Our story (part 3) - dating

When Adam went back to Louth on the Monday after our weekend date we were officially 'going out'. He told his parents about it and also that he was going to move to Leeds.  He'd only been back from his mission a week and a half and he moved to Leeds that Wednesday.  I don't think his mum was too pleased about that!

He moved in to the boys house in a tiny little room, that was only supposed to be for storage.  He just about fit a mattress on the floor and then got himself a huge tv.  There's priorities for you :D  We spent the next couple of months dating and saw each other every day.  It was pretty easy because we lived just round the corner from each other and we all did a lot of stuff together like institute and family home evening with all the YSA in Leeds.  There was an institute building that we did all of those things at and also could go during the day between uni lectures and things.  It was right across the road from the uni campus.  George Jokl was the instate teacher and there was always a missionary couple assigned to the area and they would often be at the institute building.

I have lots of good memories of walking home together through the uni campus after whatever activities had been happening at the institute building.  From early on we've always liked a bit of play fighting and one evening we were walking home through the uni campus and nudging each other.  Then I spotted my opportunity and gave Adam a big push over a 2 foot wall into a bush and ran, leaving him laughing in a bush with his feet sticking over the top of the wall.

Another interesting incident happened when we were walking home with Lisa and a couple of kids (maybe 14) walked past and spat at us.  It mostly got Lisa, so she turned around and shouted at them.  She can give it what for when she wants to! Anyway we carried on walking when they turned back and ran past us.  We were almost at the boys house when they came back with a group of 10-15 of them, ranging from about 12 to 16 yrs old.  They started being quite verbally aggressive to the three of us.  Adam was laughing at them, Lisa was pretty indignant and me? Well, having never been in any kind of fight before in my life I was a bit scared and hung on to Adam with one hand and quickly called the boys house with my other and told them to bring anyone who was there.  It turned out to be a pretty funny confrontation in the end because it was so ridiculous.  Many of them were throwing out verbal threats, but with Adam being there, quite big and fit and just laughing at their pitiful threats, it became quite comical.  At one point a small lad, who came up to about chest height on Adam came up to him with a couple of tiny sticks and challenged him to a one on one fight.  We also had the infamous Donna Magibbon.  We know her name because she told us many times that she was Donna Magibbon and this was her patch!  The other guys from the boys house soon turned up and the kids didn't seem so confident any more.  We simply walked away laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.  Adam says now it was probably the funniest, weirdest situation he's ever been in because he wasn't at all threatened by any of it, although they must have thought that they were menacing in some way.

I've always been glad to have Adam to hang on to when I feel like I could do with some muscle behind me.  Sometimes physically and sometimes just as moral and emotional support.

After we'd been dating for 2 months I went to New Zealand for a month.  I'd booked the holiday the year before and was gone for the whole of the Easter break from uni.  The night before I left we stayed up all night talking and at 6am he held me and said "I think I love you".  My reply was "I think I love you too" :)  The break went a long way to making our relationship more permanent.  Being away from each other, after seeing each other every day before, made us realize just how much we wanted to be together.  We sent a lot of emails back and forth.  About 3 weeks in Adam sent me one which finished with "PS will you pray about us?".  I knew what that meant!  He meant think about marriage - he wanted me to seriously consider it and pray for guidance from Heavenly Father.  For anyone not aware, we're members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as Mormons.  We have a strong belief in personal revelation.  Heavenly Father can guide us through our own personal struggles and decisions and help us make the right choices for us.

So in a roundabout way, Adam was telling me he was thinking about a proposal.