New Post, New Life

I have been bugged by an amount of people because I haven't posted anything on here for a while. But I guess I just feel weird sometimes knowing people are reading about my life. Really though, I like posting on here for JD. And knowing someday he will read this, and get to see everything I went through while he was gone.

This week for me has brought many changes. I don't know if those changes are permanent or not, but because of such a big difference it feels like this week really was an entire year. I have a friend that I have known for a bit that I have hung out with constantly all week. And she introduced me to some people that we have hung out with.. all week. And when I say some people I mean mainly guys. I when I say guys, I mean mainly RM's. Returned Missionaries. The danger zone for waiters like me.

Well, these guys are lots of fun to hang out with. They really are. They aren't quite the RM's that would come to mind.. to me it doesn't seem like they just came home from missions. But they are still good guys. One guy in particular has shown his... interest for me. And I have shown him my interest for my missionary. So this really is an extremely long story condensed a lot, but he knows we are just friends and that's all.

Ever since JD left, the majority of my nights were spent at home with family. Which is great, don't get me wrong.. but at my age, also lonely in the friend department. Which makes me sound totally pathetic, but it's true. You spend all your time with a boyfriend, and he leaves, then your stuck with a lot of time for yourself. So this week has been a lot of fun for me because it has made me feel like I finally have stuff to look forward to. And I have had a blast with my girl friend I've been with constantly. But this week has also had another side to it for me. It feels like my life is moving forward.. or moving on. I met new people since JD left, that he doesn't know. New guys, new girls, new everything. A new part of my life. And it scares me a little to think that my life is going on without him. Which I know has to happen.. but I still don't like it. The worst part about the week (other than this is the first week of his entire mission that I didn't get a letter) is that when I think about him, he is hard to imagine. Meaning, I feel like I'm forgetting what it feels like to have him around. Not holding my hand or anything like that, but just around. Just in the room, just present. And it's the scariest feeling ever! I have so many reminders of him around me all the time, so many pictures. But when I look at them, I can't remember what that felt like to have him right next to me. It's like I don't remember if that really happened, if he really existed.

I hate that feeling, more than anything in the world. But still, I know I love him. And he loves me. But waiting for a missionary sucks like no one would ever believe. I wish we could just take the easy route. I wish I could fast forward the next year or so of my life. I wish this could all just be over now.

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Mother's Day and the BEST Letter So Far!

New Pictures of JD!!

JD burning a tie because he has been out for SIX MONTHS!!

Bittersweet. The best word I can use to describe waiting for a missionary is bittersweet. I say this because Mother's Day was the bitter side. I didn't get to talk to JD on the phone when he called. And I though I was doing okay with the whole idea since I got to email with him, but it was harder to deal with than I was expecting. His mom texted me after he had called because I wanted to take her some flowers and see what JD had said. And it was not easy to listen to. Oh, and of course.. this time when he called he had an UNLIMITED time limit! He called his mom four times that day or something like that. BAH! Good thing I love his family, and that even though I didn't get to talk to him, it was so exciting to see how happy talking to him it made his mother. :)


Okay. Now for the sweet! The super, wonderful, AMAZING SWEET!! JD is not a very mushy, lovey writer. And I know that. And I don't want him to always be lovey dovey when he writes, because I know that's not how he is.. but I do want to be reminded that he still feels the same way about me. Well, let me tell you. He showed me! This letter was..perfect. Let me give you a little sneak peak.

"I have the best girlfriend who constantly supports me! I love it! I LOVE YOU!! And I do miss YOU!!"

"My mom told me that she really loves you and you have grown on her! And I agree. I LOVE YOU and you ave grown onme a little... okay A LOT!"

"Something I want to do that will be just between us is take like 30 minutes once a week (once I'm home) and just talk about how we feel about each other. I know it will probably go longer but that is perfect! Communication will keep us strong! I LOVE YOU HEATHER! Seriously, the more I think about you, the more I love you! I would go out of this world not to lose you! I could not do it! I want you to think that everytime you feel love for me, I am feeling it too. I promise you that! I might not write all this emotion stuff down but I am feeling what you are! I LOVE YOU!!"

BAH!! This was all in one letter too!! Those MG's whose missionaries write like this every week, shush your faces. No sinking my boat.. for JD, this is amazing! Those of you that know JD personally, you know that this is really stepping outside of his emotional box. He can say it all in person easily, but he has never been much of a writer. But this letter he wrote, is basically the bestEST!! Aw, I love him so much! :) Can't wait until he is home!! Only a million years left now!

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Story Mode..

My Facebook status right now is, "I am on TOP of the WORLD!!! JD always knows how to make me feel better even when he is miles and miles away. I love that kid." And it is so, so true.

I have not been having the easiest time accepting the fact that I don't get to talk to JD on the phone anymore when he calls. And he knows that. I don't know how he feels about it and if it is as hard for him as it is for me, but he understands what I am feeling. It's just that letters or emails are not the same.. they are from him, but he's not really there. It's so different being able to talk and have him resond right then, even if it only is twice a year. So, here is my story.

Well, I am sitting in class just about ready to take a test, and my phone buzzes. It's an email from JD!! I usually get emails about that time, so I try to hurry and read it before the teacher passes out the tests. But this one's different.. it's really short and addressed to only me. My first thought is, uh oh. I read the email...wait, what? I have to read it again. And again. It says, hey if you get this right now reply back as soon as you can because I want to talk to you!! I miss you!! And I can talk to you for about an hour if you want to. I quickly reply, I'm here!! I love you!! Of course I want to talk!!

Then, the teacher says, put everything away and turn off all cell phones. Oh, crap. I totally forgot about my test. I want to cry because this is my one chance to talk to JD and it's being ruined by some stupid test I will probably do bad on anyways! I check quickly for an email from him, but nothing. So I put my phone away and simmer in anger at my teacher for ruining my one chance. He had an hour to talk to me, and my class was 50 minutes long. I hate my life.

I take my test, and the whole time I have to keep reminding myself to pay attention to what the questions on the test are asking me instead of whether or not JD said something, and if he will still be there when I'm done. Finally, I finish my test and practically run it up to the teacher, fling my stuff over my shoulder, and run out of the class. Once I'm outside the class I stop right where I am at and rip my phone out of my backpack.. there are two emails from JD. One saying, Good, I'm glad you want to talk! How are you? What are you doing? How is everything? I love you!! And another saying, Kiddo! Reply to me, I WANT to talk to YOU!!

I scramble to reply to his email (but of course because I am trying to hurry so fast, I mess up even more so it takes even longer) saying, I'm still here!! I'm sorry I had to take a test! Please tell me you are still there! :( And then, I wait. I'm getting pretty good at WAITING. So far, nothing comes. I try to convice myself that he isn't there so that I'm not let down when nothing comes. I refresh my email inbox 20 times before an email pops up. It's from him! He says, I can talk for fifteen more mins. Sorry I interrupted your test! I am standing in the halls of the college and I start tearing up in front of everyone. But I do not care one bit, JD is there, and I GET TO TALK TO HIM!!

Sigh of relief, fifteen minutes! Not an hour, but better than nothing. So I talk, about home. He wants to know everything, how his room is, how his family is, how my family is, how his dogs are.. it was so normal. But it was perfect! It was us, talking again. I miss that feeling so much. Next thing I know, I look at the clock and it's been an hour since he said he could talk for fifteen mins. Wow! He must really love me to stay that much longer to talk. The last email I get from him says, I have to go now. But I love you so much!!! I am going to email you like this next week, so be ready! But I can't do it everyweek.. and don't tell anyone because it is against the rules to talk like this.

Okay. Story's over. And that being said, I know that posting this on here isn't really "not telling anyone" but I'm sure everyone will agree that with all the rules JD follows and everything, this little emailing adventure I received was really no biggie considering most girlfriends are allowed a lot more contact than I am. But I'm sure JD would not be the happiest person that I posted it for all to see... so please, don't mention it. Literally. :)

And now, in conclusion.. I realize why JD talked to me and why he is planning on it on Monday. It's because Mother's Day is soon, and he knows I'm having a hard time with it. He has to be doing this to make up for a it. And I have to say, it definately will have made it easier on me.. I'm not so completely in the dark. When I wrote his letter this week I told him, I know you were talking to me for my benefit, and that makes me sound weak. But you know, sometimes I am weak.. This is hard. And evertime I start feeling weak, you somehow know exactly what to do to lift me up. So thank you for talking to me this week, it meant a lot to me and really did help me. I know you can't talk to me like that every week, and that's okay. But this week, I am the happiest girl in the world. :)

[emails were shortened for the sake of privacy]

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Busy Bee

My life could be well described lately as a busy bee. Everything all seems to be happening at once. School ending soon, dance ending, summer classes starting, spring cleaning..it never ends. And although I'm crazy busy all the time, I am grateful for it because it helps time fly by. I'm almost at six months down, a fourth of the way done with JD's mission!!

I had my dance concert/end of semester show a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun and it was great to be able to hang out with the girls. During the show though, it was hard for me because I never really appreciated everything JD did when he was here, like coming to every single dance performance of mine. And it's hard to think that there is the good possibility that he will never see me dance again, cuz by time he gets home I will have had to move on from dancing. But, his mission right now is the right thing for him, and like Elder Rasband said in the priesthood session in April, it is the most important thing for men his age to be focusing on.

I have had lots of fun hanging out with all the girls from my dance company lately, I really hope next semester we are all as close as we were this semester. It was good to be able to enjoy coming to dance and being with friends.

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Jabbawockeez!

Tonight was quite an experience! The Jabbawockeez from MTV's America's Best Dance Crew was at SLCC performing. I never watched that show that much, but being a dancer and a major hip hop fan, how can you not know who the Jabbawockeez are? These guys can do some crazy things! I love that they based their moves on Michael Jackson. Wonderful idea there. There were times during their performance that I could have sworn they were not real. The way they move, they just look like dolls, or robots. Typical description of a break dancer/popper, but really! There is no other way to explain it. I personally love the idea of the masks too. It keeps everyone wondering and wanting more..adds a little mystery. But tonight at the end of their performance, they took their masks off. It was great, everyone loved them. Pictures weren't allowed during the performance, but of course I had to get a little sneak peak. Therefore, my pictures aren't very great, they are very small and barely visible in the picture. I have the world's brightest flash on my phone so I had to turn it completely off in order to take a few pictures. But, they are still pictures. Yay!

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One Blog

Originally I had two blogs, one for my missionary waiting experience, and one for my normal life. But. I realized that waiting for J.D. is such a big part of my life, that there is no way these two things can be separated. Half of the time, I wanted to put the same things on both of my blogs. So, this is now my combined experiences of life and waiting all in one. Although, don't be surprised if 90% of my postings are about that missionary of mine, mainly because the only times I feel like I should write are the times that I want to tell about him.

So, it is so hard (so, so, so hard) when I feel like J.D. is the only missionary following the rule about the whole not talking to the girlfriend when he calls home on Mother's Day. Some day I am okay with it and I am proud of him for following the rules. But other days (like today) it's so hard for me to accept. I talk to so many girls that are waiting, or did wait already and ended up marrying their missionary, and it really helps! But what is hard is that most of them/almost all of them talked to their missionaries! Am I completely alone in this? I know I'm not because I know there are other missionaries following this rule to, but it sure doesn't feel like. It seems like all I hear about lately is how everyone gets to talk to missionaries (that aren't brothers) on Mother's Day. Stupid Mother's Day. (No offense mom!)

On a different note, J.D. got a new companion yesterday. I haven't heard anything about this new companion yet, but I am looking forward to this. Maybe it's just me, and it probably is, but I could swear J.D.'s last companion, Elder Butler did not like me. Maybe it's just because he was J.D.'s trainer so he was trying to be really good, but I don't know.. I could just be crazy. And maybe it's because I'm still getting used to the fact that I don't get to talk to J.D. the same way I did before now for quite a while. Well, I can't wait to hear from J.D. this week. It's been a long week this time.

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Rings

Everytime I get a letter from JD I am a little on edge about what it is going to say. Because sometimes his letters are so exciting and happy! But there are also those times that the letters are very hard.. much like last week. This weeks letter however, was wonderful!!

See, when JD left, he gave me a ring. Not an engagement ring, but a ring that says how much he loves me. I wear it to show everyone that I am waiting for a missionary. Not the waiting and dating kind, but actually waiting for him to come home and be with me. I promised JD that I would always wear it as long as I consider him my boyfriend. So the only way I will take it off is if we either break up (which won't happen), or get engaged. The ring he gave me is not real diamonds or anything, just a sterling silver ring with cubic zerconia diamonds around it. The ring is called an eternity band. Because I will love him for eternity. On our Anniversary, which was January 1st (2 years now!), he sent me another identical band that goes with it, with a promise that someday he will turn it into an engagement ring. Many people think this ring is a wedding ring or they ask if I'm married. I just reply, no I'm not married or engaged, I'm just waiting for a missionary that I someday do want to marry.

Right when JD left, I also bought him a ring. His ring is a CTR ring (we thought that was fitting due to his mission) that he also wears with the same meaning I wear mine for. With last week's letter and everything he said about following every rule, I just assumed that it would be a rule that he cannot wear rings on that specific finger. I also had asked him about it in many of my letters and he never answered, so I took that as his way of saying, no I don't wear it because I can't. But in this week's letter he finally answered my question about whether or not he wears it, and his answer made my entire week better! He said, I am wearing my ring and I have been and I will not take it off until you want me to! JD promised me a long time ago that he would never be the one to break up with me. And that if we ever broke up, it would be because I wanted to and told him we needed to. JD and I have been through so much in our relationship already. We have fought more than anyone can imagine, and yet we learn how to work our way through the fights together. And I think it has made us stronger as a couple to be able to fight, and work it out and still love each other just as much, if not more. Hearing that JD still wears his ring means a lot, just because I know that even though he doesn't spend hardly any time concentrating on him and I while he is out on his mission, it is okay. He still wears that ring because he still loves me. And I don't need anything more from him while he is on a mission than to know that he will always love me. And wearing that ring is just one little way he can say it to me without actually being able to physically say it.

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The NICU

I had work today.. I work in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit. And it is the best job in the whole world! Who wouldn't want to feed and hold the cutest babies ever all day, and get paid for it?

The reason I write about working there in my post about my missionary is that I love going to work, yet it is also so hard. All I see all day long are these cute little families with their little babies. The majority of the people I see are usually young couples, a lot of times their first child. I see these mothers with their husbands leaning over their baby and they look so happy. And I am so jealous. I want JD here, and I want my own little family to look so happy with. Now don't get the wrong idea, I'm not going baby crazy. No, I do not want to have a kid anytime soon. But working with these babies and their parents, you can't help but get so excited to have that for yourself. I pray that my children will never have to be in to NICU, but still, it's the whole happy family idea that I'm jealous of.

I have to email JD tonight because his P-Day is tomorrow. Now just so it's not confusing, since I said he can't email.. he asked his mission president and he said that I am allowed to send JD one very short email a week. When I say short, I mean it's like four sentences long. JD cannot email me back though. He sends one big email to his parents that he also sends to me to read.

What am I going to say to him? After his letter, I don't really know what to say. I want to tell him I'm proud of him, but I'm also still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that he really is not going to be talking to me until he gets home. And I still have a hard time not wanting to tell him that he is crazy. So what do I say.. in four sentences? Ugghh. I guess we'll see what happens..

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The Worst Letter So Far

Okay, so the whole reason I started this blog is all because of the letter I got this week. The whole time JD has been gone has definately been a rollercoaster, but this so far has been the lowest point. And I'm probably making a bigger deal of it than I should, but to me, it was huge. See, the only rule I know of that JD was breaking is that when he would call home on Mother's Day or Christmas Day, he would talk to me on the phone. Well, it turns out he doesn't want to break the rules at all. So he said, that from now on when he calls home, that he will not be able to talk to me on the phone.

When I read that, my entire world came crashing down. I understand he wants to follow the rules, but has he lost his freaking mind?? That means I won't be able to talk to him until he gets home from his mission in a million years from now. After reading that letter, all I did the rest of the day was sit in my room and cry. Seriously, all day. Talking to JD on the phone is what I looked forward to the most, and now he took that away from me.

Now that I look back on the letter though, I was totally unfair with how I felt. First of all, the world will not end because I don't get to talk to JD when he calls. Even though it felt like it at the moment. Secondly, the way he told me in the letter was so sweet that I can't be mad at him. He said, "When I talked to you at the airport and then at Christmas, I wasn't supposed to. So I will not be able to talk to you on the phone anymore. I know that this will be hard for you but I can promise it will be worth it. I am trying to be as obedient to the rules of my mission as I can. I know that you supporting me will help me become that man that I'm supposed to be."

This is going to take time for me to accept and come to terms with, but I know realize that he is doing this with the best intentions. He is being my perfect missionary. And even though it is hard for me to completely understand why at times, I am happy he follows the rules. This cute girl that my mom works with is also waiting for a missionary who is following all of the rules like JD is. When I told her I was having a hard time with this, she sent me this long wonderful email about how JD is doing the right thing. It was the best email ever. In it she said, "We say that we are putting the Lord first for two years, and then he will bless us with forever!" That is a pretty good deal if you ask me.

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Pictures of Us

Saying goodbye was so hard.


I will love him forever!

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The Begining

I may not be the greatest writer in the world, but after yesterday I decided the best idea for me would be to find an outlet for my feelings. So to start off, I am four months and sixteen days into waiting for a missionary. He is serving in Louisville, Kentucky, speaking English. He left on November 4, 2009, although it feels like he has been gone for ten years. Everyone told me that it was going to be so hard waiting for him. I didn't believe them. Little did I know, they were so right. Waiting for him is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. But I love my missionary. With all and every part of my heart, so no matter how hard or painful it is to wait for him, I will do it.
SO, the reason I titled the blog Waiting for the "Perfect" Missionary, isn't because J.D. (my missionary) is perfect as a person. Oh, no. It's because he is the kind of missionary who is going to follow every single, stinking mission rule, whether I like it or not. Not many missionaries follow every single rule. Others may not agree with me, but it's true. No Facebook, no emailing, no calling, no chatting, no nothing. It's SOL for two years. And this is what this blog will be about. How wonderful and yet horrible at the same time it is to have a missionary with that kind of obedience. Enjoy at your own risk. :)

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