Fall Memories ;)

A year ago, this weekend, JJ and I met in Pocatello and drove to SLC to spend the weekend with his family and friends. I will never forget the look on his face when I met him in the parking lot in Pocatello. I ran up to him and gave him a huge hug, and he wrapped his arms around me and held me tight(just like he always did ;)) as  I leaned back to look at him, there was something different about him.

The boy was glowing.
I distinctly remember thinking, "He looks so happy!"

That was the day JJ went through the temple. :)

I kept feeling his shoulders and saying, "That's not an undershirt anymore!!" He would just laugh because I kept commenting about it and how much I loved it.
I had never seen J like that before.

He told me how much he loved it, and how cool it was for his family to be there with him and his brother--& how he had never experienced such strong emotions before. Like, I said--he was G L O W I N G.

We talked the whole way to Salt Lake. That's something about JJ that I love. He's a talker. We can talk for hours without silence.

The weekend was flawless. We got to SLC that night and met up with some of his friends. Both of them played football with him at the U, both of them were married..it was fun to get their perspective about the whole "waiting thing"..one of his friends said, "hey if my wife could do it, you can!" hahaha..she was like, "Just keep yourself super busy. all the time." When they were giving the advice, I'm not going to lie, I felt a part of my heart was breaking..because it was all of a sudden becoming so surreal. JJ was leaving in two weeks. No more meeting up in Pocatello, visiting him at home, him coming to see me at school. . . .he was gone in fourteen short days. As I was thinking about all those thoughts, I looked at him..and just put my arms around him and hugged him tight...I know he knew what was going through my mind because he kissed my forehead and whispered in my ear, "I love you so much Genny."

That night, we went to a haunted house and we laughed more than we were scared. haha! I bulldozed over JJ a few times and he would say, "gen where are you going?!?!" haha..that's what I do when I'm scared; start running and bulldoze over anything in my way. After the haunted house, we got hot chocolate and then decided we were really tired so we went back to his aunt's house and called it a night.

The next morning, we woke up and had breakfast with his parents and then went to the store to get something. We were laughing the whole time at the store. After that, JJ had to pick something up in SLC at Deseret Book so we went there and then to temple square ;) It was so nice to walk around the temple with my boyfriend, hand-in-hand, so in love..I'll never foret that. After that, we went to a Utes game and ended up leaving early to get me back to school.

Its little memories like this that make me grateful for this journey. for JJ.
The wait is almost half way over, and we're still as much in love as we were before he left.
Its been fifty weeks now, and I'm proud to say that I have received 50 letters.
Some have been short, some long. Some come in packs of 2 or 3 when he doesn't have time to send them weekly..but, I know that I am so blessed that my sweetheart takes the time out of his busy week to tell me all about his mission and to let me know how much he loves me.

one step closer.