Come listen to living prophets

Friday, August 24, 2012

The Best is Yet to Be




So this is a WAY overdue post. Probably more so than any other post I've tackled. Due to the complex nature of the situation, I refrained from making this announcement more public. I'm sure that many of you are already aware of this but just so it's official as it gets: I'm engaged!
Now, while you may have already known this, very few people actually know very much about this wonderful woman that came into my life and changed it forever. First, I'll give you the condensed version of our story. I decided to give online dating a try back at the end of March and within a week, the profile of Lauren Kay House came to my attention. She initially reached out to me, so although I wasn't entirely sure what to make of her profile, I began talking with her. I set up our first date within a few days for the following Saturday. We went to a stand-up comedy performance on BYU campus and got frozen yogurt afterwards and talked about anything and everything. I dropped her off in total shock, amazed at how brilliant she was and how I felt closer to the Lord being with her. I had really begun to lose my confidence in the dating process, but being with her that night reminded me that everything I had gone through at that point was all worth it. I didn't want to get my hopes too high, but I prayed that I would have more opportunities to take her out and be around her. I knew she was a very unique and precious daughter of God, and if for no other reason than that, I wanted to spend more time with her. She really made me want to be better. 
Due to the conclusion of the semester, a sales job that took me to Illinois, and some other inconvenient issues that came up, we didn't come into contact with each other for several weeks. At that point, I was already in Illinois, so the only way that we could communicate was email and Skype. We began emailing each other every night and Skyping once or twice a week. 
Within a month or so, we both received strong promptings from the Lord that what we were doing was right and that we should look to the future with the plan of becoming eternal companions. I was initially hesitant to share the promptings I had received because not only had we only known each other for a few months, but we had been separated for the majority of it. But, from the beginning, we both valued transparency and complete honesty with one another and so during one of our Skyping sessions, I just came out and said it, simply hoping it would come across the right way and that whatever was going through her head, she would choose to take it up with the Lord. The "The Lord told me that you should marry me" card has always struck me as ridiculous for several reasons and it gets used all too often in the dating world, and that was the last thing that I wanted to come across in sharing my experiences with her. To my great surprise, she had received similar promptings and we decided to just move forward. 
For various reasons, we were only able to see each other for a few days during the summer apart and although we knew we were going to get married, I wanted to make the actual moment of giving her a ring and asking her to marry me to be ours and meaningful. So this past Wednesday, we drove out to Salt Lake to attend an endowment session in the temple and before going in I took her to the rooftop of the Conference Center to propose. Due to security issues, we weren't allowed to go by ourselves, so we were given an escort to take us there. After expressing our desires to avoid the tour, she left us to be alone for a moment and surprisingly, the rooftop was barren. As we were gazing at the temple, I finally asked her the question I'd been waiting all summer for and became one of the happiest men alive. The tour guide saw from a distance what had just taken place and took several pictures of us including the one you see above. 
Now, more about Lauren herself. She is originally from the east coast, primarily Boston and the surrounding areas, though she has spent a lot of time in various places on the coast. She attended American University and double majored in Public Communications and Graphic Design before coming to BYU and beginning her work in Ancient and Near Eastern Studies. She loves the Hebrew language and culture and would love to continue her studies as a profession. She is very health-oriented and loves cooking and living healthily. She is very creative and loves reading, writing, painting, and photography. She takes the gospel very seriously and has studied the Bible extensively. She is an expert thrifter and deal-finder. She continually inspires to be better than I am and reminds me how blessed I already am. It was the easiest thing to fall in love with her and I cannot express my eternal gratitude in words for her choice to become my wife for time and all eternity. 
May I just say to all my single friends who are still out there, it's tough being single sometimes. Dating can be unbelievably frustrating and ridiculous at times, but I know from my own experience that God has a plan for each of us that will bring us the greatest happiness so long as we choose to do things in His way. I thought I knew what it meant to love someone until I had the experiences that I did with Lauren and our separation. I didn't know that my heart had the room for such an amazing amount of love. All the time spent in preparation and waiting for your own future spouse will be so worth it. The Lord desires to bless us with greater things than we can imagine. Trust in Him and know that, as Elder Jeffrey R. Holland would say, "The best is yet to be." 

Sunday, August 5, 2012

One Day at a Time

This is one of my dad's favorite sayings and accounts for half of the conversations I have with him when I'm away at college. Being in a long distance relationship has made me develop a new level of patience that I hadn't ever really experienced. The only comparison that comes to mind is the separation that came with being away from my family during the time I was on my mission. I'm incredibly grateful that I never had a girlfriend on my mission and give props to all those who do and are able to stay focused on the work and give 100% to the Lord. Living my normal life and being separated from someone I hold closer to my heart probably anyone else right now has been difficult enough.
What gives me a great deal of comfort however is knowing that the Lord is at the helm of my life and in this separation has come some of the greatest blessings. After all, as we are taught in Corinthians, "[W]e see through a glass darkly..." at this point in time in terms of our relationship with our Heavenly Father. And yet, He gives us so much to be grateful for and happy about. This life, though it comes with its share of trials and tribulations, has the potential of being the supreme learning experience, filled with inexplicable joys and happiness. I know that having the opportunity to end my separation with my fiancee for a brief period brought a greater sense of gratitude and joy in my life that I had never experienced before. There are few times in my life where I can remember being so happy. The Lord continually teaches me amazing lessons through those trials I face. I can only imagine what it will be like when we are no longer separated from our Father in Heaven and we get to see Him face to face. The happiness will truly feel incomprehensible to me.
Hopefully my next post will be a little more original rather than an extension of my last one, but for now I just wanted to say how lucky I am, and we all are, to have so many blessings in our lives as they are. Watching the video below reminded me of that and I hope you'll take a few minutes out of your crazy days to watch it as well. I didn't get up and bear my testimony in church today despite having the opportunity, so I hope this counts for something. I know that our Heavenly Father has a never-ending love for us and that whatever trials we face in our lives will only give us the chance to become more like Him and receive more happiness than we have now. I encourage you to take the time to ask Him what you can be learning from the difficult experiences you may be facing, and I promise you, while you may not come to an immediate recognition of them, you'll be amazed at what the Lord has in store for you. Happy Sabbath!