I. Have. No. Life.

Yup. That's exactly what I feel like right now. Not only did I lose my expensive cell phone that I only had for 2 months - no, that wasn't enough - but I just HAD to also lose my WALLET too! Which had my LIFE in there! Everything!! Drivers license, social security card, health insurance card, debit card, my BYU school I.D., family photos, my military I.D., even my library card!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I might as well be homeless, dangit! AND I have absolutely no money right now, being in between jobs sucks. In fact, I'm in the negatives in my checking account. I am so screwed.

At least I'm finally home. I was getting so sick of all the crowds. And the lines. And the constant travelling. I am definitely never going to take a job that requires constant travelling. I'm a homebody - and by that I mean I know for a fact that I'm going to live in Hawaii for the rest of my life after my schooling is finished. I'm so glad I'm not getting anywhere NEAR an airplane for at least 3 months. Screw airplanes already!!!

Now that I'm done venting....I'm happy to come home to emails and letters from Him. :) <3 He definitely makes my life worth living, even though he can't exactly be a part of it right now...I know he will in the end. And my favorite part about that? I'll never have to say goodbye to him ever again. Eternity....it'll definitely be the best with him in the equation. And the time I have to wait is nothing compared to what I'll have after.

Have you ever struggled to find something more than just those three special words that mean more to you than life itself, but remain frustrated not being able to find the right words capable of expressing anything remotely close to how you are feeling?

Yeah, that's how I'm feeling right now.

I wanna go home.

So at this point I've pretty much accepted the fact that I'll never get my phone back from the depths of the Tatsu ride at Six Flags. And I didn't get an email from Josh today. That's the first time he's missed a Monday emailing me since he's been out in the field. Maybe it's because I sent him like 4 emails this week (usually it's only one) and he ran out of time to respond to them...idk. Tomorrow or wednesday should be his second email day so hopefully that cheers me up.

I'd say three quarters of the time I've been with my family in Cali I've had enough fun to be distracted from things that are bothering me. Whenever we're at a theme park I enjoy myself and get excited for everything, with the exception of all the damn couples making out and hugging and feeling each other up in every line we wait in for every ride. But at the end of the day when I'm tired and my feet hurt and I don't have anything to distract myself from all my thoughts, I get kinda sad. Like right now. I don't know, maybe I'm just being a baby. But lately I've been missing Josh even more than usual. I swear everywhere I look all I see is his face and somehow he's always in the back of my mind because I know how much better and brighter he makes my life. During dinners, car rides, rollercoaster rides, firework shows, walking on the beach, surfing, even sleeping. I just imagine what it would be like with him in the picture and it makes my heart skip a beat and a smile slowly creeps up to my face and it even reaches my eyes. And then I remember how much time I have left until I can feel that kind of happiness again, and those feelings leave as fast as they came.

I just want to go home and surf all day with my friends and just be in the ocean. It's like that's the only thing I can do without him where I am content and can be truly happy despite his absence.

1/4 1/4 1/4 XD!!!!

Yayyyyy Happy 6 Months to (me and) Josh on his mission!!! Can you believe it's already been 6 months??? Holy crap!! I'm so stoked to be one-fourth done with waiting for him!! I got three emails from him in the last two days and I can honestly say that although we have changed individually, our relationship has not changed one bit. Actually, it has! Because we've become so much closer than ever before and my love for him just grows with each passing month! I can do this. I just have to keep this up. By the time I go back to school it'll almost have been 1 year and then he'll be halfway done!! Crrraaazzyyyy!!!!

As a side note, I got my wisdom teeth on the bottom removed last Thursday and it's STILL BOTHERING ME! Freakinga;dkgahlsdasd. When I told Josh about it he said "Well it's a good thing I'm not there because I'd probably be teasing you...A LOT!!" Haha he's so cute. He is definitely still my Josh. I wish he were here with me already. Hugh.

That's alright...only 18 more months and I'll never ever have to say goodbye to him again...

His dream.

So Elder Graham told me about a dream he had about two nights ago and I thought it was cute so I thought I'd share it. Or maybe I like it more because now I know that he still has dreams about me every so often...which means he's thinking about me a lot. :) But yeah, he dreamt that it was finally time to make his mother's day phone call, so he dialed thinking it was his mom and then it was actually to me! So I go "Hello?" and he goes "Hi Mom!" and I'm like "Who is this??" and he goes "Wha...Ari? This is Elder Graham!" and he said that I was like OH MY GOSH!! And went off on my 'Ari Tangent' as he calls it hahaha. And I was like aww that's cute haha, and I told him I only have 'Ari Tangents' with him. And he said that's good, and I could hear him smiling. :)

This might be kind of random but a while ago he wrote me saying he was struggling one week and started to doubt a lot of things and one of them was me waiting for him. I was a little shocked because he never says that stuff so I wrote him back right away and I thought it was a pretty good letter, I wasn't mushy I just said things I felt I needed to say and it was spiritual enough to keep him focused. Now here's the embarrassingly corny part - with his letter I also mailed him this little red heart. I told him to keep it with him as a reminder that he is the only one who has my heart, and to never forget that. Hopefully it helps and during my phone call yesterday he said he takes it everywhere with him, lol.

Lately it seems like everyone in my family has been planning my wedding and throwing out ideas and it's making me so impatient!! Lol. Ahhhh...like Elder Graham said..."The best things come in time..;)"

The Long-Awaited Mother's Day Phone Call <3

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....

HEARING HIS VOICE AGAIN WAS SO AMAZING!!! I can't even describe how happy I was when I finally got to talk to him. I was all nervous and shaking and he was almost an hour late! But it was all worth the wait. Everything felt so natural and easy and happy and I was laughing and smiling constantly. He told me some stupid Mexican jokes he learned out there, some dog-chasing stories, some funny stories being out in the field, talking to me about what I've been up to and our plans and stuff. And it was so cute cause we were talking and then there was a pause and he goes, "Hey Ari, can I ask you a question? Sorry, it's kind of a trunky one..." I was like "Yeah?" and he said.."After my mission...what do you think...of Spain?" It took me about half a second to figure out what he was referring to. I was like OMG! THAT WOULD BE SO AMAZING!! :D So I hope we get to go to Spain for our honeymoon, especially because then I could have my own personal translator that I love so much. Lol. And at the end he bore his testimony to me and shared a scripture and I almost started crying. I'm sooo happy that my phone records calls! I can't wait till Christmas when I get to hear his voice again. :) And this Christmas will be the last one I have to spend without him! Ever! YAYYY!!! <3

one of the MANY reasons why i love him so much :D

So I was reading some old emails because I was thinking about Josh and he sent this one right around my birthday. Why do I love him? One reason is he can cheer me up and make me laugh NO MATTER what mood I'm in. Hahahaha.

>lol she is the best isnt she? No problem for helping out im glad i was of some help! And yes i got the letters and CDs... lol! your sooo silly!!! But i loved it! :) so guess whose birthdays coming up??? :) :) :) :) I hope you got my package! I think youll like it... :) look for the penny when you get it too! :) sorry if its not what you wanted but yeah... and tell me how you like the pictures!!! :) I hope you have the best birthday ever and that you feel HIS love for you!!! Oh and I got a joke for you ari! Im pretty sure i used to send you a lot of dumb jokes before so heres one more! What did one gay horse say to the other? Haaayyyyyy!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!! I know you liked that one! :) well i would say it but yeah you know! :) I hope you can hear it especially on your birthday! :) Welll take care and write ya on monday again!
>
> Elder Graham

So I started cracking up the first time I read this email from him and I still crack up every time I read it!! How can I not be happy when he's so cute and loving and silly like that knowing it'd make me laugh my butt off??? Hahaha. Oh and just a sidenote, whenever we say "I hope you can hear it" it's referring to our spirits telling each other "I Love You" since we're trying to avoid actually saying it verbally/in written form. Lol it won't be hard at all falling in love with him over and over again when he comes home. :D

Stress and frustration and happiness

So I'm kinda torn right now cuz I am SOOOOO HAPPYYYYY that I got mail from Josh today. And it wasn't just one letter, it was three. Oh yeah :) and pennies and a memory stick. :) Can you believe it's been 6 months already??? I love him so freaking much I don't even know how to describe it. I just want to be corny and just sigh and smile to myself knowing how much he still loves me and wants "us" as he calls it to work out when he returns. :)

And then there's...this problem. I don't know what to do about it. It doesn't seem too threatening right now, but the littlest mistake can set me off down the wrong path. Ah frick man.

Can I just be invisible for the next year and a half? Pleeeeeease????

Officially OUT of the stinkin twenties!!

5 months down.
19 more to go.

At least I am out of the 20's. Pretty soon I'll be coming up on the year mark. Ha. Hopefully that day where I can say I have more time behind me than in front of me comes fast. I'll be at BYU-Hawaii by then. I'm soooo stoked. :) I just watched a video of this girl who went to the airport when her missionary came home and they were both crying and just kept hugging and it made me want to cry. Of course I was imagining myself in that video, haha. I'm pretty sure Josh is going to smile ridiculously, maybe tear up a bit. I know I'm just gonna choke him and probably cry and not wanna let go of him! But that day is kind of a long way off, so I shouldn't start day dreaming too much....lol. I love him so much. This is one of the hardest things I've EVER done, possibly THE hardest thing I've ever done. But knowing that when he comes back I'll never have to part with him ever again...it just makes it all worth it.

Oh yeah and I forgot to mention something else. So I don't know if I mentioned this before, but Windy just got a new boyfriend over spring break who happens to already have his mission call. Hahaha. Sound familiar? So I'm like SWEET! My new sis will be in the same situation as I am for about a year, because she decided to wait for him. He doesn't leave till October, and I'll be helping her through that. I mean I didn't really have anyone to help me out when Josh first left, so I at least want to give her an idea of what to expect. And then today I find out her cousin, Malia also is waiting for her missionary! He just left in December. So it's like a whole family affair already, haha. Kinda funny but cute. But it'll give us this time to get closer to each other, even though I haven't really met Malia in person yet. I can't wait though!

So Mother's day is coming up, and you know what that means!!! Missionaries get to call home!!! It's one out of the two times in the year they get to talk to their family. Windy said she'll do a 3-way so I can also talk to Josh. I am sooo freakin stoked to hear his voice again!! Gahhhh I absolutely love him...

Tomorrow is email day! 5 more days until I come home! I am seriously gonna spend my days outside. Beach, hiking, running, whatever. I am so sick of being indoors and watching tv and movies all the freakin time! Ugh. And I need to lose all this weight I gained. My goal is to lose like 15 pounds before Josh gets back. He deserves to come home to the girl he left back home, not a fat girl. Yuuuuuck. And I plan to get a lot better at surfing by then too. So there's some goals I can work on to pass the time. :)

"I'll only be gone for a short while. Wait for me. I love you.."

2 down, 2 more to go!

Yay! I am officially done with classes for this semester and next week I go home! So that's two semesters down, and two more to go before Josh comes home. :)

I've been having some really weird dreams lately, but it'll pass. BTW, this wasn't one of my weird dreams (in fact it was an amazing one) but I dreamt that I married Josh and it felt so real and when I woke up it didn't feel like it was that far off.. :)

I can't wait for my next letter & videos!! I <3 him sooooooo much..

Oh yeah, I like when I forget about this site cuz then the next time I look at the countdown I'm like gosh! I'm making so much progress! And I really am. :)

Summer is so close, I can TASTE it!

One more week of school and then finals and I am OUT OF HERE!!! I'm so excited! I was thinking about it today, and I really think this next year and a half is going to fly by. I mean I'll be working and surfing every single day this summer, and then I'm going to be starting school back home at BYU-H in July and then in the Fall, Josh's sister Windy and I are going to be room mates for the 09-10 school year! That'll be so much fun! And then after that is summer again (which aalllwayyyss goes by so fast) and Josh will be home already!! I am so stoked about life. :) And I can't believe I'm almost done with 1/4 waiting....I know I could not have gotten to this point without the love and support of friends and family. It hasn't been easy at all, and I know it won't get any easier, but I KNOW that I can do this. I just have to be open to the Lord and stay close to Him. :)

BTW, I found out what Josh was saying in my last video when he was integrating Spanish and Tongan...

"Tu eres mi fo'ilole" = You are my beautiful.

You can't even imagine how happy that makes me feel.