Overview of life to the present

Well, I've never made a blog before, so hopefully I can get the hang of it pretty quickly! =] To start off with..me and my amazing husband, Spencer, were just sealed for eternity in the Atlanta, GA temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on May 18, 2011. There's a lot that goes into that story that I will talk more about later on. We are both proud members of the Lord's church and are so thankful that we have the restored gospel in our lives. We love the Savior and our Father in Heaven. In fact, we wouldn't be happily married if our lives weren't in the Lord's hands! Here's how it all began......When I was in 8th grade I went with one of my friends to "Powell Idol" (just like american idol..just a school thing) to watch her sister in it..I was sitting right in the middle of the audience when this boy walks out on stage with his guitar. First thought was, "WOW! ummm who is this guy????" But of course I figured he was a senior or something and I would never see him again (just a crush like how you think of movie stars was how it felt) and even if I did it's not like he would have any interest in me i'm too young...anyways..my second thought was "I've got to know his name!" so I looked in the flier and it said Spencer Hinckley...I went home that night and told my mom "OH MY GOSH there was this boy...blah blah blah..." haha...she still remembers that. A year later I was a freshman in high school and when I was picking my classes I chose girl's chorus (I thought it would be an easy class not doin much...) I actually discovered my voice in girl's chorus realizing that maybe I did have a talent for singing..I had an awesome teacher, Mr. Kennedy, who helped me (and Spencer) so much! In girl's chorus this boy name Spencer kept showing up...every girl thought he was just so cute. We both noticed each other and always 'made eyes' at each other...then instead of almost taking french I took spanish (glad I did that!) and I took concert choir....Spencer was a senior and he was in there! After awhile he would casually meet up with me in the hallway and we would walk up the hall together...back then was myspace and he would leave me comments on there. We were pretty cool. Well, enough about that.....then finally he got my number..and within a couple weeks he had asked me to be his "girlfriend" with a poem which I will post on here later because I don't have it with me right now. After awhile he started to talk about his church and that it is true...which made no sense to me. I felt like every church was...I didn't understand what was so different about his. I didn't agree with him at the time and avoided the conversation. As his mission got closer he knew what he needed to do...it wasn't easy for either of us, but we didn't see us having a future because it seemed that neither of us were changing our minds in what we believed. So on October 22, 2008 Spencer left for Argentina to go on his mission to serve the Lord for 2 years of his life. I always questioned why he would sacrifice 2 looooonnnnggg years of his life to go to another country..we wrote letters every month or every couple of months and, after awhile, wrote emails every monday. This was great to keep in touch and we had no idea what would happen when he would get back. My thoughts were that I was gonna be in college and he would go off to BYU and find a wife. (Isn't that what ever RM does??? haha) Well...things changed while he was gone. Things I never expected or planned for my life. That's why I am so glad the Lord knows what is best for me because I sure didn't. One night I was working at Aubrey's Restaurant and I knew Spencer's sister, Lindsay, and her family had moved to town from Utah (i'd never met her)...them and his parents had come in to eat so I talked with them for awhile and Lindsay asked me if I wanted to go to church with them soon. I was like "uh sure!" After a couple weeks I was hanging out with them a lot and I would have lessons with the sister missionaries! At first, I thought it was kind of ridiculous and I was really stubborn that "I knew what I believed and nothing was gonna change that." A couple weeks went by and I could feel my heart getting softer..the spirit was testifying to me of the truth and I was realizing that! slowly but surely...I found myself wanting to read the scriptures and understand what the Lord wanted me to know...the gospel seemed so intriguing and it was like i'd heard if before (which I learned that I had) and it just made sense and felt RIGHT. It was the thing I had always been longing for and I may not have realized it, but it seems like everyone has that spiritual longing for a complete truth. I found that and I knew what I had to do! Even though I was TERRIFIED what my family and friends would think I followed the promptings of the spirit and didn't listen to anyone about what I should do. I knew for myself. I got baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on May 7, 2010. Since that day my life has been FULL of blessings. Not to say it hasn't been challenging though. Mine and Spencer's relationship really kicked off after that (as much as it could through letters/email) and we knew that the barrier keeping us from being together was gone. What did we do..? We....started talking about marriage...haha. More in a joking way at first and as his return got closer it got more serious. (he stayed focused still and knew the reason he was there and he loved it) Of course, we were nervous because we hadn't seen each other in 2 years so we didn't know what would happen, but we had to have faith. We will post the video that Todd and Nathan did for his coming home on October 21, 2010! Honestly...it was WAYY weird at first. haha...after we spent our first day and night together we had the relationship we always wanted! We knew where it was headed and in Nov. we went on a cruise with his family and he proposed!! (we have a video of that too =] ) sooo to make an even longer story short...we were engaged for 6 months (I don't recommend long engagements!) and it was a challenge but I know our Father in Heaven was testing us. We had faith that it was better in the long run to do what we know is right and our Heavenly Father will bless us. That's what we did and he has definitely blessed us and the biggest blessing is to be sealed eternally together and to our families and that our kids will have that same blessing. We have been married for a month and a day...we went to Bryson City, NC for our honeymoon and the first day went to the ER from a 4-wheeler accident. BUMMER. I got and still have a sprained ankle. It was still nice to have that time with each other, but I could have done without all that stuff.....oh well. Just glad it wasn't anything worse! We are now living in Nashville! We like it out here a lot! It's hard not being with all of our family, but his brother,Derek & Christina and the boys are out here so it's good! She's teaching me how to coupon =] and I just got a job at KinderCare! Seems like a great job and I can't wait to start and meet all the kiddos! We are in the Hermitage Branch and it was our second sunday today! We like it but sure do miss Grove Park!!! Spencer & Derek are workin doin sheds through Home Depot and Spe is gettin into the videography, and actually just shot a wedding yesterday for the first time~YAY! Ok I know that was long, I just have a lot of things that have happened that I had to talk about! I'll be posting more about our life as newlyweds out here in nashville pretty soon and as much as I can! <3

*Courtney Hinckley*