Our Courtship Story, Part Three

This is the next installment of a series I'm doing about our courtship in honor of our 20th anniversary this week. They're long, so don't feel obligated to read them! To see all of them (in reverse order) click on the "Courtship story" label at the bottom of this post.

A few days later Nels called again, and asked me to go on a double date with him and his friend Brad Moren. I don’t remember what we did that night. But I remember the soft jazz music in Brad’s car, and the little bunch of white baby roses Nels gave me with the remark, “Brad gave me these from his garden; he told me to give them to the prettiest girl I know, and I thought of you.” I remember feeling a bit uncomfortable about it for some unknown reason. Weird, huh.

So, a few days later when he called to ask me out again, things changed. This is his version of the story: “You know when you ask a girl out, and she's busy that night, she will give you one of two answers. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m busy that night, could we make it another time?’ or ‘Sorry, I’m busy.’ She gave me the second one.”

“So it was time for Plan B,” as Nels put it. Nels recognized that he didn’t always make the best first impression on girls, but that when they got to know him, they usually came around. He just needed to create that opportunity with me.

He was the chairman of the stake family history committee, (singles’ stake) and the secretary had just gotten married, so he needed a replacement. Since I was in his stake, I qualified for the job. He prayed and prayed about recommending my name, because he didn’t want “to take advantage of the calling” inappropriately, but he really felt I’d do a good job. Finally he submitted my name. It was end of June, early July.

The high counselor over his family history committee was Brother Grover Swallow. Bro. Swallow was also the High Counsel representative for my ward, so he attended the bishopric and ward counsel meetings in my (BYU 23rd) ward. At the bishopric meeting, he told Bishop Meibos of the request for me for the new calling, but Bishop Meibos said, “No, I just put her in as a visiting teaching supervisor, and I feel she should be there.”

So after the meeting, Bro. Swallow called Nels at his house and told him what the bishop had said.

“Okay, we’ll have to go back to the drawing board,” Nels acknowledged, but he didn’t really accept it. Instead he went to his knees. He went over again all of the things he had before about how he felt that I’d really do a good job, and how he wouldn’t take advantage of the calling to push himself on me, how we’d really work hard. Then he got up, gathered his scriptures and things and left for the Smith Family Living Center for church. Our wards met in the same school building. Just as he arrived at the SFLC, he met Bro. Swallow coming out of our Ward Counsel Mtg, who told him, “You’ll never guess! In the middle of the meeting, Bishop Meibos turned to me and said, ‘Okay, you can have Susan.’ Then he went on with the rest of the meeting!”

To this day, Nels always tells everybody that he “went over the Bishop’s head!” I just LOVE that story!

So I got a call to come down to the stake presidency’s office to meet with President Robison who was over Family History in the stake. He issued the call, and I accepted. In conclusion he told me that I would be working with the chairman, Nels Beckstrand. I almost rolled my eyes, thinking I knew why I had been called, but I still felt it was the right thing to accept it. But I wondered what lay ahead. I went home and talked to one of my new friends in my ward, Marilyn Fisher. We had become friends, and she’d found out that I had been out with Nels a couple of times. When I approached her about my fears about the new calling and all, she put me at ease. “Don’t worry. If you’re not interested in Nels, he will not push you.” That was huge. So I didn’t worry about it. We just went to work.

We had LOTS of meetings, and had LOTS to do. We were organizing a new effort in the stake, and were determined to be effective in our callings. We had lots of organizing and writing to do for our new approach, so we spent time at his work on his SUN microcomputer, we went to lunch once at Los Hermanos in Provo on Center Street, all in the name of business. Plan B was well on its way!

I love this story!

...To be continued...