Over the next few years Julia and Will both led some very trying years .... which we wouldn't get into just now! Suffice it to say they were tough and that at times to say that these two would meet again and in the way they did may have been thought of as a joke, or some twisted version of a joke...
FAST FORWARD!!!!!
It's December 2010 just after Christmas: Will is recovering from a spinal fusion surgery had in November and is a lonely soldier at Fort Hood. Julia is a burger joint drive-thru attendant in Holladay, Utah. One afternoon Julia came home from work, and proceeded to collect all that was needed to run errands after the Christmas break, when the Spirit distinctly told her to forget errands and go across the street to the library, so she did, as in the years previous she had learned not to question or delay acting on promptings no matter how silly they seem. She crossed the street and began to check her list of social networking sites, and then the only dating site she belonged to.
Will had received an email earlier that day and decided to follow it, also by prompting, to a site he hadn't been on in some time, yep you guessed it, the dating site.
SingleSaints.com had a nice little messenger built in and Will and Julia began to chat about, children, jobs, their Army experiences, and other common interests. It became time for Julia to go back home but neither of them wanted to quit talking so she did something she had never done before and gave Will her phone number. Will called later that evening and they talked for over 4hours, sang to one another and laughed until it hurt to do so. At one point (after Julia explained her "dream truck") Will asked "where have you been all my life?"
"Missouri" Julia stated boldly, "where have you been?"
"Where in Missouri?, I've been in Missouri" Will said in disbelief.
"I grew up in Jefferson City" was the reply, and the conversation progressed they began to realize just where they knew one another and why they looked so familiar to each other.
For the next month and a half it seemed as though nothing else mattered. Julia went to work, and church etc. but always on her mind was Will. They talked night after night after night, reading scriptures together, talking of their lives, trials, and happy times, and fell more and more in love with every night they talked until "ungodly hours" and every morning they awoke to texts from one another.
Will decided to give himself a birthday present and flew Julia down to Texas for his birthday/Valentine's Day weekend. Julia gleefully accepted, took time off work, and packed her bag. That weekend Will sat Julia on a chair and made her close her eyes as he knelt on one knee and pulled out a ring to ask her to marry him. She smiled like a silly school girl and said yes without a single hesitation. It was the easiest thing she had ever done to say yes.
The couple began to make wedding plans and set a date for August 13, 2011. They planned to be married in the St. Louis Temple that morning and have a reception in the Columbia MO Stake Center where Julia first decided she would marry a man like Will. The plan was for Will to ETS from the Army and go into the Reserves in Utah, so that he could go to school for Music Education and History, his goal was to become a teacher and an Officer in the Army, teaching in a Military Academy later. Six days before Will was to leave Fort Hood and come to Utah he had a left sided CVA, aka a stroke, and was put into the ICU on Fort Hood. Julia and Will's family banded together for a solution, the end result becoming a one way ticket to Texas for Julia, they would just have to see from there, because no one knew what to expect. When she arrived at the hospital she was greeted with two arms in need of a big hug and held until the Doctor came in to tell Will they were releasing him. They left the hospital and went to inform Will's chain of command he had been released. It was a Friday night and no one seemed to care much except for getting Will back on the road to out of their command. The couple prayed and discussed the situation and the following Monday February 28, 2011 in the early afternoon Will and Julia escaped Fort Hood for a brief moment and met Julia's Great Aunt Linda (who lived in the area) at the office of the Justice of the Peace and were married. ACU's and blue jeans with a 9th Cavalry t-shirt seemed not to matter as the two made promises before the law that they had already made in their hearts and some aloud to one another.
Now Will is in a new unit as he works toward transition and is in the process of a MEB, they live on Fort Hood together and do all they can to support one another, life isn't perfect, or easy to say they least, but it's about working toward eternity together that counts, and that is what this Blog is about.
The couple may not have had the wedding they planned on the day they planned, but a supportive marriage doesn't have too high a cost. They hope to have their wedding reception on their first anniversary and celebrate in Missouri with their families and friends.
It took nearly 10 years of searching but there just wasn't "a returned missionary like that" for Julia, she had to have the original.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REST OF OUR LIVES!
(original post: Life as Will's Wife 4/19/11)
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