You Want to do What?

Jonathan and I had a wonderful life together. It was too short, but we learned so much about each other and our hopes and dreams in that short period of time. Our lives at the time we were attending Utah State consisted of mostly working and going to school. Not much other than that. We never really did anything exciting because we were poor married college students. The most excitement that went on in our lives was going to visit families occasionally on the weekends. I loved that time we would spend driving in the car though to visit family, it gave us the chance to talk...just the two of us. We did go to a few basketball games and build a snowman or two in the front of our apartment, but other than that it was work and school for us!

We lived in our small apartment in Smithfield for about 10 months and loved every minute of it. We then moved into Jonathan's uncles rental home in Hyrum to be closer to the horses. Jonathan was driving to Hyrum everyday from Smithfield to feed the horses, it wasn't far but in between working and school, sometimes it made it more work than we wanted, so when his uncle offered for us to move into his rental home, we were really excited to jump on the offer so we wouldn't be driving all over Cache valley everyday. Plus, Jonathan had been working at Miller Beef in Hyrum, so our lives had kind of moved to Hyrum, so we decided it would probably be best! We were sad to leave a few people in our ward in Smithfield, Jonathan had recently become really close to our home teacher Royce and we were sad to leave him, but he still kept in touch after we moved and came to Jonathan's funeral after learning of his passing.

About the same time we moved into this rental home (in April), Jonathan came to me one day telling me that he was going to apply for this internship up near the Teton's in Idaho to work on a ranch for the summer (school was going to be out in May). WHAT????? You really want to do that???? You really  want to leave me here by myself???? I was super upset! He knew I wouldn't be able to go with him because I didn't want to lose my job at CAL Ranch because who knows if I could have gotten in back, plus they probably didn't even have room for me if I did go with. No matter what I said to him, I couldn't change his mind about wanting to go. He kept telling me it will be a good opportunity, (because ag-business is what he was getting is degree in and he wanted to be a rancher) and that we could see each other on the weekends. REALLY??? The weekends, I can't just see you on the weekends. Later I would learn, I was blessed that he took this opportunity. I needed that summer to learn to be independent and learn to live without him because eventually he would be gone for good and I needed to know how to live without him.

We moved into the rental house and Jonathan got me a cute little puppy that we named Harley so that I would have someone there with me for the summer. I kept the gun by my bed all summer long too! Yes, I was a little paranoid. We were only in the rental house for a few weeks before he left to go do his internship, there I was left all alone with Harley. I never once went to church when we moved into our new ward in Hyrum because either I was working, visiting Jonathan in Idaho, or visiting family on the weekends, so I didn't know any of my neighbors or anyone in the area where we lived. During the weeks, I tried to work as much as possible and hang out with some friends I worked with because it was lonely at home, even if Harley was there. I looked forward to the weekends that whole summer! If Jonathan could come home, he would, if not, I would head up there. It was so pretty up there! I could totally picture our life in small town living somewhere like that! I loved to watch him work up there with the cattle and see him doing what he loved! I went on my first cattle drive up there, and let's just say I decided I didn't know if I would be doing that again! Jonathan was super frustrated with me because I wasn't doing it right, he never did yell at me but I could tell I was making him super uspet because I wasn't in the right place, I was letting cows out of where they were suppose to be, etc. What did he expect from this city girl and her first cattle drive. I guess he expected me to be a little better since I have been riding horses with him for how many months now??? :)

I decided to enroll in summer classes to finish my degree quicker that summer since Jonathan would be doing the internship all summer. One day as I was walking to class that summer, it was in July of 2005, I had this overwhelming feeling come over me that said your husband is going to pass away. The feeling was so real that tears started coming down my face and I couldn't control them. As I have looked back on this, I know it was the Spirit hitting me on the head saying "wake up, this is real and is going to happen, I have been trying to warn you but you are not listening." I thought to myself again, why do you keep thinking this, it is so awful, I would never want to lose him. I tried to get control of myself and stop the tears before walking into class, I didn't want anyone wondering what was wrong with me. But from that moment on, the feeling was so real to me that I thought something was going to happen to him while he was doing that internship up there in Idaho. I literally lived most days on edge waiting for a call that something was not right. Luckily that call never came and he came home safely from that internship at the end of the summer.