Yesterday while I was putting together my girls "new" room I came across some letters. Letters from Collin when we first met. I loved reminiscing ... Last night I went and saw the movie Letters to Juliet. I couldn't help but think about Collin and what I consider to be our "fate" that we met and married. I thought it would be a great chance to write down our story so that it will be here for my children to read one day.
The summer before my senior year, I attended EFY (youth camp). There, I met Chris and Blake. Blake was one of Collins best friends. We got to be really close while at EFY and kept in touch. My senior year I flew out to Washington to see them. They came to Seattle to pick me up and we spent the day there. I have pictures of Collin and myself within minutes of meeting each other. I spent five days in Washington. They just so happened to be the five days before Collin left for the Philippines on his mission. We got very close in that short time, staying up til all hours and spending our days together. There was an unexpected bond between us that neither of us could explain. At the end of my five days, I left. In tears. He sent me home with a cd of love songs that I listened to every night for about six months after he left. At this time, I was 18 years old and my family thought I was NUTS to be so upset about leaving a boy I had just met, and he felt the same. He went into the MTC two days after I left Washington. In those two days I received a few letters from Collin. I found the original copies of them while moving furniture yesterday:
2-6-2001
Mandi,
Hey babe, sorry it took me so long to write you. It's really late, I hope you have a chance to read and respond to this letter. I promise, I will keep this short, the Lord knows you have probably cried enough. You are wonderful. That's the only thing I can say to tell you how I'm feeling. If I tried to do it anymore, I would just trip over my words. I feel like I have lost a part of me. The weird thing is, I really don't have any right to feel this way. I really can't say how I feel about you...because I really don't know. But, one thing you have done is captured me. You, like a really good book that you can't put down. I look forward to hearing from you and keeping you close to my heart.
My heart, and my thoughts are with you.
Collin
I wish I could find the response that I wrote to this letter, that would make the story even better. All I have is the follow up letter that he wrote to me the next morning.
2-7-2001
Mandi,
Well, I am getting ready to go into the MTC this morning. I'm not sad. I just wanted to write and say that I'm thinking about you, and I can't wait to see that smile. See you in London.
Collin
Collin and I wrote for about a year. We signed our letters "see you in London" because his parents promised him a trip with a love interest when he got home. He had said he wanted it to be me, in London.Looking back, it really was romantic. It was fun to remember those feelings I was having almost ten years ago for a boy I barely knew. I feel very fortunate that my love story has a happy ending. Sometimes I forget the twist of fate that threw the two of us into each others lives, not once, but twice. I will always be grateful for it.
Including the five days pre-mission and the days after, it was only 12 days before he asked my dad for permission to marry his "baby". It was a huge leap of faith that we took and I am so glad that we did. Our 7th wedding anniversary is in a few weeks and I love him even more every day. He is smart, ambitious, handsome, spontaneous and more importantly he loves us and is a great husband and father. He is my Romeo.
(I wish I had some of the pictures from the week we met to put on here, but they are all in storage. Maybe someday I'll get them and scan them onto my computer, they are actually pretty funny! This one is from about three years ago. I realized while looking that the two of us need to take more pictures together!)
