Holding On and Letting Go

Holy cow! It's been over a month. Sorry y'all. These last couple of weeks have been pretty crazy with school, work, and Wendy.

My classes and work have been going pretty well. In my legislative branch class I even got a bill of mine passed. In other news, Wendy and I got our engagement photos taken, which was a lot of fun. Especially Wendy laughing every five minutes or so from something silly I said. Here is a preview of them. I'll post them later on facebook.

Don't worry, this isn't the one that we will be using for the invites. Y'all will see those later. As Wendy said "cuz they are a surprise!"

We've been able to grow closer together these few weeks. We've also had a lot of fun. Wendy was able to go to my sister Megan's bridal shower where she got to hang out with the women of my family. Megan gets married in three weeks. One of my favorite TV series, Legend of Korra had its season finale which was epic. And I got to watch it with my darling Wendy, which always makes it better.

During the last few weeks, I've been reading a talk called "Holding On and Letting". It is a really good talk that talks about times when we need to hold to important spiritual principles and letting go of unimportant things. I feel like this has been a big lesson that I've learned this year. Between the two relationships that I've had this year, I can say that this is definitely a lesson I've learned. Often we need to hold on to the important gospel principles during our trials and we need to let go of our plans, incorrect thoughts and habits, and those who pulls us down. On the other hand we need to hold fast to the teachings of the prophets, the scriptures, and hold on to those who lift us up. With Wendy I have learned to hold on to her and the gospel and let go of my thoughts and perceptions.

I hope that ya'll learn to hold to the good principles and let go of the bad things! Hope y'all have a great week!

My Brother--An Answer to Prayer

This week was good and stressful. I was more productive than I had expected. I took a history test and did pretty well. Wendy and I watched the Muppets Movie, that Wendy gave me and we went to the Cacao Bean this Saturday to relax. I should also mention that it's my sister Megan's 20th birthday! I'm glad that she's a member of my family and that she's my sister.


This is my brother and I. He's the one with brown hair.

So I've had this idea for a post for at least two weeks. Clearly, I've gotten distracted a lot since then. Well one of the highlights of this week (besides wedding planning) was getting to talk to my brother Aaron. He is really cool. When I was young, I always wanted to have a brother. I remember that when my mom was pregnant with my sister Megan, that I prayed that she would be a boy so that I could have a cool little brother. Then a few years later, my mom had Aaron. I was happy to FINALLY have a little brother. Eventually my excitement wore off after I realized that we had a large age gap.

Like many siblings, I've always loved him but I've not always liked him. When we were younger, we didn't always get along. First I should explain that my brother is really smart. Originally this was really cool because I could talk to him about intellectually about the stuff I talked to my peers about. Well eventually like any good little brother, he decided to use his intelligence to get on my nerves. Luckily that phase didn't last long.


After that phase we've gotten along pretty well. We talked about lots of random stuff, as memory serves, most of it was imaginary things. Then I went on my mission and everything changed. My family members had changed a lot and I'd hardly heard anything from my siblings. I had to restart my relationship with all of my siblings and my brother was no exception.


It was hard because we didn't have any common ground. So I took some advice from my mom and decided to just hang out with him. We started hanging out at a creek near our home in North Carolina. Since that time we've done a lot of hanging out at that creek. Now we talk discuss temples, politics, fashion (we have strong and sometimes differing opinions about what looks good) and both the Avatar series.


Aaron is my brother and he is a dork just like me. Being his older brother, I've had the opportunity to watch him grow up and to be a part of his life. I've tried my best to set a good example to him and I think that he's done a great job at living the Gospel despite how hard it can be. He is cool, lovable, geeky, and all around a lot of fun. I love my brother and I'm glad to be his brother.

I hope that y'all have a good week! Remember to love your family. Try to find ways to show you that you do!

My Wendy Darling

So these few week have been pretty crazy but pretty awesome. I've been keeping up with work, school, and of course, my darling Wendy. Some of you may notice a post before this. I needed to use my blog to sell a spare ring that I have. So you can ignore the last post.

So over the last several weeks, Wendy and I have gotten to know each other much better and become great friends. We've developed a deep level of friendship that neither one of knew existed. Wendy's been able to meet my crazy family and get to know them better. So now on to the story that most of my readers are waiting for.

A week before my last post, Wendy and I went for a walk as we often do. On the walk, Wendy got nervous and told me that she wanted to talk to me about something but she was nervous to bring it up. I told her not to be nervous and promised that I would not be judgmental of what she said. She told me that really liked our relationship and she'd like for it to become more permanent. I told her that I think that I would like that too but I wasn't sure about it. I explained that I had recently gotten out of a really rough relationship and that I was really hesitant about considering that option. She pleaded with me and told me that she had thought and prayed about it a lot and she felt like it was right. In the end, she convinced me to pray about it. The Lord told me that my relationship with her should continue forward. I was really surprised by that answer; I was totally not expecting it.


Then after a few days and a bit of struggle within myself, I decided to start making things happen. The day before my last post, Wendy and I took her great great grandmother's fused wedding set to the jewler's to get downsized, separated, cleaned, and replated. We got them back within the week. The days prior to getting the ring back, I talked to my parents about our decision. Then I had to ask her parents.... My feelings while asking them for permission are best summarized by the last line of the announcer from the Legend of Korra. Wetting my pants

So.... yeah, it was intense. I now completely understand why my brother-in-law forgot his number. But I obviously got their approval. After getting her approval, my parents requested that we come down so that they could get to know my darling Wendy better. So last weekend, we went down to Utah and they got to know her better and they like her too.


On Tuesday, I finally got everything together to propose to my darling Wendy. I wrote her a poem called “The Greatest Miracle of My Life” and I tore off the last three lines that talked about me proposing to her. I put a little picture of a kiss over it (so that it'd be "sealed with a kiss") and taped it closed. I also printed off a picture of purple tulips because that her favorite type of flowers. I clipped both the poem and the picture to her front door and then knocked. I ran around the corner where they couldn’t see me (I found out later that Wendy answered the door) and made sure that they found it. Then I acted pretty normally all through out the morning and afternoon. On Tuesday's my university has religious fireside at two o'clock which Wendy and I usually attend. We did so on that Tuesday too. After devotional we went to Porter park (Wendy's favorite place and one of our most frequented places). We walked around half of the end of the park until Wendy suggested that we sit down under a pavilion nearby. We did and I pretended to find the piece of paper that had the last three lines on it; I glanced at it and told Wendy that it was for her. As she read it, I got down on one knee. When she had finished, I proposed to my darling. Her reaction was her expression below. And she said YES!!!!

I'm so excited to marry my best friend. As I told her once, I will never call her the girl of my dreams. The girl of my dreams was not nearly as awesome as she is. I hope y'all have a good week!

Happiness is Contagious and Is Spread With A Smile

So my last few weeks have been kinda crazy. But in a good way. I went home for a week and brought my girlfriend down to Utah. It was nice to be home around my crazy family and get to play with my little nephew, Nikolai, who is adorable.

I will say that I finished Mockinjay which was good. I'm presently following two TV series, Avatar: Legend of Korra, and Once Upon A Time. Both of them are a bit cheesy but still very well written.

Classes have started back up (for me) and I'm getting the hang of them. I think I'm going to like all of them. I just need to get a lot more sleep before my psychology class.

So I just wanted to take a minute and say that my girlfriend makes me happy. She's happy, positive, and just cute. I like how she too shares my joie de vivre. I watched the latest episode of Legend of Korra before I showed it to Wendy and I thought that it was aoky. Then I showed it to her and I liked it better because of her reactions to everything.

These last few weeks, I have felt immensely blessed because of my family, friends, girlfriend and ward. There are so many reasons that I have to be happy that it's really hard to count them. I wish I could express my feelings better but I'll just have to say that I'm very happy where I am right now. I hope that you my readers, find time to count blessings. I know that they're a lot more than you think that are. When you realize how blessed you are thank the Lord and then remember; be happy!