Jensen House

 I woke up and had garlic toast for breakfast. One of the most important days of my life, meeting my potential future in-laws and I had garlic bread for breakfast. My lips were still chapped and I was having major body dysmorphia. But that wasn't going to get in the way of this day.  I was meeting Brody’s parents and Tyler at their house before we all headed to the airport together. We were all dressed in orange, his favourite colour. I hadn’t been able to speak to him in a few days while he travelled home. After major delays caused by a hurricane in Florida and an overnight stretch in Toronto, he was finally on his flight to Calgary.  I was also meeting two of Brody’s brothers for the first time: Andrew and Kenrick. I was especially hoping Andrew’s wife and kids would be there too. I’ve always loved being around kids, and I was excited and honestly a little nervous to meet my future sister-in-law. Out of everyone, she was probably the person I felt the most anxious to me...

 The day I arrived in Calgary with my parents and Luke, we decided to pitt stop in Banff. My mom was so excited and we had never been before. My feelings of dread about saying goodbye the next day were masked by moodiness and irritability. It's something I still feel guilty about; she wanted to have a good time and I just wanted to leave. It was getting harder and harder to stuff my sadness down. I felt like I was supposed to be thrilled about being in my new home, but I was just so stressed out.  It didn’t help that I couldn’t talk to Brody. While I was travelling to Calgary, he was finishing up his time in Guyana, and in just one week, he would finally be here with me. That same week, though, he would begin his four-day journey back to Canada while I was starting my new job. His mom had invited me over for dinner in the middle of the week, to which I accepted. I had met her about eight months ago (story told in part 33) so it was nice to have a familiar face. I was also movi...

 The time had come. It was the second to last week of September and I was moving out.  My grandpa helped me buy my first car, a classic Honda Civic. I could hardly believe it was mine. I could just get in and drive wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. As I pulled away from the dealership, my grandpa followed behind in his own car. On the freeway, he passed me and gave me a thumbs up. I returned it, beaming, feeling like a real adult in my new car. He sped ahead to catch his exit while I stayed behind, driving more slowly and a little nervously. Just as I began to relax, I noticed a strange, unpleasant smell, the kind you recognize instantly when something is burning that should not be. I glanced down and saw the coolant gauge in the red. Then smoke started rising from under the hood. I pulled off the freeway into a parking lot, my excitement fading as it became clear my car was in trouble. Ethan came to my rescue and my grandpa came to pick the car up. He was going to take i...

 The summer of 2022 had such a fun feeling. I was officially preparing for my move to Calgary and Brody's return home in September. The James family had agreed to let me rent out a room in their home, and my grandpa was helping me find my first car.   It was an exciting time of life, but sometimes I would get really sad thinking about how I was moving away from my family. The sadness was just a bit less than the amount of excitement I had about seeing Brody again. We took a trip to Bothell to see family for my mom's birthday, and it is still one of the best weekends of my life to date.  Jill graduated high school in June and went to prom looking so grown up and beautiful We took a trip to Veranda Beach. It was our first one since the pandemic and it was so fun  I was finishing up my Cosmetology and Barbering program and was supposed to graduate in August, so I could get a job hairdressing in Calgary. The program had been full of great highs and lows. The school ...

Remember last year when I saw that doctor that told me that they could remove all of my painful cramping issues with surgery? I was still waiting for a surgery date, and it had been almost a year. One morning, I woke up to a voicemail from the Abbotsford hospital telling me that they had space for me to get my surgery, in two days.  I had been waiting for this moment. All of the pain and unexplained issues, all of the waiting and wondering and it was happening. I would have to take time away from school and work. It was a small procedure, but surgery nonetheless.  It was a day surgery, and Covid had calmed down quite a bit so my mom was able to come in with me. I was starting to get really nervous about having surgery again. The difference between this one and my appendectomy was that I would be home by the end of the day and it wasn't an emergency. The vibes were totally different. I wasn't in active pain and we weren't at risk of anything happening before I could get in. ...

Brody and I hadn't talked for three days, which was the longest we had ever been apart. I had so much I wanted to tell him. I still hadn't told him about how badly Gaston had hurt me, or how badly Hans had hurt me. I wanted him to know since both of those were pretty big things to happen in my life. I hadn't been able to tell him I loved him for three days, it felt like forever. We knew that his new mission president might be strict and not let us talk at all. That would mean we would only be able to talk every once and awhile, and the idea of that made me really sad.  About three days after Brody got to Guyana, I got an email from him. On Mondays, missionaries typically sent out weekly emails to their families and friends. But I got a special email from him that was just sent to me. We had talked about sending each other voice memos instead of written out emails so we could hear each other's voices. Hearing his voice made me cry. I had previously mentioned that I was g...