Mariah & Benson: A Proposal Story

 Yes, I am over a month late in sharing the story, but here it goes...
**DISCLAIMER: I'm not even going to attempt to share our WHOLE story because we've had a long {and lovely} journey beginning with a scared 16 year old girl and a patient boy who knew he would have to wait. I am so glad he did. Anyways. Here is how the proposal all went down:

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Sometime in February and March we both just knew. We knew we were in love and wanted to get married.   The marriage talk began casually and not-so-straightforward and progressed until I we were whipping out our calendars and discussing dates. The excitement and joy was hard to contain and we spent lots of time talking about the future. I, not being the best at secret-keeping, was finding it very hard to not tell everyone about it, and finding it even harder to not begin wedding plans! 

Around the beginning of April, I knew that we only had one more weekend before Benson would be leaving for the summer a few weeks before me (see previous post). I was hoping to be engaged before I left for the summer and was getting antsy. I knew, however, that Benson loves to surprise me and I wouldn't put it past him to wait until I got out to North Carolina. Knowing how he loves to surprise me, we never discussed a ring and definitely never went shopping together. (yes, this beauty was totally from him... with a little help from my mom and home girl Whitney Alger :) With that said, I was totally clueless about when he would actually pop the question but was hoping that it would be Easter weekend because we had planned to go visit my family in St. George and it just seemed perfect. 

You can imagine my disappointment when, only a few minutes into the drive to St. George, he basically shot down my hopes. I realize now that I was so gullable but at the time he totally made me believe that it was not going to happen for a while. I was bummed and worried that my family would be disappointed because I thought they all thought it would happen that weekend too. (Turns out I was the only one not in on it..)

In St. George, we had fun just being with my family and celebrating Easter. I thought nothing of it when my mom suggested on Saturday night that we go on a little walk through Snow Canyon State Park. It sounded fun enough, so I grabbed my shoes and (clearly) didn't even brush my hair. 

We walked through the beautiful red rocks for a while and I was reminded once again why I love St. George so much. My family was acting kinda weird and overly excited about everything but I just figured that they thought he was going to propose... but of course I knew he wasn't, so I naturally felt kinda irritated at the whole situation...

(Its so funny to write this and realize how easily I believed him even though every clue was there!)

Out of nowhere, when my family was walking ahead of us, Benson grabbed my hand and asked me to walk with him for a little bit, and started pulling me in the other direction. I looked at him like he was crazy. "No, if you take me aside, my family will think you're proposing... and you're not! So I don't want to get them all excited for nothing." haha... I am just a gem, right? Then he proceeded to tell me he had an "Easter gift" to give me.... 

That was honestly the first time that the thought crossed my mind that he actually could propose right then. Of course with this realization, I became a little easier to deal with. That's when I noticed that something seemed a little different, like he was nervous or something. Oh great, now I was nervous. Was this really happening?

After we'd walked a little ways, he reached into the pink back back he was carrying (I thought he was just holding it for my little sisters) and pulled out a book.  

A book? Yea, and the most incredible one yet. 

It was filled with our story. Pages, pictures, journal entries, letters, and even the email that Alex sent that first predicted Benson and I would end up together. 

As I read through it, I knew exactly what was happening. The book was entitled, "Mariah and Benson: the beginning of forever." I remember feeling a little light-headed, a little shaky, but mostly just so happy. 

I truly felt (and feel!) like the luckiest girl ever. 

When I turned to the last page, I saw a ring box sitting in the pages! You know the rest....

I said yes!! 

3 times to be exact... he asked if I would marry him, be sealed to him, and have babies with him (..oh gosh). The ring was way prettier than I even imagined and I still spend a good portion of time just starring at it. 

It was so fun to have my whole family there to celebrate with right after. Of course my mom was crying, and the little girls were absolutely freaking out. Everyone else just loved to make sure I knew that they knew long before I did about the whole thing. haha. 

(this was a while after the fact, and I look a little bored ... I am a terrible reactor but I promise I was so so happy:) 

This book is SUCH a treasure. I love it!

 Proposal story, ring, and silly details aside, I can't even tell you how happy and excited I am to be marrying the most amazing guy I know. I love him so much and can't imagine spending the rest of forever with anyone else! 

Well, there you have it. I am one lucky girl!!

North Carolina for the summer

First of all, let me just say I may have some serious problems when it comes time to leave this gorgeous state. Big, vibrant green trees EVERYWHERE. I love my home states in the west, but I have been seriously deprived.

Benson works for Vivint, selling security/home automation. Each summer, he pretty much gets told where he is going to go, so far its always been out east. Since I've known him for the past 3 years, I've been fully aware that summertime = no Benson time for me. Well, when we started dating more seriously in February obviously it was a little dismal to think that anything we had going would have to be put on pause for 4 long months.

One night, sitting across the table from him at Happy Sumo, I casually mentioned that maybe I could just come with him. Live with Alex and Abbie and just have a little adventure. No more needed to be said. Now, here I am, I live in my own little apartment right above Alex and Abbie and trying to soak in all this down time. (I tend to crave productivity a little too much.) Abbie and I pretty much hang out all day while the boys are working. We talk about her growing baby, lay in the sun, read great books, cook great meals, and plan my wedding! Wedding planning from thousands of miles away has turned out to be a little harder than I thought, but not too bad thanks to all the help I have back in Utah. I'll be flying out there next week though to have another dress fitting and do some house hunting.

Yes, I often feel a little under-productive here but it really is nice to have a break, and definitely worth it to see my fiance everyday! Overall, I am just super happy to be here.

iCloud: I'm in love.

Up until now, I have been wondering what to do with this blog. I am an "all or nothing" type girl and it absolutely drives me crazy that I am not a graphic designer (yet) and cannot whip up a beautifully designed website/blog.. so I was seriously considering bagging the whole thing.

OH, and the fact that every time I try to upload pics from my phone to computer, it becomes a big, messy, much-harder-than-it-should-be challenge made it a little discouraging to ever put pics on here.

But today I discovered iCloud. Talk about making my life easier! Now I only have one major hiccup to deal with when it comes to blogging. And I guess I can suck it up that my blog doesn't look just like I want it to look  for now because here I am blogging away... enjoy.

Lesson learned: don't ignore my very tech-savvy older brother when he fills me in on Apple's new gig.

Good Things to Come

Today I am so thankful for my New Testament class and an inspired teacher. Lets back up. I've been in a rut the past few days of some serious "feeling sorry for myself" moments. {I know what you're thinking, and I totally agree... I have no reason to do that.} But with the end of the semester in a few weeks, I started to get down as I've been running around busier than ever and feeling like all my hard work is not paying off as much as I would like it to and not as appreciated.

Not to mention, I failed cleaning checks today. Ugh don't even get me started...

Needless to say, feeling sorry for myself has just proved to be a downward spiral because it somehow gets easier and easier to think of reasons why I should be bugged or irritated, and makes it harder and harder to just be patient and have hope for the future.

This morning after having a little cry on the phone with my mom {she always helps}, I walked into my New Testament class feeling grateful that this was my first class of the day. The opening hymn was "Did you Think to Pray?" Anyone that has spent a Monday night with our family knows that that song is our song. {We learned it well and just never felt the need to learn another I guess...} As I sang, I pictured my adorable family and felt comfort in my heart. I love them so much, and will be with them forever. Just the thought made me feel so much better.

As the class began, my teacher invited us to take notes on the things that touched our hearts, and worry less about "left-brain notes" today. Whew. Thanks, because my left brain is about to explode. Hebrews 8-13 is all about our Savior and having faith in Him. He represents the veil, and is our mediator between us and the Father. He wants us to succeed and be happy. All we have to do is have faith that He can in fact make us happy. That faith will give us the assurance we need to act. When we act in faith, we will receive more light and more evidence of His presence. Sometimes we will be able to do really hard things purely on faith, and sometimes we will simply need to exercise faith enough to get up and start the day. The only thing that really matters is that we try.

As we act in faith, we can be 100% confident that good things are ahead. I know this because I know that we can only see a tiny bit of the big picture. But our Omniscient Heavenly Father sees it all. He knows exactly why we are going through the trials we are going through and is excited to see us become who we are intended to become.

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded by them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." (Hebrews 11:13)

We may not understand the reason for our trials now, and may not feel like any of our promised blessings are coming to pass. But be patient, they will come. Our Heavenly Father loves us too much.

At the end of class we watched this. If you're like me, you've seen it several times. But today I learned more from it than before and feel like my perspective finally clicked back into place. Maybe it can do that for you too.

10 reasons to be happy about today

1- The sun is shining... I can feel Spring just around the corner.

2- I get to spend time with Benson.

3- My family is up for the week and I get to hang with them today!

4- I get to see my Nana.

5- I will do my laundry at my Nana's house... which means it will smell delightful.

6- Its Saturday! {Always a reason to rejoice.}

7- We made it through another week of school! {just 5 more baby}

8- Today entails a little shopping...

9- I ran 4 miles and it felt gooood

10- I was able to sleep until I woke up naturally this morning, which is a miracle.

Have a nice day!

yes, yes... I'm a missionary:)

I'm pretty excited about this new little adventure.

I decided I wanted to serve a year-long service mission for the Family History Mission here at BYU. Might seem kinda random, but here is the little chain of events that pushed me to do this:

-Last semester we had to do a semester-long service project and then present about it on the last day of my human development class. I was impressed when one of the girls got up and presented about a service mission she served in the FH library. I felt the spirit and felt very interested in what she was doing. I made a mental note to learn more about that.

-Over Christmas break, while getting mentally prepped for yet another semester of school and thinking about goals for the new year, I really wanted to spend a significant time doing service. I feel like so much about this time in my life is about me. MY classes, MY schedule, MY food, MY time... I really have nobody else to worry about and sometimes it gets me pretty off balance. Not having a very time-demanding job, I feel like I could make it work to do something a little more significant in the service area this semester. I wanted to do something nursing or health related but couldn't get the Family History mission idea out of my mind. Also the fact that it was on campus and required no driving sounded very convenient (seeing that I have no car.) But I wasn't just quite sure yet and didn't really know any details.

-Once the semester started, I learned in my first day of my New Testament class that a portion of our grade in that class was going to be something that we do on our own. It could be anything as long as it helped us grow as a person spiritually and took a significant amount of effort or time. BAM. That sold the deal. I knew I needed to get my butt over to the library and talk to someone about doing a service mission because it just seemed perfect.

So I went to the 2nd floor of the BYU library and walked through the huge doors under the sign "Family History Department." There I found a full-on mission, complete with lots of volunteer missionaries (mostly all elderly couples) and a sweet mission president and his wife. I marched right in their office and asked to speak with them. I explained my desire to serve a mission like the girl in my class. They were thrilled and so welcoming. Me and my friend are the only 2 FH missionaries under the age of 60! Turns out, they need a lot more missionaries and especially love younger people to get involved because family history work is so based around computers and internet now that they need people who can understand it and help the older people. They explained that if I wanted to do this I would be set apart as a service missionary for one year (I will be released for Summer and then pick it back up when school starts again) and need to work at least 2 shifts a week, which comes out to 10 hours. Whew! Big commitment, but it felt so right. So next thing you know, I had an interview with my stake president, sent the paper into Salt Lake and got a call in the mail a few weeks later. Shortly after, I got set-apart and the learning has begun..

Holy cow do I have a lot to learn! Family History has always been a mystery to me and that is a big reason I wanted to do this in the first place. Even after this short time, I have gained a much stronger testimony of the importance of family history work. The Spirit of Elijah is real and powerful. I am SO excited to learn more and hopefully be able to help all the patrons that come into the FH library needing help within a few weeks. Until then, I am working on getting trained and learning all I can from the other missionaries. (Lets me honest, working with some of the sweetest old men and women for 10 hours/week is probably the best thing that could happen to me.) Just being with them makes me happy and leave with a little better perspective on things.

I am not one for overly long blog posts, so I will end my rambling although there is a lot more I could say. I am sure you will hear a lot more about this though! So thankful for this awesome opportunity for learning and service.

Have a great Sunday!

I could try to be positive right now, but I don't like fakes.

Today was simply one of those days.

When I woke up, running sounded like the worst thing ever.

While I was running, it was the worst thing ever.

When I got home, getting ready sounded like the worst thing ever...

You get the point.

I'm extremely sore, and tired and now feeling achy and congested. There is simply not enough microbiology info in my head yet and the test is coming sooner than I would like. No matter how many sticky notes I re-write, I cannot create anymore time for all that needs to be done. darn. I love how when I get super overwhelmed, I resort to starring into the wall. It really helps me accomplish things...

I think we know what this means. After working my tail off for a full year straight in school, I am due for a break more than ever. Summer better come fast or this isn't gunna be pretty.

On another note, since today (and yesterday... and pretty much the whole week) has been so crappy, that means next week will be great right?!

Also, I have something super exciting I just started which I will write about soon. {Need to get in a better mood first.} Yes, it is what is taking all my time, but will be so worth it. Curious yet?

Have a good night.

-Rye