I've been typing up my journals recently and I finally got to the entries from a year ago when Joe and I started hanging out and dating. It's kind of fun to read what I wrote because I remember how I felt, but in my journals, I seem a lot more calm and just whatever about the situation than I think I really was. After almost 2 years of participating in our stake YSA program, I was ready for a change and had started attending a student ward at the U every once and awhile and I was planning to move my records so that I could meet new people and find a fresh slew of guys! ;) After this particular week of institute, I think I changed my mind...
I’ve been typing up my journals recently and I finally got to the entries from a year ago when Joe and I started hanging out and dating. It’s kind of fun to read what I wrote because I remember how I felt, but in my journals, I seem a lot more calm and just whatever about the situation than I think I really was. After almost 2 years of participating in our stake YSA program, I was ready for a change and had started attending a student ward at the U every once and awhile and I was planning to move my records so that I could meet new people and find a fresh slew of guys! 😉 After this particular week of institute, I think I changed my mind…
October 21, 2010
Institute was great tonight! There were so many return missionaries there, it’s nice to have fresh faces. I got paired up with Joey for a class project. It was really entertaining because we’d been seated in threes and he sat down next to my brother and I, but then they decided that ,y brother should be in a group with a bunch of other return missionaries, so Joey decided that we would choose the topic of being offended because he was offended that he wasn’t put in that same group. He’s been home the same amount of time that they have, but none of them have come to class yet and he has. Joey got my number after class and talked to me for a bit and he’s going to come watch movies with us on Saturday. I used to think he was cute in seminary junior year, so this could be fun.
Looking Back:
Joe likes to tell people that I was laughing nervously through all of class and that I forced my number on him, but I’ll tell you the truth. We were both laughing through all of class, him just as much as me, maybe his was nervous laughter, but I was just entertained. And the whole number situation? He was whining to me about how he never has friends to hang out with and that all he ever does is sit on his bed and watch TV by himself all day so I invited him to hang out with us because there was a group at my house at least once a week. He kept mentioning his “lame” life, so I kept telling him to come hang out, until finally, he got my number!
October 24, 2010
(This was written at the end of an entry about our stake YSA family home evening night that Sunday.)
….I think that I could really start to like Joe and he seems really interested in me, so I’m kind of hoping it goes well.
Looking Back:
I remember Joe texting me something about how I should maybe start going after guys from other wards…who speak in my ward. I should mention that he’d just gotten called to speak in my ward, so this was a very forward comment and it kind of scared me. After a summer of guys who play games and don’t know what they really want and all of the frustration that came with it, I was hesitant to let myself like him, especially because he was such a fresh missionary and I kept thinking that maybe I just wanted it because I’d thought he was attractive in high school and never would have imagined that I’d ever get the chance to date him.
Oh, and this is a funny story!!! When Joe got to family home evening and came to sit next to me on the couch, he put a pillow in between us and told me that it was a chastity pillow! Yep, he was afraid of me! 😉 jk, he was just a fresh RM who’d forgotten how to act around girls!
November 3, 2010
(Written after many nights of long walks and hanging out and watching Harry Potter movies on my couch.)
….I really, really like this boy. Five years ago, watching him in seminary, I never would’ve thought I’d be kissing him down the road.
Looking Back:
The first time we hung out, just the two of us, I had to beg him to come over and be my homework buddy because he’d been telling me that he was bored and I mentioned that I was just going to be doing homework, but I could maybe use a friend. Did he take the bait? No, that boy never let me off easy, he’d make me be the one to be forward and say that I wanted things so he kept asking me, “So what are you saying?” and “Are you sure you want me to come over?” Urgh…he was frustrating! And then he came over and sat three cushions away from me while we watched The Blindside and I did homework.
And then the night that he kissed me, he wouldn’t just kiss me, he practically made me beg for it. We sat there talking on my couch and he had his face really close to mine, like the whole 90/10 concept from the movie Hitch, but I wasn’t going to go the 10 and he kept teasing me asking me if I was expecting something or waiting for something and what I wanted. The nerve of some people!
A few weeks after we met… (We’d been hanging out pretty much every single night. Sometimes I’d do homework and he’d watch TV, sometimes we’d go on a walk or just sit on my couch and talk, sometimes we’d watch a movie, sometimes we’d go out and do something. We spent a lot of time together and when we didn’t get to see each other, we’d call and chat before bed for a couple of hours.)
November 7, 2010
While Joey and I were chatting last night, he was joking around about how I hadn’t filled out an application to be his girlfriend like one of his Facebook status’ had said he was accepting before we started hanging out. So, this afternoon, just to be stupid, I found an application to date an RM online and edited it to fit his mission and had a lot of fun with it! Everyone in my family contributed and it was really funny!
We went to a CES fireside, so I gave it to him when I picked him up and he got a kick out of it.
After the fireside, I got to meet one of Joey’s sisters and her girls. His niece, always texts me from his phone, so it was good to meet her. We watched all of the pictures from his mission with his parents and his brother. He was so funny to watch while he was telling us stories. We sat and cuddled and talked and laughed more about my ridiculous application and then I had to go. We talked in his driveway a lot longer and his brother kept trying to spy on us, so I kept waving at him. Joey told me that he liked me a lot and then he said something about how he couldn’t just keep saying that he liked me. I’d been joking around about something to do with other guys and he’d tried to say that I was his and I told him that I wasn’t a possession, so then he said, half joking/half serious, “Amberly, because I love you, can I claim you as mine?!” I was kind of surprised that he put the I love you out there, but it didn’t bother me. So, now we are officially dating and I really think I love that boy.
Looking Back:
Who knew that all you needed to do was apply to date boys and that it worked?! I was smitten, I’ll admit it, and for a while it scared me because I’d never had a guy be so forward or know exactly what he wanted and Joe wasn’t afraid to let me know. It was refreshing and a good change and one of the reasons that I married him. I know that he’s going to always tell me what he’s thinking.
The rest is history.
How did you meet your spouse?