My New Black Friends!

I was just getting off the frontrunner from work on Saturday when a tall black man and a shorter black woman approached me.

"Can I borrow your cell phone to make a phone call?" The tall man asked me. Dang, I thought, I hate it when people ask me that and I don't have my phone.

"I would let you borrow it but I left it at my friends house," I replied. "My wife is coming to pick me up here soon though and you can use hers."

"That works," The tall one said again. The three of us started walking over the the frontrunner parking lot.

"What brings you two out here to West Jordan?" I asked.

"My mom's boyfriend is getting baptized today," The tall one responded again.

"That's awesome!" I exclaimed, "I love baptisms. They are always so cool."

"Yeah," He said. "I'm a convert to the church. I was baptized when I was 16 and I was the first one in my family to join the church."

"Wow!" I said. "That must have been hard. You were the pioneer of your family."

"Yup," He said.

About then Charly, her mom, and Luke pulled up in her mom's little white Honda Civic. Charly got out and I asked her if my new friends could use her phone. Of course she said yes and handed the phone to man.

"What are your names?" I asked.

The girl spoke, "My name is Mia," She said, "And this is Wallace." Wallace grinned at me. He was on the phone with his mom.

"My name is Benjamin and this is Charly," I said, introducing us.

After calling, Wallace and Mia found that they would have to wait a while in the parking lot for Wallace's mom to pick them up. We ended up offering them a ride.

"I don't know how well the four of us are going to fit in the back of this little Honda..." I said. "How tall are you Wallace?"

"I'm 6' 6''," He said grinning again.

We all squeezed in. Charly sat on my lap which work out pretty well for me. We were able to get them to the right place and as far as I know they made it to the baptism with their mom.

Both Charly and I love it when we get opportunities to serve other people. I know that we will be blessed for it even if the things we do are small sometimes. I always enjoy making new friends as well and it's not every day that I get to make new black friends! Unfortunately there just aren't as many in Utah as there are in Brazil.

The Christmas Present

"I bought some Christmas decorations from Wal-Mart," Charly said as I got home from work.

"Really?" I asked skeptically.

"Yup," she said, "Come look."

I followed Charly over into the living room. She was practically glowing with excitement.

"I bought these candles, and these window decorations, and these lights, oh, and look. I bought two kinds of wrapping. One color is for you and the other is for me. What one do you like the most?"

I looked down at the two colors. "I like the silver one," I said.

"Good, I like the white one more," she replied with a grin.

A week later and after Thanksgiving day, Charly and I were in the house. We had aquired a small Christmas tree from Charly's mom and decorated it. The tree looked really good. Charly had hand made a ton of small paper snowflakes, we had borrowed some hand made ornaments, and even made some on a date together. Charly walked over to the tree. She was holding a large box. To this day I'm still not sure what was in it.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It's a Christmas gift," She answered.

"Is it for me?" I asked again.

"No silly, it's for both of us." She replied smiling.

At that moment I was struck with the realization that our brilliant plan in having two colors of wrapping paper, one for each of us, was flawed. My face fell and I looked at Charly with an expression of grave concern on my face, "If it's for both of us how are we suppose to wrap it?"

She just laughed at me.

Drive-Thru Reception

This week my cousin Gavin got married in the temple. It was really cool and I was super excited that Charly and I got to drive to Vernal to see it. Out of all of my cousins I probably spent the most time with Gavin growing up.

Well, so on to the story. Charly and I also went to the reception. Before we went we were talking about how long we would be there and I said, "In and out." I mean, Gavin is a really close cousin to me but nobody likes receptions... I'm pretty sure Gavin doesn't anyway.

"I love receptions," Charly said.
"Of course she does." I thought to myself.

You see, my idea of a perfect reception is a drive-thru reception. I tried to get Charly to do this for our wedding but to no avail.

The ideas is that you have three tables... like this
 ___   ___   ___
|      |  |      | |      |

Impressive graphics right? Anyway... The first table will have a picture of you and your spouse... that way you don't have to be there, the second table will have a book for the family and friends to sign, and the last will be a nice big table for everyone to leave the gifts on. Each person will simply drive their car up and stop at each table for each action... It's perfect!

I guess most women don't like the idea though and I'm not sure why... Every guy that I have ever told this too has thought it was brilliant.

Aaaaand back to the original story. Charly and I teased back and forth a little about how long we would stay. We went to the reception and stayed for a little while. It was nice. I was able to visit with some family I hadn't seen in a while. Receptions aren't all that bad I guess. Maybe I'll even learn to like them being around Charly all the time.... I doubt it though.

A Pear Picking Pair

When my grandpa first moved to Utah years and years ago, he built his house on a half acre lot. This lot is now filled with fruit trees and grape vines and berry bushes. My uncle lives there now, but he doesn't pick all of the fruit. This means that all of the relatives are welcome to pick any of the fruit they want. 

That is how Ben and I, as relatives of my uncle, ended up picking pears all of Saturday afternoon. 

I wanted to make fruit leather out of it. Ben wasn't so sure about that. This made him a little hesitant to put homework time towards picking pears. He was a good husband, though, and good-naturedly came along to help. 

Between the rotten fruit splattered on the ground, the spiders we found living on more than one pear, and the number of times Ben inadvertently dropped a pear on my head, we made out okay. We left with two bags full of pears, four peaches, and quite a few walnuts (these we gathered straight off the ground and cracked open using the inside edge of our can opener). Before we left, we found a few small handfuls of the remaining blackberries from the blackberry bush. 

It was a fun, productive day. I cannot wait until we have our own little house with a yard full of fresh produce!

Our First Date: When I accidentally forgot about Ben being a creepy Facebook stalker and fell in love with him instead.

After the night that Benjamin and I met (http://lovegogglesbc.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-first-spark-between-benjamin-and-me.html), I might have fallen in love with him. I might have, except for the fact that he turned into a creeper.

I'm not kidding.

He looked through all my pictures on Facebook. ALL of them.
All the way back to the ones from seventh grade.
And I knew about it, because he commented on half of them.
He liked everything I posted on Facebook. Everything. 
And then he would he would comment on it.
And try to start conversations about his mission and his family in the comments.
Ben was all over my Facebook.
He even friended my mom.
I was just like, Who are you? I don't even know you. 

Ben says he was being subtle.

Then came the time that he asked for my number. Ben didn't ask for it on Facebook, despite the fact that we were apparently best friends on there. Nope, he told my cousin (our mutual best friend) Jeremy to get it for him.

Jeremy called me up. He said, and I quote, "Hey, Ben wants to know if he can have your number, but he can't tell you why yet." He can't tell you why yet? What, is this some sort of mystery story? Like I don't already know why he wants my number.

Turns out, his "secret" reason for wanting my number was so he could text me on my birthday.

The week after Christmas break, I was back at work, vacuuming classrooms after school, when Jeremy called me. Our conversation went something like this:

"What're you doing on Friday?" Jeremy asked.

"Mmm ... Maybe babysitting. I don't have anything planned yet. Why?" I said.

"Just wondering." Jeremy said.

I waited, but Jeremy didn't elaborate. "What do you mean, just wondering?"

"Nothing. I was just wondering."

I didn't buy it. People don't just call other people up and ask what they're doing on a certain day simply because their curious. Especially when those people are me and Jeremy.

Before I could question him further, however, Jeremy hung up the phone. I was pretty sure I knew why he'd called. My suspicions were confirmed when, five minutes later, Ben called me.

He asked me to go with him on a date Friday night. I said yes, because I was trying to date a hundred guys and, creeper though he was, he did seem nice. I hung up thinking, We could probably end up pretty good friends.

Ben was late picking me up. When he came to the door, I was struck again with just how cute he was. I didn't let it get to me, however. There are plenty of attractive men in this world, but that doesn't mean you have to fall in love with them all.

For the date, we made sock puppets together. We had yarn and buttons, along with a package of new socks. At first, it was a little bit awkward. I didn't know what to say and Ben was (what I now know to be uncharacteristically) quiet. The awkwardness helped remind me that I did not want anything at all to happen between Ben and I.

Then Brynndi got home from school. Brynndi is Jeremy's little sister. She absolutely adores Benjamin, and Ben adores her right back. Brynndi walked through the door, saw Ben, and ran towards him. Ben held arms out for her and picked her up, swinging her. Both of them were laughing.

I watched and my heart melted to my toes. I had never seen anything more adorable in my life.

Soon after that, Ben and I started laughing together. We found food coloring and started dying our sock puppets. We spilled it all over the counter and couldn't get it to come off. For some reason, that was absolutely hilarious to us. Ben and I were laughing so hard together.

The boys had put together a little puppet show of Green Eggs and Ham for the girls. They performed it for us after we'd finished our sock puppets. It was very cute and they had us laughing our heads off.

We played a game, still laughing together, until Jeremy's date had to go home. We all loaded into the car. Because they had just picked up Brynndi, her car seat was still in the back. I climbed in, sitting in the middle seat. Ben slid in next to me, close enough that our arms touched.

I don't even know how to describe what happened. It felt like ... like when we kiss.

I know, I know, our arms touched. How romantic. Except, that it really was. It was like magic.

It was only ten o'clock and I didn't have a curfew, so I went back to Jeremy's house with the boys. We watched Psych until midnight, when they finally took me home.

I went home feeling on top of the world.

The First Time I Saw Charly

I guess it isn't technically the first time we saw each other because we did meet before my mission but we were both young and we didn't even notice each other, so we don't count it.

Here is the real story of the first time I saw Charly.

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It was Saturday, November 20th, 2010.

It was snowing, I was driving to one of my best friends' birthday party, and I was lost.

I had taken the wrong exit and I was trying to find my way to his house through the neighborhoods. I must have hit hundreds of dead end roads. That's how the neighborhoods are in West Jordan but I didn't know that. I was a country boy from Vernal, Utah, just off my mission and out going to college. The dead ends didn't detour me, though. Well, I had to go around them, but they didn't stop me.

I was late but I finally found Jeremy's house. When I got up to the door there was a note on it that said something about the birthday party being at his grandparent's house. I'd been to their house before but it had been a long time and I didn't remember how to get there. Luckily for me there were directions on the note and they were simple enough to follow.

Before getting in the car I made some footprints in the snow to write a phrase on Jeremy's lawn. It said,

"Ben was here."

I smiled at myself, pleased with the joke.

I quickly found Jeremy's grandparents' house and went inside. Jeremy and I hadn't seen each other since before my mission and it was really good to see him. He had some other friends over and a girl that I knew that he liked.

Jeremy's mom Kim got everyone organized and we started playing party games. The first one we played was a game where all the questions were about Jeremy and we had to see how well we knew him. I'm sad to say that after over two years without seeing him I was terrible at the game.

While playing the next game, Jeremy's little sister Brynndi came over and sat down next to me. She was only five-years-old and she was super cute. She had been practically a baby before my mission and I didn't remember her that well. Now she was leaning against me and grabbing my arm and just being a little girl. How could I resist? We instantly became friends and she even started helping me with the game. Little did I know that the friendship I built with Brynndi that night would play a large role in my first date with Charly.

After the game about Jeremy, we started playing a game where you had to stand up and convince people that some story (one that had actually happened to a different person in the room) had happened to you. The game was mostly about lying and I was pretty good at that one. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Nevertheless, I was good at it.

During one part when I was standing up, the door to the room opened and a cute blonde girl walked in. She was smiling and Jeremy went over to her to give her a hug and chew her out for being late. I just stared at her for a couple heartbeats. She had a huge smile that lit up her whole face and she was exactly my kind of beautiful. I felt my heart tighten in my chest and I wanted to get to know her better.

She looked over at me and gave me the most curious look that I thought made her even more endearing. That's about the time I looked away and started trying to show off for her. I'm sure I impressed her with my lying skills.

Even though I wasn't looking at her anymore, it was like my mind was always aware of her and where she was in the room. I hadn't ever felt that way about anyone before and I would never feel that way about any other girl.

The rest of the party was fun and I even got to see her again the next day. Every time I was around her, though, it was the same thing: I always knew where she was. She was in my head and I didn't want her to leave.

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Now I know this is kind of a long story but I feel that it is worth it. Next week Charly and I will tell the story of our first date. It is super funny and we will be putting up a post in the middle of this week announcing a little more about it.

Charly and I appreciate everyone who reads and comments on our blog. Thank you guys for the support. We really enjoy sharing our experiences with you. We hope you enjoy them and maybe even learn from them too.

The Loaded Plates

On Saturday, Benjamin and I went to my cousin's baptism. My mom wanted to take us, along with my brother Jon, to Olive Garden for dinner while we were in town. I talked to Ben and Jon about the plan while we ate outside, making sure it was okay. Then I called my mother while the boys both disappeared into the house. 

"Hey mom," I said. "Do you still want to go to Olive Garden?" 

"Can Jon make it?" She asked. 

"Yeah, he says he doesn't have other plans." 

"What time would we be going?" My mom went to bed pretty early. I checked my iPod; it was a little before four. 

"We're leaving in just a minute, and then we can go. Does that work for you?" 

"Yeah, we'll see you in a bit." 

Just as I was hanging up the phone, Ben was coming out of the house, carrying a plate loaded with food. I gave him a look. 

"What?" he asked, popping a strawberry into his mouth. 

I gave him another look. "Did you know we're going to Olive Garden after this?

"Yep," he said, "I remember you saying something about going Olive Garden." He picked up a piece of watermelon and put it in his mouth. I rolled my eyes.

That's when I saw Jon coming towards us, also carrying a plate. It was loaded with chicken salad. 

I sighed. "I give up." 

Rations

I have to admit, I don't know a ton about cooking, but what little I do know, I learned from my mom. And my mom was an expert at cooking so that we would be able to make another meal of it. Naturally, then, when I got home from my last grocery shopping trip, I cut up and froze the chicken I had bought. I put three pieces in each bag, two to eat right then and one to put in the fridge for later.

One night, Ben and I got out the chicken and cut it up into little pieces. Ben then cooked it in just a little bit of oil over the stove. That's our favorite way to eat chicken. When he was finished, we put some of it into a casserole I was making. Then Ben started eating it straight out of the pan with a fork.

"What are you doing?" I asked, glancing at him while I scooped the casserole into a pan.

"Eating chicken," he said. I, of course, had already deduced this. When I had asked him what he was doing, what I really meant was, I don't actually want you to do what you are currently doing.

"Okay," I said, compromising. "Just don't eat all of it."

"I'll save some for you," he said.

"Okay," I agreed. "But I also want to put some of it in the fridge for later."

"Why?"

"Leftovers," I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Leftovers?" He asked, shaking his head. "That isn't leftovers. It's rations."

I laughed. "Yes huh. I put extra chicken in the bag for that exact purpose."

"Charly," he said, putting on his most serious face. "Leftovers is when you eat all you want and whatever is leftover you put in the fridge. This is rations."

"Benjamin!" I said exasperatedly. I was mostly joking. "I just want to save some chicken for another meal." I started towards the pan with a container in hand. Benjamin was still standing next to it, a piece of chicken stabbed onto his fork. He grabbed the handle of the pan and started moving away from me. I followed him and we started moving more quickly around the island counter top.

"Benjamin," I said again, my tone less of a joke now. "If we put this in the fridge, then we can eat it tomorrow, or I can put it in something else."

"Charly, do you know how much protein I need?" he asked.

I faltered. "No."

"A lot. Besides, look at this chicken. There isn't even enough left to make it worth saving."

"Thanks to you," I pointed out with a laugh. He shrugged, giving me his I-just-won-and-I-know-it face. I rolled my eyes.

"Fine," I set the container on the counter and stabbed a piece of chicken with my fork.

"Trying to put me on rations," Benjamin said, shaking his head as he set the pan back down.

"Benjamin!" I said again. He grinned at me as I popped a piece of chicken into my mouth.

Adventure wanted.

Being married is great. Serious. You should all try it. Ben and I, though, recently realized that we have become somewhat boring since getting married. We haven't had too many adventures in the last little while. And we love adventures. 

So, Ben and I left our little home in Orem to come to Vernal for a week. We're currently staying with his parents. And upstairs, they have a wonderful little bookshelf of books. Last night, I picked myself a nice little book (the second The Work and the Glory, since I just finished the first one) and was reading upstairs. Ben was off playing some Nintendo games with his younger siblings, giving them some much-missed attention. 

My quiet reading space was disturbed when Benjamin ran into the room that I was reading in, followed by his little sister Hannah. Ben ran to the bed where I was sitting, stopped like he was looking for something, and then ran over to the dresser. There he picked up a folded piece of paper, which he proceeded to stick in my book before closing it. I get pretend-mad at him when he loses my spot in a book; it's an almost-daily occurrence.

He grabbed my hand and led me towards the door, not saying a word to my bewildered questioning. Hannah and Ben were both racing so fast, they were acting like the house was on fire. 

"Ben," I said, before willingly following. "What are we doing?"

He gave me one of his mischievous smiles. "Come on." 

"Ben," I laughed, letting him pull me to the door. "Come on to where?" 

"Come on," he said again. Hannah had disappeared down the stairs, so I followed Ben down the stairs and out the front door, Ben never letting go of my hand. 

It wasn't until we were outside on the porch that I realized what they wanted of me. I saw the rain, coming down in splattered clumps and Caleb already waiting on the tramp. My smile now matched Benjamin's. 

"Oh," was all I said. Hannah joined Caleb, then Ben. I was the last one on the tramp. We jumped and laughed, rain falling down on us. Ben grabbed a ball and we started a game. We had a grand old time of it. Ben's parents even came out and sat on the swing under the porch roof to watch.

Ben and I needed a good little adventure. Vernal fits the bill perfectly. 

A Love Story in 20 Lines.

Our Story in 20 lines. It's a complicated story but it's a good one and it's ours.

1. Charly and I first met before my mission going to a dance with my best friend Jeremy.
2. It was love at second sight when I ran into her again after my mission at Jeremy's Birthday.
3. I started subtly stalking her on Facebook because I had a huge crush on her.
4. I was very sneaky about it.
5. I got her number from Jeremy and asked her on our first date. We planned the date as a puppet show.
6. She was going on 100 dates with different guys and I was number 71. My plan was to be her number 1.
7. We laughed a ton on the first date and sat next to each other in the back of the car.
8. We didn't go on another date for a long time. I missed her but I also liked a different girl.
9. I started dating the other girl because she was closer but I still liked Charly.
10. I broke up with the other girl and asked Charly to go to a dance with me in downtown Salt Lake.
11. We started dating only each other. I wasn't ready to get married though and just wanted to date for fun.
12. We would always dance together to the music on my iPod. It felt so good to be together.
13. Charly decided to transfer out to Weber State University because that was where I was going to school.
14. We broke up before she transferred out and both of us moved home to stay with our families.
15. I tried dating other girls again but they all made me miss Charly. We were living more than 3 hours apart.
16. After about eight months I wrote her a letter telling her that I still loved her.
17. Charly sent me a story that was about her life after we had broken up. She already had a mission call.
18. When I read her story I fell in love with her all over again and decided that I would ask her to marry me.
19. Luckily for me she said yes and we were married for time and all eternity in the Bountiful temple.
20. This is the last line but it's not the end. Our story continues on and I'm excited to be writing it with her.

Our Story (In Only 20 Lines)

We met at my cousin's birthday party.
Ben liked me. I thought he was a creeper.
He asked me out.
I said yes.
That was the night I fell for Benjamin Anderson.

We started playing the "I like you but don't know if you like me" game. A year passed.
Then he took me dancing.
That night, we became official. It was both wonderful and awful.
Wonderful, because we were in love.
Awful, because it was long distance.

After six months of dating, we realized something in our relationship was off.
The timing just wasn't right. We knew it and the Lord knew it.
We trusted the Lord, so we broke up.
And my heart broke.
Four months later, we started talking again, just as friends.

Six months after we broke up, Ben told me he still loved me.
Eight months after we broke up, he wrote me a letter.
At this point, I had my mission call. He told me he wanted me to stay home and marry him.
So I did.
Best decision I have ever made.

We Buy Books, Not Food.

I had never before bought a book. I have spent more time than anyone I know in bookstores and libraries. Half the dates Ben and I have gone on have been spent in Barnes and Noble. One of my hobbies is searching out little used bookstores and libraries in little towns. I look and look at books, browsing and reading and drooling over them. But I've never bought one. Until last week.

For date night last Friday, Ben and I decided to visit Barnes and Noble. Just to look. We'd done it so many times before, it didn't even cross my mind that it would turn into more than that.

There were so many books and every single one, one of would say, "That book looks so good, I want to read that ..." or "Oh man, I love this book. This is one we're going to buy someday for our library." So we pulled out Ben's iPod and started making a wishlist of books.

I was about getting to the going-home point when Ben looked at me, his smile telling me he was about to suggest something that I might say no to, but would probably say yes to. "What if we splurge and each buy one book?" I smiled at his suggestion and we did. It was my first taste of buying a book and I liked it. We made a new tradition of buying one book each every paycheck.

The next day, I talked him into going with me to a used bookstore that was having a good sale--up to 70% off everything.

"Charly," Ben told me, "if we go there, we will end up buying more books, and we can't for another two weeks."

"We won't buy anything," I assured him. "I just want to see what deals they have."  And if they have good ones, then maybe we'll get it, I thought to myself.

"Charly." Ben didn't look convinced. "We can't walk into a bookstore and walk out without buying books."

"Sure we can," I argued back. "We used to do it all the time when we were dating."

"That's because we didn't have money when we were dating."

"We still don't have money," I pointed out.

And with that, we went to the bookstore. At first, there were no books that we were even slightly interested in. We split up and then I found the classics section.

By the time Ben found me, I had a pile of books--Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens, The Count of Monte Cristo ... and I wasn't half way through the section. Ben found a couch and took a nap until I was finished going through the books. He helped me carry my pile up to the register.

Before we bought the books, Ben and I went through my pile three or four times, weeding out the ones that I wasn't absolutely dying to buy. We ended up with fifteen books, and the guy at the register threw in an older book that I was pining over. Sixteen books total. We got some good deals, especially on The Mistborn Series, in brand new condition for only sixteen dollars.

"One book a paycheck?" Ben said in the car.

"Oops," I said, smiling one of my most innocent smiles. "We'll stick to that from now on."

Ben raised his eyebrows. "How about, we can buy another book after you finish reading all of those."

"Okay," I agreed quickly. I knew it wouldn't take me long.