J & L - Hearsay

* I am writing our love story, if you want to start and the beginning click here. At the very bottom of that post you can click on "newer post" and it will take you through our story in order.

John moved into the Seattle University Singles Ward that I was attending in October. The first I actually heard of him was from a girl that I visited in my ward each month. She would tell me all about "John Henderson!" She talked about what a babe he was and how nice he was. Each month we would pick up right where we left off and she would fill me in on all the new developments over the last month. I think I had visited her for about 3 months before she had a picture to show me. My response, "Ive totally seen him. He is a babe!" This is also the visit where she asked me if she should tell him that she liked him. I told her for sure! (I later got to hear about that from Johns side)

I also had one of the worst nights in my life in these early months before we knew each other - I mean a horrible, nightmarish, humiliating night! Here is why that night was so awful - we use to go up and watch the guys from our ward play indoor soccer (at this point John was not on the team). They were required to have 2 girls on the field at all times. This particular night the second girl didn't show up. There were 5 of us girls there to watch and they came over and asked if one of us would play. I had not played soccer for a long time, I was not in my best shape, I was wearing cute clothes, and I had on those white tennis shoes, that were in style then, that had a 2 inch thick sole! Tripping hazard!

None of the girls would do it and when they went to pressure me into it I used the excuse that I didn't have a white shirt. This is where the night went from bad to revolting! My ex boyfriend piped up that I could wear his undershirt. Now you have to know that my previous relationship with this boy had been very serious and in retrospect very, VERY, very unhealthy for a number of reasons. Mostly I was sad at myself for not being more brave and for not believing in myself more in that relationship. Somewhere in those toxic dynamics I had lost the sense of who I was inside. Everyone pushed and I finally relented. I went to change into his undershirt and almost vomited when I put it on. It smelled like his cologne and it made my stomach churn because it reminded me of how I had disappointed myself!

I finally pulled myself together and went out to play in his horrendously tight shirt in the chest and hips, that smelled like my bad relationship, to find we were playing a very serious Hispanic team! For a whole hour I had to smell my ex, try not to trip on platform tennis shoes, have circles run around me while they laughed at me, never get to sub out, and try to smile and look like a good sport. It was humiliating. I can hardly think of another social event in my past that was as horrible as this night. Actually I cant think of any that were that bad! Turns out John was there and saw the whole detestable thing go down. When he first told me this I almost cried in humiliation. No joke, I felt ill all over again and wanted to explain how the girl he saw that night was not me. His response, "I thought you were so cute and its one of the first things that made me want to date you."

I should also at this point in the story tell about how I was really starting to have a hard time with the gloominess of Seattle. I had wanted to live there my entire life but after a year and a half I was having second thoughts. I called my Mom in November and she and I decided to plan a trip to Hawaii to help get me through the winter. We settled on February and my Dad decided to come a long to. I could make it through the winter because I knew in February I was going to Hawaii!

During these months I also had a conversation with some friends, Beren and Layne, who were over at our house and were asking us what we looked for first in a guys appearance. I told them I loved a guy with kissable lips. They thought I was crazy but I assured them that some guy in our ward had really luscious lips, I just couldn't remember who. They said I had to find out who that was and report back so that they would know what kissable lips looked like.

That next Sunday I set myself to the task of checking out all of the boys lips when - BAM! There they were. I looked at the rest of the face and it was that John Henderson guy that I had heard so much about from my friend. I reported back to Beren and Layne not worrying one bit that John would ever hear about it because he wasn't really friends with either of them.

The very next Sunday Beren was called to be the President of the Elders (all the men) in our ward and John was called as his first counselor and Layne was called as his second counselor.

I just about fell out of my chair!

The only two boys in our ward who knew that I thought John had kissable lips were now in a presidency with him!