Four Years

This week Greg and I celebrated another anniversary. We went to our favorite sushi place, of course. We just can't stop ourselves. Sushi times is serious times.

 I spent a few days thinking about who we each were when we met, and who we are now; the choices we made that brought us together and the choices that we make that keep us together.

When we met in May 2009, I was 18 and grappling with my identity as an adult. I was coming out of a hard youth and had made some really good choices in my first year at college, and had gained a real testimony of the gospel with help from the examples of wonderful roommates and friends. I had decided that I was going to serve a mission, and I started preparing for it even though it was a few years away.

Greg was 21, had returned from serving a mission in Ukraine 6 months earlier and had just finished another semester at BYU. In a lot of ways, he was still adjusting to post-mission life. He had just figured out what he wanted to study in school, and just started a really great web programming job. He had his life pretty well figured out.

The first thing he ever said to me was "Did you know you have pink hair?". I'm sure I responded with some canned sarcastic remark. With encouragement from loyal friends, we started hanging out and eventually went on a date, and then ended up spending almost all our free time together. I remember feeling like I couldn't get of Greg--I felt so good when he was around. Of course I knew that he was attracted to me, and he flirted with me, but it was more than that. He always treated me so kindly. Even when I moved home for the summer and told him that I just wanted to be friends, he continued to show me that he cared about me as a person.

We ended up staying together through that summer, and got engaged in December 2009 and then married in May 2010. We've been through a lot in those years; 2 college graduations, 1 child's birth, 6 trips to Texas, 8 trips to Washington, 2 car wrecks, 1 surgery, 1 master's program, 4 jobs, lots of medical bills, 10 phones, 2 marathons, 3 sibling weddings, 1 family funeral, and so many more things that I can't count. Those things over those years have changed us. But we chose to go through them together.

I think what I love most about Greg is the kindness that he treats me with. I've struggled mightily with self-confidence my whole life, but Greg does a wonderful job of treating me the way that Jesus Christ would. I feel Christ's love reflected through Greg's actions, and I have learned so much about the Savior's love for me through Greg. I have learned so much about my own worth and grown leaps and bounds in self-confidence because of the way that Greg treats me every day.

I love you, Greg. Thanks for choosing me. I choose you forever.