Wow. It's been an eventful month. Mostly my marriage to Hannah at the beginning of the month.
April 1st was cold and snowy. Seems the weather had decided to get in on the April Fools' tradition. We were a little worried that Sardine Canyon would be ugly and slick. Fortunately, the Lord seemed to determined to bless us in a multiplicity of ways this day. We drove through the canyon without incident and made it to the Salt Lake Temple safely and early. We parked almost exactly the same time as Hannah and her group, actually.
We met up just in front of the recommend desk, where Hannah gave me my recommend that she'd been holding on to. The really cool thing about this part is that I'd stressed myself out the day before trying to find a ring of some kind for Hannah to have (it's true. I still hadn't gotten one) and I spent too much time and even made dinner late trying to find one and I couldn't and I was distressed most of the evening as a result. Hannah's brothers, Nephi and Alma, fed me dinner and I got to see Hannah briefly, all of which made me feel a bit better, but I still really wanted to surprise Hannah the morning of the wedding with an actual ring. I mentioned my distress to Mom, who had figured out what I'd been stressing about, and she pulled off Great Grandma Bliss's ring that she'd been wearing around for months and gave it to me.
“I knew I'd been wearing this around for a reason!” she told me, noting that if she'd put it away instead of making an effort to wear it every day, she probably would have forgotten about it entirely. Anyway, as you can imagine, I thought this was really cool. When I met up with Hannah, I took her hand and slipped the ring on her finger while explaining to her its origin. She seemed to be quite taken with it. Mom also told me we could use the bits for whatever, so since Hannah's also got a diamond from her grandmother, we have quite the arrangment of materials to make a really neat ring with a lot of history. One more wonderful part of the day!
Then, we went inside and got things moving and that's when it finally truly started to sink in that this was actually happening. It was really nice, especially since, even though it was the Salt Lake Temple, which is traditionally very crowded with weddings, April 1st on a Thursday didn't seem to be a real popular day, so it was actually rather quiet. That and the snow and the fact that it was the week of conference seemed to leave the temple pretty empty of people. (They were there, just not a ton.) It was wonderful to have some time to sit and ponder a number of times, and to just enjoy holding hands and anticipating what was coming.
Finally, we moved on to the sealing, where pretty much everyone we hoped for was there.
The sealer was great, and had a few good comments, both funny and instructive. He married Hannah and I and then we had the opportunity for congratulations with everyone before he married my brother Elijah and Ashley.
I think I haven't previously mentioned that they had decided to move up their wedding day to the same as ours. In fact, at the temple, we felt almost like local celebrities by the end of it. Everywhere we went, the temple workers escorting us from place to place would tell others they passed.
“He's getting married today! And so is his brother! It's a double wedding! It's really exciting!'
It was pretty much fantastic. I felt the Spirit of the Lord powerfully witness to me of the strength and power of the bond that had been made by authority between Hannah and I. I've never known more strongly of the rightness of a choice I had made then I did at the moment we were sealed. And so far, things have only gotten better between us every day!
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We headed outside for pictures, where the snow that fell pretty much all day had decided to stop just about then. Dad's coworker and friend, Val, came down to do photos. We had a great shoot, though we were rather freezing out there. We were saved from the worst of it because Mom had generously made both brides a white fleece cloak to wear over their dress between pictures. Hannah was generous enough to share hers with me by wrapping her arms around me a number of times. ^large grin^
We finished the photos and got changed just in time to head over for the luncheon at Chuck A Rama. Good food and we had a number of additional friends and family join us there. It was exceptionally fantastic to see all of them! I loved the family and friends and aside from the sealing itself, those family and friends were the best part of the day for me!
The rest of the day was wonderful, too, but a bit more private. Suffice it to say we headed back up to Logan and proceeded to stay the night at the Anniversary Inn (our room had stars all over the ceiling, a black light, and a hilarious “rocket ship” bathroom, complete with blinking lights and gauges on one wall).
We headed home to our apartment the next day to relax a little and attend to a few last minute details for the reception. Hannah's family put it together for us, except the cake, which we bought, and they did a fantastic job! Everything looked great! We overbought just a little on cake (180ish pieces and we only had about 60 or 70 show up) but everyone that was most important ended up coming. I saw all my old close roommates and Hannah had a number of good friends there. Most everyone who'd been at the wedding and luncheon the day before made it to the reception as well and some other good friends that I'd been out of touch with made it! Once again, I couldn't have been happier with how things turned out, particularly since Hannah pulled me out to Waltz once during clean-up. We took home some amazing gifts, including one of the coolest pan sets I've ever seen, let alone owned, and a really fantastic, wonderful knife set!
I never thought I'd get so excited about kitchenwares, but these are absolutely fantastic!
Just when I thought this week couldn't get any better, it was time for General Conference! We watched from home and joined my family for Priesthood Session and crepes on Sunday. I heard some amazing and wonderful things and was inspired and directed for the next while by the Lord. I also received great hope that I will be able to hold onto the giddy excitement I feel when I think about Hannah and being with her because President Monson showed some of that giddy excitement about his wife at the beginning of Conference this year! I think I can consider myself deliriously happy!
Oh, and does anyone want some cake?
"Wanna go to the mall sometime?"
"Way to seal the deal, Casanova." - Johnny and Adam
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