Kenta is my best friend. We met at the OU Institute when I was a sophomore and he had just come back from his mission in Japan. He was really shy and bashful around girls (he still is - ha!) so we really didn't get to know each other until spring semester, right around the time that I got my mission call. He seized the opportunity to invite me to go with the temple with him on Tuesdays. We got to know each other really well and became good friends. Despite what some of you may think (ahem....Stephanie) we weren't dating. Just great friends. He knew I was going to leave on my mission - a lifelong dream of mine - and wisely, did not try and convince me to stay.
Saying good-bye at the OKC ariport - Book of Mormon's width apart, of course ;)
I knew he was a great guy and exactly the type of person that I wanted to marry someday. I didn't know what would happen while I was away, but I dedicated myself to the work and convinced myself that he was such a good guy, he probably wouldn't be around when I got back(but secretly, I hoped he would be).
We wrote letters back and forth almost my entire mission. I remember getting a letter from him and reading it in the Peru MTC at a time when I was feeling really lonely and homesick. It lifted my spirits and inspired me to be a better missionary and, ultimately, a better person. That's how all of his letters were. They seemed to come at the times I needed them most and said the exact things I needed to hear. We got to know each other so well through these letters. We both found that some things are easier to express on paper than out loud. I guess you could say it was a little bit of a gamble on my part to leave, but the time I spent in Peru was so wonderful and has bettered me as a person in so many ways - I wouldn't have traded the experience for anything else in the world.
Obviously, rumors were flying before I got home because we had been corresponding. I was not really ready to face the barrage of "Have you seen Kenta yet?" "What's going on with you and Kenta?" " Have you done anything with Kenta?" questions that seemed to start as soon as I stepped off the plane. Sadly, I avoided Kenta in public because I couldn't stand student ward gossip (I still can't) and if we were seen together, well then, we must have been engaged or something, RIGHT???????
But he stuck with me. I found it very easy to be around him when it was just the two if us, even through my post-mission Oh-My-Gosh-What-Do-I-Do-With-My-Life-Now? weirdness. About two months after I got home, we decided it would probably be a good idea to officially start dating. We should have just skipped dating and gotten engaged. I was a pretty lame girlfriend. So we were "official" about twelve days before Kenta asked me to marry him - a typical Mormon courtship. My parents didn't even know we had been dating before we got engaged. THAT was a fun phone call to make -
Me: Hey, Dad. Um....I've got some exciting news.
Dad: Yeah?
Me: Um...I just got engaged.
Dad: That's great! (awkward silence) To whom?
Fast forward about three months and we were sealed in the OKC temple on June 9, 2006. One of the happiest days of my life:
I feel like I am such a lucky girl to have such a wonderful husband. I'm excited for him to be a daddy soon. On a side note, I had to undergo a really unpleasant procedure at the hospital this morning (yeah, bummer of a birthday present, right?) called an "external cephalic version". It's the process of trying to externally flip a breech baby. Just picture a couple of doctors pressing hard on your abdomen to try and push a baby around. Anyway, they had to numb me with an epidural and hook me up to all these machines and stuff. I haven't been a patient in a hospital since I was born, so it was hard for Kenta to see me like that. And there were some tense moments when my blood pressure dropped and they had to give me oxygen and I thought I was going to vomit. BUT - we made it through. The baby, sadly, did not turn like we had hoped. That's been pretty hard for me to take, but Kenta's been my rock. His shoulder is covered in snot and tears (mine) because I have just been so upset about this whole thing. I feel bad that this happened on his birthday, but I tried to make it up to him. I let him order the lunch of his choice from the hospital menu and we took home a barf bag (unused) and hairnet (used) as souvenirs. I let him take a nice long nap when we got home. I was way too exhausted to think about dinner, so we ended up going to IHOP, with the promise that I would make his birthday pot roast and potatoes on Monday. How romantic. Unfortunately with all the doctor's visits I had this week, I couldn't get Kenta's birthday shopping finished. Except for one thing. Kenta is now the proud owner of a Dremel:
You can't go wrong giving a guy power tools for his birthday.
So, Kenta, I love you and I'm so happy and blessed that you are mine FOREVER!!! Happy birthday!
