Provo Library

After the reception at the Provo Library. LOOK at that DRESS!!

That's how it's done!

Here's a funny kissing story. So, when my wife and I were dating we had decided we both wanted to take it slow. She didn't want to waste time with someone that she wasn't serious about so we had both decided to not just kiss for fun (we both like it very much). We were waiting until we had progressed far enough in the relationship. My criteria was that I had to truly love her before I kissed her. She wanted a solid relationship without physical affection before introducing it to the relationship. We were both very logical about our relationship and so one night we decided that we were ready to kiss. She is a little over four years older than I am and due to her age she has had a lot more kissing experience than I have. I, on the other hand, had only kissed two girls before my wife. I was eighteen when I kissed for the first time and didn't kiss another girl until after my mission. She always bragged about how good she was and so did I, but I really didn't have the "credentials". So, anyways, we decided we had reached the kissing level in our relationship but we still wanted it to be spontaneous. We began to walk around the BYU football stadium. I knew i was to kiss her sometime along the walk but she just kept talking and talking. To tell you the truth, in both of my kissing experiences before the girls kissed me first. Needless to say, I had no idea what I was doing. All of the sudden and out of nowhere, she kissed me. It was just a peck. I was totally unprepared and I knew i hadn't nearly performed up to my abilities. After the kiss she probably thought I really couldn't kiss and I couldn't have that. When we finally got back to the car we got in and we were just talking. Finally, I said, "Do you want to really kiss?" (she later told me that she thought she was just going to have to sacrifice in the kissing area being with me). She agreed and then I really laid it on her. She was not at all prepared. I knocked her socks off! Since then she loves to tell people that first I kissed her then I "really kissed her!"

WOW....

I Love My Wife!

I'm probably in for a lifetime of looks just like these from my beautiful wife. She keeps me in line. There's no doubt about it. She has a very strong testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is very sensitive to the Spirit. She is humble and sweet and always ready to teach and learn the principles taught to her by the Spirit. Some men find this trait very unattractive in a woman because of their own pride. I love that my wife corrects me. I could and can not become the man my Heavenly Father wants me to become without having a wife who is not only supportive, but also willing to correct when necessary. This is not to say that she bosses me around or that I always give in (I too suffer from the man's curse of pride and stubbornness). She lovingly corrects me because she can see my true potential. By doing so she is fulfilling her duty as my wife. I love that she cares enough about my eternal progression to not let things slip. We both served in the Iowa Des Moines Mission. While serving, I had the opportunity to see what a wonderful person she was. I never thought I would marry someone so perfect and so willing to put God first in all things. Now, after having been blessed with the opportunity to be married to such an angel, I have complete confidence that she will raise our children in righteousness. I just want to say something to those young women out there who are afraid to correct the men in their lives whether they be friends, boyfriends or fiances. If you are afraid to correct them in respect to principles of righteousness or things that offend your spirit then maybe they aren't the right men you should be hanging out with. The righteous men in your lives will accept the correction and strive to improve. Do not ever stay in a relationship in which your spirit is continually offended. These relationships are not worth anything. When men are corrected by women and they are offended it is because they are guilty. The Book of Mormon says that the wicked take the truth to be hard. It is true. Stand up for righteousness in all times, in all places and in all things no matter what the consequences and you will surround yourself with the men who are looking for a righteous woman. I was looking for a righteous woman and when my wife wasn't afraid to correct me on little things that distracted from the Spirit, I knew I had found one. If you can't stand up to your potential eternal companion or friends then you will have an even harder time standing up to your kids when they start to wander.

I just had pretended to push her in!

Eternity

You can't imagine the excitement and overwhelming love that is felt as a new couple heads out into the great unknown of the beginning of an eternal relationship. My wife and I had dreamed of this moment since we were children. I had always just wanted to be married and to start my family. When we heard the words sealing us together for time and all eternity we both began to cry on the altar knowing beyond any doubt that we really would be together forever. Even now as we go throughout daily life we can't help but get emotional sometimes just knowing that we really are going to never be separated after this life. To those who criticize marriage and are pessimistic in general this may sound a little bit too mushy for you but it really is the truth. When you find someone that you know you want to spend the eternities with and they want it just as much as you do then you will know what this feels like. Not everyone who gets married is in true love. There are many couples who learn to live with each other or grow into loving each other after the "honeymoon" is over. There are even couples that get sealed in the temple with false expectations of marriage and of their spouses. Marriage is a sacrifice. It is not easy. God does not just make life a "happily ever after" kind of story just because a couple is sealed in His temple. Marriage still takes work, sacrifice and hard times. Here is the key: Although marriage is a sacrifice, it does not feel like it to couples who are truly dedicated to the Lord and their spouse. Christ definitely sacrificed everything for us, yet He did not complain. He did not think it was a hard decision. He completely and willingly gave His whole life to us because of His love for us. If you do not feel that way towards your eternal companion, then you are missing out. My wife is not perfect (she'll be the first one to tell you that), but she does try. She strives for perfection in all that she does every second that she has. She is easy to serve and sacrifice for because she gives nothing less than her whole being to righteousness. I love her with all of my heart. Because of the love we have for each other, sacrifice is nothing. When you love someone there is no sacrifice. As I started out with this entry, "You can't imagine the excitement and overwhelming love that is felt as a new couple heads out into the great unknown of the beginning of an eternal relationship" unless you have been there. I have been there. I am living that eternal dream. My greatest joy and most extreme happiness is found in my eternal relationship with the love of my whole soul.

We Did It!!

Why did she pick me? I'll never know...

I still wonder that to this day. Why did this return missionary young woman who is beautiful, righteous and amazing in every way want to spend the eternities with me. Well, it turns out she wondered the same thing when she started having feelings for me. When we first came home from our missions we both had no interest in each other with respect to love. She needed a drummer to write songs with and perform with and I needed a place to store my drums while going to school. It turns out that our needs seemed to fit perfectly. Some of my mission companions used to ask me what was going to happen with Sis. Shields and I after the mission. I always told them jokingly, "Well, she needs me to play drums for her so we'll have a lot of alone time in the garage together. I'll probably kiss her and we'll just keep our relationship at that!" We got a good laugh about that but nothing more. After I came up to BYU for school we ended up spending quite a lot more time together then we had thought. She would show me around Provo, help me with girl advice and I would do my laundry at her house (she lived with her parents at the time). I then began to be truly interested in her and, while it took a whole lot more convincing to get her on the same page, she eventually realized that she had feelings for me also. She had been held back all along for a few reasons: first, she wasn't ready to date yet after the mission, second, she just needed a friend at the time and third, she couldn't see any depth to my personality. The third one surprised me the most when she later told me (yep, she's brutally honest). She said that I didn't open up until we were already dating. I didn't realize any change but she could all of the sudden see my life goals, my testimony and my core beliefs due to experiences in my life. I subconsciously was holding these back because she was rejecting me left and right. She once broke down and said "Why can't you just bee a friend to me? Can't you just be the guy who has a hot friend of the opposite sex with out being interested in her?" I mean, she was really not into me at all. She said I became a new person when she finally decided to give a relationship a try. Now, because of this experience, I would like to give a word of advice to both guys and girls: Don't hold back who you really are for fear of rejection. In this case, it turned out that who I really was fit perfectly into who she wanted to be with. It doesn't always work out this way. Maybe, when you show who you really are, the girl or guy you are interested in will drop you right there, but that's ok. I promise you that you will not want to be with anyone who does not want to be with the real you.

She is so BEAUTIFUL!!!

Pride Kills Progress

Pride is and has been the root of, I would say all evil. Sometimes pride can subltly come into our lives and slowly drag us away from the God we love and serve. Pride prevents learning. We are here to learn and thus pride prevents our mortal purpose. It is Satan's purpose to impede our progress and pride is one of his greatest tools. Elder Eyring gives us one way to fight pride in a speech given at BYU October 21 1997. He said, "It is simply to remember who God is and what it means to be his child. That is what we covenant to do each time we take the sacrament, promising always to remember the Savior. Because of what has been revealed to us about the plan of salvation, remembering him can produce the humility that will be our protection. And then, as we will see later, that same choice to remember him will in time produce in us greater power to learn both what we need to know for living in this world and in the life to come." Maintaining this eternal perspective and knowledge of who we are can save us from pride. Not only should we know that we are children of God but we should also keep in the front of our minds that so is everyone else. Pride separates us from those around us, putting us above the rest, while the end goal in life is to be in the Celestial Kingdom with everyone after this life. There is no class system in God's eyes. To avoid having to be humbled by circumstances and experiences in life we can keep in remembrance the Atonement of Jesus Christ and what it means to all of His children.