I am the fourth of five children. I grew up with two brothers, two sisters, four dogs, two goats, a mouse, a rat, a hamster, a shrew, three rabbits, a dozen cats, a handful of turtles, and a few dozen fish (we would have had ducks too, but Mom thought they wouldn't stick around). It is safe to say that pets were a large part of my childhood. My dad is a public accountant and my mom started working as a teacher about the time my little sister got old enough to start school. She was originally licensed to teach English, but has taught special education, geometry, drama, and American history as well. I plan on being a teacher as well after I finish up school.I grew up in a home devoid of television. That is not to say that we didn't have a TV, we did. It's just that we didn't have cable or satellite and the antennae disappeared within two minutes of opening the box, never to be seen again. That said, we were limited to watching movies. This made it almost unbearable when I discovered that most people have to sit and watch through commercials every few minutes. It also meant that I spent more time reading books than the average child. I was introduced to science fiction and fantasy books by my older brothers and have continued reading them to this day. While many of my classmates in fifth grade weren't comfortable with any book over two hundred pages, I decided to tackle "The Lord of the Rings".
Middle school was fairly uneventful. It saw me survive my first crush. It wasn't that I had a crush on a girl, she had a crush on me. Do you know how hard it is be nice to someone that you have absolutely no romantic interest in without making them think that you do? It was a bit of a nightmare. The important thing is that I survived middle school and come out in pretty good shape.
High school was more interesting. I did well in my classes and always got good grades. I even took first place in a statewide academic competition that covered ten different subjects. I managed to progress in almost every aspect except socially. I was always a little awkward and shy and that didn't change very much in high school. I can count on one hand the number of dates I went on and that includes prom and homecoming dances.
If it wasn't for my mission to California, I would likely still be a little backwards socially. Going on a mission to a place I had never been with people I had never met meant I had to come out of my shell. I came home from my mission being much less socially awkward. Apparently that is a strange thing, but that's how it worked for me.
Now we're going to have to rewind a bit to when I was six years old. You see after I came home from my mission, it wouldn't make any sense to tell you about myself without talking about Cassy. Some people talk about the first time they met their spouse and remembering what they were wearing, or the song on the radio, or the first thing they said to each other. Not me. What I remember most is that I got stung by a bee, on my toe. Of course for a six year old boy, that is more important than meeting a new girl.
Towards the end of my sophomore year of high school I started to notice Cassy. Of course, I always knew she was there before, but I didn't see her any differently than any of my other friends. The way I described my feelings at the time were, "maybe we're a little more than just friends, like a best friend." Of course the last thing a sixteen year old guy is going to do is admit to anyone that he's in love with a girl. Especially a sixteen year old boy as socially challenged as I was.
After nearly six months of spending every spare minute I could with Cassy, without actually asking her on a date, she asked me out. We went to see a movie and then ate dinner at Subway. Most people would think that a girl asking a guy out would be enough incentive to get him to reciprocate. It took me another two months and the approach of prom to finally buckle down and ask Cassy on a date. Luckily, she is patient. It took three hours of sitting next to her saying absolutely nothing to work up the nerves to ask, even though I already knew she would say yes.
Over the course of the next two years we went on a handful of dates, but spent time together at church functions and at school. It took me a couple of months to work up the nerve to ask Cassy out, and just over a year to kiss her for the first time. Compared to that, asking her to marry me after only being home from my mission for two months seems a huge change. The funny thing is that I wasn't as nervous about asking her to marry me as I was about asking her to go to prom. Isn't it amazing what a mission can do?
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