Monday, June 1, 2009

How I met my John



How did you meet your other half? I met mine while he was on his mission in my city. He was a missionary and I didn't pay attention to him because when you're a missionary in our church and you're a boy, girls are one of those things that are TOTALLY and ABSOLUTELY off limits. Same as if you're a girl missionary, boys are TOTALLY and ABSOLUTELY off limits. You get the point. Well, I got to talk to Elder B (that would be John) when both him and his companion came over to my mom's house to help with a service project. Service project being something to do with our front lawn.

Anyway, we got to talking about things you usually ask missionaries. My mom talked and asked questions, I talked and asked questions,too. Where are you from? How many siblings do you have? Do you go to school back home? Blah, blah, blah. The end. That was that. Shortly after that, I moved to Chicago with my dad. See, I told you, that was the end. Or so I thought.

Not the end at all. Being in Chicago, I could now write Elder B. So I did. I wrote him on a whim and frankly, I have no idea why I did. But I did. Probably because up to that point, even if our conversation had only been about his four siblings and what school he went to, he was the nicest guy I had ever met. Ever. And frankly, I wanted to hear more from this really nice guy. We wrote each other about things that were totally silly and probably boring to others. He wrote stories about his mission, crazy people on the streets he encountered (that weren't too fond of missionaries), about people he baptized, about Jimmy, this man that was about 65 years old and smoked and had tattoos everywhere. He wrote to me about how Jimmy got baptized and about how much he admired him. We saw Jimmy last year, at stake conference. He still comes to church and is doing well. That was really cool to see him. I wrote about my family life, the problems I was having at home and at school. Now I know that probably worried him and burdened him on his mission but he says he was grateful for it. A lot of the people he was teaching on his mission had the same issues I did. He learned to sympathize with them. At least that's what he says.

Well, we wrote and wrote for about a year. A mission is two years long, you see. And I met my John when he was a few months out. He had mentioned coming back out west (he lived on the other side of the country) when he was done with his mission. I didn't believe him. He said he loved the people out there (talking about the Spanish culture and our ward) and wanted to spend time in my town. Of course, as innocent as our communication was, I knew that "the people" included me. I didn't have a clue as to what that meant. And I didn't like him like you like a potential boyfriend. Our communication was only through letters, for goodness sakes. This wasn't normal. But something inside of me knew. He says something inside of him also knew. Knew that something was different about us. Even through letters. It's fun to talk about it now.

The day came when he was released as Elder B and was sent home. I knew the day he was leaving. He had written to tell me he would call when he got home. But then, he got home, and I didn't get a call. Or at least, I thought that he hadn't called....

The rest of this story tomorrow.

1 comment:

  1. ...to be continued???

    how could you???!!! i can't wait till tomorrow for the rest of the story!!!

    oh wait... i was there for all of this, wasn't i? can i tell the people what happened? about how he fell head over heels for you and was never the same again??

    i guess we'll all have to wait...

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