Well, now is the time for the update.  I know some have been wondering, so here you go.  I love it.  I am enjoying every aspect of it.  The ups, the downs, but the steady course is upward for both.  Here are some of the lessons and highlights that I feel I can share and want to here.

Rule number one, never expect.  Even if bordering on stating the obvious, speak your mind.  Assumptions end up with frustrations and heartache, and at other times disappointment and anger.  Speak it, make sure the other understands, and then move from there.  Some instances have been at the moment, others have built up over time.  The pot finally needs stirred and it is much easier if you stir it together.  I suppose later in life as we learn more carefully what the other’s temperament, attitudes, and actions are it may be easier, but for the moment, I err on having everything in the open.  Things are much more calm, lucid, and in fact we have a whole lot of laughs at some of the obvious things we say, of twists of them.

I am learning to choose my words and fights carefully.  I am not saying that in relation to Amanda, but in general.  I have learned that my observations, that comments, and criticisms, if not properly directed and thought out beforehand are taken personally by the other person.  A slight observation towards Utahns in the car driving down the road can strike a dagger at a heart that neither meant to take offense nor receive it.  Before making statements, build the foundation for them and make sure the premises for the statement are agreed upon before the declarations start to roll.  If it is understood where I am coming from, then what comes out is more discussed rather than an emotional jarring.

From the mission, it is probably a carry over, but do everything together.  Sometimes we both don’t do this, but nothing is the sole responsibility of the other.  This is a marriage, we are sealed together, and in fact, if faithful in this life, we will be entirely one in the next life.  If we prove ourselves faithful in this life, then even a worship I suppose of the spouse would  be permissible.  If there is anything that comes closer to worship than marriage, I know not.  We have both decided that the Lord must come first, because we have learned that if the other comes first, then God, things get all confused and nothing goes quite right.  However, in putting God first, and doing it together everything works much more smoothly.  I know I have loved before, and have learned what to love is.  In marriage though, it is a constant day by day motion that ticks forwards and is constantly bonding.  I know I am rambling in some sense, but I just don’t know how to say it.  It is like a combination of the things I have already said.

About a week after we had been married, I remember us commenting to each other, nothing is really different.  It was engagement with a few more benefits.  Well, now speaking a month into it, we notice the difference.  I suppose we expected this flash of light and crash of drums to initiate us into married life.  Such was not the case.  But I will tell you this, a sealing, under the hand of God, I recognize that we are coming to be more one every day.  I sense our feelings becoming more wrapped up in each other.  I can sense our destinies becoming merged with every day.  There is a singularity of thought, mind, and body (soul) that is continuing.  I don’t know how that would work outside marriage sealing, but inside it is something beautiful.  It is like a warm current in the sea of life.  It buoys you up and give you strength.  It is beautiful and lifts the soul.  Earlier if we did things separately, or without the other’s recognition and understanding, it did not matter, but somehow we sense a separation if complete communication and understanding is not present.  It is something so wonderful awe inspiring and beautiful that continues to build.  How shall I contain it in five years time?

I dearly love my wife and it grows daily.  Some days I feel closed and like I am selfish, but by the continual agreement we have of putting the Lord first, always later I feel my heart open wider than it has before.  It encompasses a little more and I am humbled that much more.  Something so wonderfully beautiful.  I think we have worked out the main difficulties we had to begin with, or come to an understanding of them and can work with and around them.  We cannot change the other, but together we are growing together and those weaknesses, scars, or pride are melting away.

The old stanza of If You Could Hie to Kolob comes to mind

There is no end to glory

There is no end to love

There is no end to being

There is no death above

There is no end to glory

There is no end to love

There is no end to being

There is no death above

Brother Phelps was inspired to repeat those sacred lines.