got right to the chase. He told me that he had been doing a lot of thinking the past couple of weeks about what he wanted, and about us. (I honestly don't remember what all he said - I was kind of nervous about where he was going with this). He started to get a little nervous, paused, and then said, "And so I think we should be exclusive." A huge grin split across my face, and all I could get out was, ...

Ok, I need to back track a little bit in the story. During the week break from school, I had turned my focus back to my mission papers. I had gone through the first parts of the papers fairly quickly in January, but I had let doubts and boys get in the way of finishing up the rest of them. I had spent a lot of time going back and forth and back and forth about it all. Thinking about it. Praying about it. Talking with my parents, friends, and other family. I really wanted to go out and teach people about the gospel that I love so much, but I was also terrified about it. I'm pretty shy at first, and so I was scared about going out to talk to total strangers. But over the break between  semesters in April, I jumped full force back into the mission-mobile. I got my dental examination and set up my physical examination at the Student Health Center on campus for the first day of the semester. I was also in a Mission Prep class for Spring semester, and I was really excited for it! One o...

I have to admit, I was surprised but not necessarily happy that Josh had texted me. Just confused. He was happy that I had come? And watched him sit on the sidelines all afternoon? He had barely spoken to me the whole time! But when he apologized for not being very talkative, the beginnings of frustration with him washed away. I still wasn't completely happy with him, but it was still nice that he had apologized. We kept chatting for a little bit longer, and by the time we said goodnight, I wasn't entirely sure what was going to happen when I saw him next in a couple of days. Maybe we were just going to be friends forever, nothing more. But despite my confused feelings for Josh, there was no way for me to avoid him to figure them out, because once I got back to Rexburg on Sunday, we ended up seeing each other essentially every day that week. Monday was FHE. Tuesday, he sat by me at devotional, and then walked me to work at the Student Health Center before heading home. Wedn...