James and I - the Grand Finale

At Christmas that year (this is 1992/1993 winter break for those keeping track) a couple of things happened - both of which would change my life forever (I've been reading a lot of YA fiction, and I find a lot of it relies heavily on foreshadowing to move the plot along):

1.  I went out with Bryce (from a couple of posts ago), and he convinced me that James wasn't dating anyone and that I should give him another chance.
2.  I went to church at my sister's YSA ward, and I can't remember if the sister teaching the lesson had just come home from a mission, or if it was just a general missionary work lesson, but just like the promise in the blessing I'd had earlier in the year - I knew so clearly that I was supposed to serve a mission after graduation.

And so began the mission prep.  The first time I met with my bishop, he told me that he was glad that I'd come to him because he'd also just had the feeling that he needed to talk to me about a mission.  That knowledge helped to reassure me that I was on the right path. 

But as things progressed in mission planning, things progressed with James as well.  Now that I know I was leaving "for reals" after graduation, I decided not to waste any more time being estranged from James.  Even if we weren't going to get married, I still wanted to be with him as much as I could.  And so we started spending all of our time together again.  And when I say all, I really do mean a lot of time was spent together.  He'd even convinced me to take an advanced English class with him - I just audited it however.  And although I was happy to sit in that class and learn along side James, I drew the line at helping him with his essays!!  And really, what was he thinking when he asked me to help...duh, I'm an engineer!  I don't write (case in point - this blog).  (Side note - my friend Cindy reads this blog and she has an English degree and teaches communications at the college level - so I'm always worried about the grade she's mentally assigning me).

Okay, back to my final year of school - which, btw, since I was so focussed on mission and James, I didn't have a lot of extra time to devote to school.  Which is sad because I was in a group that had to do a big final year project - I was not very helpful -  oops.  I did apologize to a couple of those guys when I ran into them years later...

Anyway - everytime I would meet with my bishop, he would remind me that although a mission is good for girls, getting married is better.  And I'd remind him that I knew that and perhaps he should be talking to James.  And then we'd get on with more mission prep.

Time flew by, and before I knew it, I was done.  School was over.  Mission was coming up.  I was called to serve in the Salt Lake City Temple Square mission, and I was reporting at the end of May.   James had been a big part of my life this semester - he'd been with me when I went through the temple for the first time, he was my date for grad, he was the first one I shared my mission call with, and he even sang at my mission farewell.

Oh yes, mission farewell - you heard me right.  I had a mission farewell.  James sang - "O that I were an Angel".  To be honest, I can't remember now if I chose that song because I liked it, because he liked it, or because my roommate Becky absolutely hated it.  It could be the latter...

Here's what I remember about my mission farewell too - looking out and seeing James' mom crying the whole way through my talk.  Afterwards, she told me that she cried all the way back to Calgary because she was so upset that I was leaving and not marrying James.

By this time, most of James' conversations were along the lines of "When you get home and we get married..."

Here's 2 experiences I had this month of May.  That fast Sunday I decided to fast for confirmation about my mission.  How easy would this be - I had a call, and I was weeks away from going.  Imagine my surprise then when I had the distinct impression that I wouldn't be going, that leaving on a mission was the wrong thing to do.  But, like I'm able to do with all things perplexing, I just pushed that out of my head for a while.

About a week before I was leaving, right after my farewell, I had such a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach whenver I thought about leaving.  I knew I shouldn't go.  But I also knew that I didn't want to stay just to see if James would commit...I wasn't sure I'd have the courage to NOT leave, if I didn't have a strong commitment from him.  Again though, I just kept on going with mission plans and waited to see what would happen.

So - to sum up to this point:  mission call: check, graduation:  check, mission farewell:  check, packed and ready to go:  check.

Here we were - end of May.  I was to be set apart on a Sunday, on Monday my mom, my sister and I were driving to Utah, and on Wednesday I was reporting at the MTC.

That final Friday and Saturday James and I spent with his family in Calgary (he had a family commitment he couldn't miss - so I tagged along).  That Saturday morning he looked at me and said:

"Temple Square - why are you going to Temple Square?"
ME:  "Because you won't marry me.  That's why"

We talked about my mission and about our future.  I told him that he thought he was putting off the decision to marry me for 18 months - which was fine by him - but that in reality he had made his decision already.  He'd decided not to marry me.  I told him that if I left on my mission, he'd have missed his chance - because of HIS decision.  I'd been very clear all along that all of my plans were changeable - he just had to say the word and I'd stick around.

It was finally time for him to mull this over.  No more time to be indecisive.  Or well, still more time, just less - you know - 24 hours or so.

And so he did.

We went about our day doing stuff with his family.  And in between it all we talked about what would happen if we got married right away - the logistics of it all.  And yet nothing was decided. 

Until that night, about 11:00 when he came into my room and finally, over a year since we'd first talked about it, he asked if I would marry him.

I said I'd have to think about it.

Ha ha.  Of course I said yes.  It was all I'd wanted for a long time.  We both knew it was the right thing at the right time.  In fact, it was most likely the most spiritual experience I'd had in my life at that point.  And even today, only a few others have rivalled that moment.

The next day I met with my Stake President - for what he thought was a missionary setting apart.  He greeted me outside his office with a "Sister Babowal"  and I said "we need to talk about that".  I filled him in on my recent engagment.  He still gave me a blessing, and confirmed that I was making the right decision.  In the blessing he referenced the fact that I'd had a mission call, that that had seemed to be the right thing at the time - and he said that the Lord knew that James just needed that extra push, the incentive to make a decision.

And so I left with an even deeper spiritual conviction of the rightness of the whole thing.

And so there was no mission.

And then we got married - 16 days later.  June 8, 1993 (just in case anyone wants to send a gift)