Once upon a time, a girl met a boy

BJ with the Home Evening Group at Applebee's.

I first saw him on a Monday night in my Home Evening group. None of my other roommates could make it. Luckily I knew one of my new FHE sisters because she had been my visiting teacher the semester before. For the activity we played "Just Dance" on the Wii. Just so you know, I have a very hard time playing that game in front of people I don't know well. So I was this seemingly quiet person. For those of you who know me well, I am generally kind've crazy. But I was acting like the shiest person alive. He sat on the other side of the room. He seemed a bit more reserved too, but he was really handsome. I was slightly interested in him. You know how it is. You see someone and you want to get to know that individual better. He just looked like a great guy to know. But I kept forgetting his name. I couldn't tell if it was PJ, BJ, TJ, or what his name was. I figured that I was going to have a chance to get to know him throughout the semester. I was certainly interested though.


One day, my roommate and I decided to stop by our FHE brothers' apartment and see if they were up to anything. It was a gorgeous day and we were slightly bored. So we stopped by. BJ was there. He was the only one there. But he was leaving on a date soon. Oh well, I thought. (Turns out, his sister told him he had to go on a one date a week, and I just had happened to catch him leaving on one. But I'm really grateful it happened the way it did. His sister is a really smart girl.)

My 20th Birthday

A few weeks or days went by and I started hanging out with my FHE brothers. I lived in this tiny little basement where my bedroom was bigger then the living room and there were no real windows. There were 4 roommates total, but one was spending time in Europe and the two others were gone for a weekend. I was bored. It was Spring in Rexburg, ID. The weather isn't that nice most of the time. When it does shine, you want to enjoy every minute of it. Especially after a long winter. As a result, I'd stop by my FHE brothers all the time as an excuse to leave my apartment. They are a great bunch of guys and a lot of fun to be with, so I started going more and more often. I then began doing a lot of things with Jesse and BJ. We'd play Ultimate Frisbee. We had birthday celebrations. We went out to eat. We went bowling. We went to the ice caves. We went to different lakes. Playing the sprinklers at Porter Park in the dark. Eating twisted dogs. Having G's Dairy Ice Cream. We had a lot of fun.

Bowling with BJ

Hiking up to the "R" with Jesse and BJ

Hiking. :)

BJ at the top!

Eventually, I decided I really liked this guy. Quite a bit. But we were always hanging out. I wanted to go on at least one date with him. A real date. I knew that it was likely that we wouldn't see each other until April 2012 because the only semester we had together was the Spring. It was the only time we both had on track. I wanted to go on at least one date before I went back to California.

One day, as I was hanging out on the corner of Center Street and 2nd South Street. It was nearing the end of the semester and much of my ward was just sitting around chatting and making plans to visit the Farmer's Market or night games or something. I had a mandatory meeting that afternoon for my apartment to learn what we needed to do for clean checks. Well, BJ texted me, asking what I was doing and he asked me if I'd go on a date with him. I decided then and there I was not going to my mandatory meeting; my roommates could tell me about it. We went and watched Cars 2. It's now one of my favorites. It's a pretty fantastic movie.

Home Evening games.

We had a few weeks left of the semester. It was pretty fantastic. But sad. Because I was pretty sure that BJ and I weren't going to be getting anywhere. We had 8 months apart. We weren't even officially dating. We had just gone on dates. He was going to be up in at BYU-Idaho during the Fall Semester where there is quite a selection of wonderful young ladies to date. Then, I had assumed that he was going to be going home, and I was going to be back up there where there were a lot of great young men. I really didn't expect either of us to not date. Dating is a good thing. But I really liked BJ, but realistically long distant relationships rarely work out, let alone work out when we weren't officially dating in the first place.

He's from Utah, and so as the semester drew to a close, I asked if he could give me a drive down to my Aunt's so I could attend my cousin's wedding reception. He said, of course. But I was a bit mischievous. Other girls (and guys, I guess), asked if he had room for them. Since I was always hanging out with BJ and his roommates, I'd hear these questions. I'm really good friends with all of BJ's roommates. They called me the roommate that didn't live there. Well, I'd tell these individuals that "I was going with him, but I had a lot of stuff to bring home... so you could come, but I'm not sure how comfortable everyone would be." Needless to say, it was just BJ and I going down to Utah together at the end of the semester.

BJ at the Ice Caves

On the day of my cousin's wedding, I was sitting on the grounds of the Draper Temple looking down at the valley and trying to pick out all of the temples and trying to figure out where BJ lived among all those houses. After pictures were taken, I texted BJ so we could meet up. My Aunt and Uncle and I went to one hunting store place and eventually we all met up in the Ikea parking lot and I went with BJ. We went and saw Harry Potter and then I met his family. They were so kind and lovely. Afterwards, he drove me all the way back to my Aunt's and Uncle's and attended the reception with me. The lucky guy met most of half of my extended family that night. We had a great time and we danced. For the first time. At that reception of my cousin's.

The next day, he came and picked me up to bring me to his brother's get together before he left on his mission. It was his brother's last weekend before he served his mission. I was blessed enough to get to know the family some more. Then he drove me back, a whole hour drive.

That was the last night we saw each other for months.

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