I'm about 4 days late this with this post. But I figured better late than never, right?
My love, my sweetheart, my other half has been gone for 10 months! The fact that we're finally in double digits kinda makes my head hurt. I'm finally getting to that stage where I catch myself thinking, "I swear he just left..."
During this last month I moved back to Hawaii. Which is where Jared and I met, exactly 2 years ago this month. So I'm constantly feeling like we just barely met here a year ago. When really, it's been two. Which just goes to show that time really does fly by.
I've been really struggling with being here without him. The place we met. The place where my life completely changed. The place where I fell in love with the man of my dreams. I see him everywhere and in everything. We spent the first 6 months of our relationship here on the beach, at the temple, on campus, and just loving the fact that we finally found each other. We both knew something was missing in our lives. We just didn't know what. Until we met each other <3
Safe to say I fall more in love with him every single day.
Sometimes I think to myself, "Dang, I'm glad I don't have to worry about getting letters every week from my missionary. That must be hard always dealing with the anxiety of wondering if it'll arrive on the day you expect, or constantly checking the mailbox. Sure glad I don't have to deal with that."
Or, "Email chatting must be so hard.. Cuz you're constantly having to say 'bye' again." It's crazy to think though that those are all things I wanted SO desperately at one time.
Being a missionary girlfriend is all about perspective.
I can't emphasize that enough.
I like to think that I've had enough experience with this whole "waiting" thing to understand it a lot better than I did in the beginning. It's true, when Jared stopped writing letters every week it was hard. I got really sad. But I accepted it and made not receiving letters the new "normal" for me. And you know what? That made all the difference. I was able to change my perspective into a positive one. I decided that not getting them every week is almost like a blessing. I don't get anxious about checking the mail, I don't worry about what day it might show up, etc.. Now whenever I get a letter, it's an amazing surprise! My perspective completely changed. But it's not something that just happens. It's something you need to sit down and decide, "I am going to feel this way about this situation" and then work on it. Every single day.
I challenge you to pray and ask the Lord to help you view hard situations differently. I promise you He will. He wants you to be happy! But He wants you to do your part. It's okay to have those hard days that we all have every once in a while. Just the other night I spent in my bed with ice cream while watching A Walk to Remember and missing my sweetheart more than anything. That's fine. That's perfectly healthy. But if that's what you're doing all the time? Somethings gotta change or you are going to be miserable, and honestly? Your man might not even want to be with you when he gets home. Yeah, I just said that. It's SO important for us to be growing, and more important, for us to be happy. Happy people are the people who change the world :)
It's easy to say, "Well it's so hard to be happy when .......... is happening" but it's also easy to change your perspective.
When I started to change my perspective about not getting to email chat, not receiving letters or packages often, etc is when I saw the most blessings in my life. We had a lesson in relief society where they challenged us to pray and ask Heavenly Father to be able to see more blessings in our lives. And oh my gosh, it worked beyond what I imaged! My life has never felt so full of blessings, and so beautiful. The more you recognize your blessings, the more your trials and struggles will seem smaller and smaller.
The Power of Re framing Situations:
It's true that there are some missionary girlfriends who spend the whole two years trying to figure out how to get by without having their man there. The girls who don't know how to be happy without them. I was one of those girls at one point. But then there are the girls who know how to enjoy life, actually enjoy the wait, and wake up happy and ready to go out and change the world as best they can. I always wanted to be one of those happy girls. And although I'm still working on it, I know I'm definitely headed down that road because of the change in perspective I made. The power of re framing things cannot be overstated. There can be two girls, doing the exact same thing, same activity (not receiving letters, not getting along with his parents, not being able to be happy, etc..) But one of them feels sad or depressed, and the other one - with just a small change in perspective, feels wonderful.
Now one might ask, "Well how do I help myself change my perspective?" Well, there are lots of different ways.
What Should You Do?
Don't talk about what makes you sad. If you don't receive letters often, don't vocally voice it. It's been proven that what you call your struggles actually effects how you react to them.
Literally change the way you think about "waiting." I don't even like that word. I like to say, preparing. For example, say you're driving and you come up to a toll crossing and have to pay a decent amount of money just to cross and continue on your way. It could be easy to get upset and wonder why you need to pay money to the government just to help with stupid things that don't effect you, like public transportation or something. Now lets pretend the toll booth on the very left is an express lane. You have to pay twice as much to go through, but all the money you pay goes to a charity of your choice. More people are likely to chose the one that gives to charity, even though they're paying more money. Now what's my point with this example? Everyone still has to pay to get through the toll crossing. But the perspective on where their money is going to is what makes the difference between happy people and upset people. Now apply this principal to our "waiting" or I like to say, "preparing" process. Look at WHY you support your missionary. WHY he's out there serving, and the more you think about that, the more you realize what it is he's truly doing, it becomes that much easier to be happy and see it as a blessing more than as a sacrifice.
Don't. Get. Discouraged. I'm not saying to run around and dance like a fairy all the time because life is so good. It's totally normal to have those bad days, like I said. But when things that normally get you discouraged start happening more than once, don't let yourself keep getting down. Remember that there's always a better way to look at the situation. Here's a wonderful example :)
I'd just like to end with these two videos because I think they're pretty great :) I just want to reiterate that YOU have the power to change the way you think and react to what might seem like trials or struggles. I think sometimes the Lord hands us what we might think is a trial. I like to imagine the Lord handing me a lump of clay. At first it looks impossible. "What am I supposed to do with this? That other girl got a barbie. And I got a lump of clay?" I might ask. But the Lord might just want to see what I come up with and how to handle the "trial." I could sit there and cry about having clay and no barbie, or I could get out my tools, and create the most beautiful sculpture :) and if it's not beautiful? At least I will have tried. Because it's my clay. My sculpture. And I can do whatever I want with it. The Lords plan is always better than our own, and sometimes His plan looks a lot like a lump of clay. How I use it, and what I do with it, is all up to me. We all only get one lump of clay. How will you look at yours?
Finally,
Pray to Heavenly Father and ask him to be able to see more blessings in your life, and ask for help to change your perspective about hard situations. He will help you.
You could live life like this:
or by changing your perspective, you could live like this:)
Jared's birthday was July 2nd, but I realized I never wrote a post about the package I sent! So here it is :) I sent it from here in Italy, with only items that I brought over from America. When I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, all he could say was "American snack food" haha so this is what he got :) Some of his favorites.
Beef jerkey
Cheez-Its (his fave)
Combos
Oreos
Popcorn
Some Italian candy
Balloons
A birthday card with 5 euros inside telling him to go buy some birthday gelato :)
a Memory card with a birthday message from me.
And of course, a long letter.
Also, I made a shirt that says, "This is My P-day Shirt" that I thought was pretty funny. It also has a little message on the inside of the shirt. I used fabric paint and painted a heart right where his heart would be when he wears it. On the inside of the heart I painted "Your Desiree" because he has my heart :)
And last but not least, this tie that I made before I left :)
I know he's gonna love it if the Italian mail system ever decides to let the package show up at the mission home. Keepin' my fingers crossed.
ALSO
I celebrated his birthday even though we couldn't physically be together :)
Only one more birthday away from each other until we'll be together for all of our many birthdays to come :)
I decided that I'm randomly going to start doing throwback Thursdays here on my blog.
(yaayyyy)
This is the second to last video we spontaneously recorded before he left. We were trying to act as each other. So, I was saying stuff Jared would always say, and he was saying stuff that I always say. Ignore the fact that we're just really weird people..
This is the very first video I ever made of Jared and I together. Half the videos were taken before we even started dating. The second song in the video pretty accurately describes how I was feeling at the time. This video also contains our first "on screen" kiss. HA, I totally laugh at it now but I was sooooo nervous to kiss him in front of the camera. You can see at 2:46 that he kinda says, "Forget the camera is even there" Oh good times. These are the good ole days here. So these are over a year old, all filmed in Hawaii.
Thanks for reading/watching :) Come on, you know you enjoyed it. Sometimes I go through and watch all these old videos on days when I'm really missing him. Videos have been my life saver.
It's this time of year again. The time when flowers bloom, the grass turns green again, and missionaries get to call/skype home for Mothers Day! :)
Jared's family is amazing and invited me over to be there when Jared would be Skyping them. Mothers Day was on Sunday, but he said he'd be calling on Saturday (May 11th). I woke up so early that morning, I was too excited to sleep any longer. It's like it was the airport phone call all over again, but even better! I got ready, tried to look as cute as I could, and rushed over to their house at 9:30am. I brought my laptop because his mom didn't have skype. When I got there, I gave his mom a little gift I made. I messed around on Photoshop and created this little gem.
Right as I turned on my laptop and signed into Skype, Jared was online and my heart started pounding :) I messaged him and said...
At this point, I had MAJOR butterflies. Knowing he was about to call. I was about to see his handsome face. I was about to hear his voice. Talking to me.. Looking at me... I was just about ready to pass out :)
He called and got to talk for an hour and a half! :) For the most part we all just sat in front of the computer and talked about his mission. I seriously loved every second. Getting to hear about his mission is my favorite thing to hear. I love hearing about his experiences, the members, his investigators, the food, etc... It was really nice though because at the end, his mom let me talk to him :) Just seeing/hearing him say, "Hey Beautiful! I've missed you!" was worth these two months apart. And I know that seeing him again after two years will have made the whole wait worth it :) And as you can tell.. We were both pretty happy :)
Here's just a little clip of our conversation when we were saying bye :(
You know that awkward "We need to say bye but we don't want to.. so we're just going to sit here and drag out saying bye as long as we can" type of feeling.
It was also really nice talking to him because he gave me great advice about Italy and what to expect when I go there (In 21 days!!) Apparently I need to watch out for the Italian men. Yay.... Anyway! I am so grateful his family let me be a part of this :) My waiting battery is officially recharged and now I can't wait till Christmas! What? I didn't say Christmas.. I'm not already counting down till he gets to skype again. Psh, what kind of crazy person do you think I am? ;)
Girls, today was the big day. The day Jared got to call from the airport! :)
I'd by lying if I said I wasn't totally freaking out. I seriously could not sleep last night. I woke up at 5:14, 6:30, 7:02, 7:15, 7:45 and my alarm finally went off at 7:55. I guess you could say I was like a child on Christmas Eve. The stressful thing was that I had to spend my morning studying for a geology final. My final started at 11:00 and his plane was scheduled to leave at 11:15 so I was hoping he'd call me before my test. I was freaking out because by 10:30 he still hadn't called me. Apparently Heavenly Father is still trying to teach me patience. Basically.. Just watch this video and you'll see :)
We only got to talk for three minutes because there were so many missionaries who still needed to call their families. But it didn't matter, just hearing his voice tell me he loved me was all I needed to hear :) I'm just so excited that he'll finally be in Italy! I feel like these past six weeks he hasn't even really been on a mission. I feel like the mission really beings when they start teaching :) I can't wait to hear stories about the people, culture, investigators, his mission president, the wards, the members, and the FOOD! I know he's going to put his whole heart and soul into serving the people of Italy. He already has such a deep love for them and he's not even there yet <3
Like I mentioned, he left this morning at 11:15 and flew to Chicago where he arrived at 3:15 their time, and then he had a flight to London at 5:15. So as I type this, he's flying over the ocean and will land in London at 6:50am and then he'll have one more flight leaving at 8:35 for Rome where he'll arrive at 12:05pm :) He's going to be one tired missionary.
I just love him so much and can't wait to begin the next part of our best two years :)
I always knew that Jared would most likely not be allowed to email me at all during his mission. At least, that's what I tried to prepare myself for. I didn't want to get my hopes up. Low and behold, I woke up on the morning of his first pday in the MTC and his name popped up with an email from him! I totally freaked out :D
How lucky am I that the week he entered the MTC is the week they changed the rules about emailing? I feel so blessed :) I'm so proud of Jared. He's been in the MTC for 3 weeks now and is working so hard on learning the language and how to be a missionary. He's one of the most dedicated and hard working people I know. He's so obedient and follows all the rules. I know that being an obedient missionary will bless him in ways I can't even describe.
On his second pday, I got his email in the morning and was happy about it :) Little did I know that I'd receive another email from him at 5:00! I was so surprised :) It's little things like that just totally make my day. Apparently he didn't use up all of his time in the morning and got to use the rest of it at 5:00.
I was super excited this past week to tell him that I'll be living in Italy this summer :) He had no idea that I applied or anything. I asked him in a Dear Elder how he would feel if I did apply, and this is what he said,
"I think you should definitely go
to Italy if that is what you want to do. I mean, why not?! How cool
would it be if we both could at least speak some Italian when I got back?
And I know you love Italy and you love teaching...It's the perfect combination
:D Just follow your dreams Desiree. Although, I am so glad you still
asked for my opinion. That makes me very happy to know that we are still that
close and you still consider me your closest and best friend...because you are
definitely mine! :D :D"
<3
Now I feel even better about spending my summer working in Italy. I love that he's supportive and wants me to follow my dreams no matter what. That's just one of the many things I love about him :) To sum things up, he's loving it in the MTC but can't wait to finally start teaching in Italy. We're both happy and we love receiving letters from each other :)
I've been accepted to work in Italy and Austria all summer long. And get paid to do so.
Is this really happening? Is this real life?
I woke up 2 days ago to this email:
I'll get to spend my summer traveling every two weeks to different English camps throughout Italy and Austria. I'll be an English tutor working with kids from 7 - 14 years old. I'll be living with host families, and learning the language as much as I can :) Along with eating all their food... :)
Before Jared left on his mission, I told him I needed to get out and travel while he's gone. Then all of a sudden one day, the idea came to me. "Go work at a summer camp in Europe" So I started my research. Jared knew I was thinking about this as a possibility and totally supported it.
I know all you MG's will say,
"Are you crazy? Why are you going to the same country your missionary is serving in? What if you run into him? Won't you wanna see him? Won't that be too hard?"
But to them I say this: I have seriously been obsessed with both Italy and Austria ever since I was 10 years old. I was living in Virginia and an RM from Italy spoke in my home ward. That was the first time I'd ever heard an Italian accent. Since that day forward, I've come to love everything Italian. I used to tell my mom that I wanted to marry an Italian, I wanted to grow up and live in Italy, I wanted to go to BYU because they had Italian, unlike most schools, I would download Italian music, I would beg for Rosetta Stone in Italian, I have tons of books about Italy, etc.. Which is why the fact that Jared got called to serve his mission there blows my mind. Also, I do NOT want to see him while I'm there. And the chances of us just running into each other are so slim. It's not that small of a country. I have self control :) I'm not going to hunt him down. What girl in her right mind would want to do that? It would be distracting to the missionary, and I wouldn't get to hug him, so what's the point?
I just couldn't be more excited :) I don't know where I'll be for all the camps, but I know I'll be spending my first week in Assisi. Take a look at this beautiful place:
I'm seriously dying over here. I'm so grateful for this amazing opportunity. It gets even better because my sister Paris has also been accepted and will be coming with me! :)
I'm so grateful for the opportunities I've had to travel and grow within the last two years. I have lived in China, Hawaii and soon, Italy and Austria. Traveling for work or volunteer/service work is such a wonderful thing to do while you're missionary is gone. It helps you grow and develop as a person, and also makes time fly by :) So if you get an opportunity, don't be afraid to take it. Don't be afraid to do the things you never thought you'd be able to do. Most people would say, "How cool would be to get a summer job in Italy?" but they never really do anything about it. DO IT!
Just two short months and I'll be able to call Italy "home" :)
I am happy to say that Jared is officially in the MTC as of 4 days ago :)
I don't even know where to start. Jared's farewell was a week ago today. I remember him telling me how nervous and scared he was to speak in front of so many people. He told me not to expect anything good. But of course, he totally surprised us all. His talk was absolutely amazing and I'm sure everyone in the congregation felt the spirit just as strong as I did. Afterwards, we all went to his house and he said goodbye to some friends. Oh also, the day of his farewell was also St. Patricks day :)
That day was wonderful and happy :) We hardly left each others sides. We both knew he was needing to get ready to enter the MTC, but at the same time, we continued to act completely normal around each other. I'd walk away for a minute to talk to someone and he'd come over and say, "Hey, you were too far away from me :)"
Then we had our last day together on Tuesday. It was amazing to say the least. I went over to his house and helped him pack some last minute items. We then played pool and made some yummy food. The weather was nice (thankfully) so we decided to go on a walk at a park we'd always go to during the winter. We'd go at night and buy hot chocolate and then go walk around the park. As we were walking he started talking about leaving and I told him he needed to stop because I could feel the tears coming. I didn't want to talk about him being gone. All I wanted to do was focus on my time left with him. After our walk, we drove to my house :) We decided to watch The Best Two Years outside with blankets on my trampoline as the sun was setting. It was perfect :)
After the movie we went inside and sat in my room. We knew we only had 45 minutes left together. Jared said, "Come here, let's just cuddle for a little while. I know it's your favorite" so we did :) We didn't really talk, we just sat there in each others arms. We eventually started talking about our future, me waiting, his mission, and old memories :) He wanted to see me smile so he kept bringing up old memories from us together in Hawaii.
Eventually the time came. It was 8:00 and he needed to go home to get set apart. I started crying, and I didn't even know what to say. We were hugging for a while and I said, "Any final words?" Jared waited for a second and said, "I love you. There's nothing else I can say" and then he started to tear up and by that point I was completely bawling. We stood by my front door for what seemed like a lifetime. We had one last kiss, well technically 3. We kiss in 3's :) And then I said, "Sweetheart, you need to go.." so we walked to the door and I double pinky promised him that I'd wait :) I hugged him one last time. It was hard to get the words out through my crying, but said "You're going to be an amazing missionary." He was so emotional which was making it harder for me. So then he walked outside but just stood there looking at me. So I ran out and hugged him one last time and then stood in the doorway as I watched him walk away, realizing I needed to capture this and remember it forever. We did the "I love you" sign before he started to drive away. I came inside with my hand over my mouth, trying to keep my crying and breathing under control.
This goodbye was SO much harder than it was with my first missionary. It's crazy. But I couldn't be more proud of my sweetheart. I know we'll both be blessed. I've come to realize that we were seriously created for each other and I love him more than I ever thought I could. Plus, I'm happy to finally consider myself a missionary girlfriend again :) Wish me luck for the next two years! <3
In the back of my mind, I've been telling myself I need to write this blog post. I just haven't been able to do it yet. Today is February 10th. Yesterday, two years ago, was the hardest day of my life. It has officially been two years since I said goodbye to love of my life at that time. I'm putting together some videos and thoughts because I can't seem to find the words to write. So be patient with me and I'll have a blog post coming up soon all about my feelings, and his feeling and where we stand right now. I want to thank all you girls for reading my blog and all the friends I've made because of these wonderful two years. I want to specifically thank my amazing waiting buddy, Jane. February 9th will always remind me of her and our little celebrations. I want to keep writing.. But I mustn't. I need to save it all for the future blog post. I just wanna end by saying I love all you girls. Keep waiting! And believe in good things to come :)
