Quarter of a Century

Danny,

                You are now a quarter of a century old!! There aren’t enough words deep enough to completely express how I feel about you. I feel a million percent blessed and lucky that you chose me to be your eternal companion.

                Here are just 25 reasons why I love you . . .

1.       I come second to you and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The day that GOD stops being your priority is the day I’ll become worried.
2.       Your quick ninja like moves come in handy when a spider dares to enter the room.
3.       You never hesitate when it comes to priesthood blessings.
4.       You know how to turn frowns into smiles.
5.       You are already so in love with our unborn DAUGHTER and you sing to her as much as you can.
6.       You don’t complain “too” much about me hogging the bed.
7.       You watch chick flicks with me and pretend to enjoy them.
8.       You’re a believer in Bigfoot.
9.       You’re patient with me when we go fishing or golfing even though I’m probably just disturbing the peace.
10.       You make sure our conversations always end with “I LOVE YOU”.
11.       A bad day to you means getting an A- on a test.
12.       You’re willing to compromise when it comes to things like Christmas trees (PS. I still think fake pre-lit trees are the way to go).
13.       You like to read five different books at the same time.
14.       You always let me know where you are.
15.       You tell me I’m BEAUTIFUL every single day.
16.       You build up my faith when I am weak.
17.       You like to make breakfast on Sunday mornings.
18.       You like to sing and dance at the most random times.
19.       You’ve never yelled at me.
20.         SCRIPTURE reading is important to you and you make sure we do it even when we’re far apart.
21.       You stay loyal to your teams even if they’re not so great.
22.       You’re financially smart.
23.       You make time to go on walks with me.
24.       You make me want to be a better person.
25.      You LOVE me for me.

I love you Daniel George and I hope you get the birthday of your dreams today!!

 

Marriage Day Advice

Nine months ago from today I sat next to the man perfect for me in one of the sealing rooms of the Salt Lake Temple. In that room full of our close family and friends was our sealer Elder Richard E. Cook (former General Authority) and his dear wife Sister Mary N. Cook (former 1^st counselor of the YW General Presidency). In front of everyone our sealer gave us ten pieces of marriage advice that Danny and I absolutely loved. The only problem was that by the end of the night and for the last nine months Danny and I have only been able to remember two of the ten suggestions; so I was very excited for what happened this week.

           
On Monday morning I was heading towards the Salt Lake Temple for my cousin’s sealing (my first temple ceremony since my own nine months before) when I ran into both Elder Richard E. Cook and Sister Mary N. Cook. I was embarrassed to admit that I had forgotten nearly all of the advice given to which Sister Cook responded “I’m surprised you remember anything at all from that day!” which made me feel better. They took my phone number and then last night in my email inbox I received this following in an attachment.

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MARRIAGE ADVICE FROM ELDER RICHARD E. COOK
To Gina and Daniel Ferguson

As wonderful as this new and everlasting covenant of marriage is it does not guarantee happiness. It is a wonderful start, but you must work, work, work at it. If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently. I would like to give you some advice that I have found will be helpful in making this marriage last forever:

1. Your most important priority is sitting next to you: Gina, Daniel is now your most important priority; Daniel, Gina is now your most important priority . . . not your parents, not your children, not your work, not your church callings.
2. As you get into this marriage you’ll learn new things, mostly little things that you didn't know about one another. Close your eyes halfway. Do not try to remake your choice. Take President Monson’s advice: “Choose your love. Love your choice.” Elder Scott told us in conference “if you want a wonderful spouse, you BE a wonderful spouse.”
3. Search for the good in your spouse and then compliment him or her on the good you see. Never get tired of this; it never goes out of style.
4. Never get so angry you sleep in separate rooms.
5. Be generous in giving priesthood blessings, Daniel.
6. Pray together at least twice per day. Take your love to your family and your problems to the Lord.
7. Be fiercely loyal to one another; Never, never talk about each other behind their back to anyone!
8. Take care of your health; stay fit and you’ll need to help each other.
9. Stay out of debt. “We pay for things we don’t need, with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”
10. You will be given a copy of the Family Proclamation. Underline in a bright color this sentence in the Proclamation: “Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Make these teaching the foundation of this marriage.

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I love that they had this typed up for us and now with it framed this advice will never go forgotten again.

If I Could Go Back . . .

I found out I was pregnant on January 22nd which was our fifth month anniversary. At this point I would give a million dollars if I could to go back and change my initial reaction. I so badly wish that I could say I was jumping up and down for joy and that I was so excited to be starting on this new journey with my amazing husband; because the truth is that this IS an exciting journey. . . it just took me awhile to realize it.

The 22nd was a Wednesday and I got off early from work that day. All day while I was sitting in the office I couldn’t shake the feeling that our lives were about to completely change. I had no idea that 35 miles away was my husband who was feeling the same persistent impression. I still don’t know how I was able to safely drive from work because my mind was racing a mile a minute, as far as I know I was the only car on the freeway that day. Instead of going straight home I stopped at a grocery store and instead of buying just one pregnancy test I bought two. 

On the pregnancy test it says to wait two minutes for the results to be final. Not even 10 seconds passed that I was staring at the huge unmistakable positive plus sign. I actually waited the full two minutes just to see if the positive sign would somehow change to a negative sign. It felt like the longest two minutes of my life but the sign never changed. At that point I think I entered shock. I wasn’t planning on using the second pregnancy test right away. It was our fifth month anniversary and Danny had a date planned for that night so I was debating on waiting to use the second test for the next morning since I had the day off and would be home all day. Soon after I got a text from Danny saying that he was going to be a little late coming home because his dad needed his truck so he had to wait a little before getting it back. While waiting for Danny I knew that there was no way I would be able to go through our whole date and night without telling him about the pregnancy test hidden in our bathroom. At that point I wanted to take away all doubts so I took the test again. Just like the first time the positive sign came up quickly and clearly and at that time the tears fell down hard.

I can’t say that I was surprised because honestly we weren’t preventing it from happening; I was just so shocked that it happened so quickly. Even though I knew that Danny and I had done nothing wrong and that we were financially in a position where we could have a baby I still could not stop the tears from falling. I bawled like a baby just thinking of the fact that I had a little baby growing inside of my body. I felt inadequate and scared. I also felt selfish as I thought about all the woman out there who would do anything to trade places and have a baby on the way. It seemed like forever before Danny walked in through the door. Once he finally came home he immediately gave me the world’s biggest hug. He kept asking me what was wrong and then he asked who died in my family. Wow I must have looked pathetic because “what’s wrong?” turned into “who died?”. I still couldn’t bring myself to say the words out loud though so I silently showed him both of the pregnancy tests. I’ve been known to pull pranks on him in the past but because of my reaction he knew this was nothing but the truth.

Danny handled the news a lot better than I did. On top of all of my confusing emotions I also started to feel bad because I felt like Danny had no one to be excited with. Danny was being prepared all day with his own personal experiences so my news wasn’t the biggest shock to him. I seriously married the most understanding and patient man and the thing that got me through the whole first trimester was the comforting fact that our baby will have this man as the father. I am now at a point where I wish time will just fly by because I can’t wait to hold this little baby in my arms. I can’t wait to see the look in Danny’s eyes when he first sees sight of our child. I can’t wait to see the baby’s first grin and hear the baby’s first giggle.

Even though it took me awhile to embrace this pregnancy and there are a lot of things that STILL terrify me about pregnancy I am glad (glad is an understatement) to know that I do NOT have to worry or wonder about whether or not this baby is meant to be here. In fact I truly feel like God wanted this baby here months ago; but I kept fighting it and putting it off. I had a lot of worldly excuses like finances, my body, what others might think and I really did not want to be pregnant for our one year anniversary. Danny felt very strong impressions about me using birth control pills – he doesn’t have any opinions on the pill itself – he just didn’t feel good about the timing of it. He felt like we were preventing ourselves from being in a situation where we would have to fully rely on God’s will and at that time I felt very differently (I loved the pills lol). Anyways I kind of started to not like my ward’s Relief Society because every Sunday without fail I would feel guilty when motherhood was brought up and I felt like they were talking straight to me which I felt was crazy because I had only been married one month, two months, three months. . . I felt the same way during General Conference that I was supposed to put myself in a position where I had to trust in God. I couldn’t understand why I would feel so guilty taking the pills because I honestly loved them and I would still be on them now if I went with my plan instead of God’s plan. One time while Danny and I were reading scriptures he made this comment “we know from serving missions that God’s plan is to create families and teach them the gospel, so shouldn’t we talk to Him about His plan instead of us making the decision ourselves of when that plan should start?”. This comment kind of hit me hard because up to that point I had never prayed about it. I made the decision all on my own that I wanted to wait two years before even considering expanding our family. A couple of weeks passed by and I was sitting in Danny’s institute class when I felt super strongly that it was time to get off the pill. Even though that feeling was strong, I still ignored it. I hadn’t even been married three months at that point and the idea of getting off the pill freaked me out. I didn’t say anything about that moment to Danny until late on Christmas Eve almost two months later (I'm a horrible wife). It was that night after prayer and after talking with Danny that I decided to get off the pill.

**Side note: it takes 6 months to a year to even get pregnant when stopping birth control is a big fat lie. I got pregnant right away.**

 

If I could go back and change my reaction – I would. If I could go back and change the way I never sincerely prayed about my husband’s promptings – I also would. If I could go back and change how I ignored all those promptings I personally received – I absolutely would. I no longer want to put my will before God’s. I thought I had learned this lesson on my mission but apparently I hadn’t. I am so happy that we are not going through with “my” plan because there is nothing more perfect than the plan our Heavenly Father has for us.

How we told our families




How we told everyone else

**On Monday we will finally know if our little baby is a GIRL or a BOY!!**

 Little did I know that back in January when I wrote this post that I actually really was pregnant. I guess the joke was on me . . .

UPDATE: On Monday April 28, 2014 we found out that baby Fergy is a baby GIRL!! We're SUPER excited!!

Golden Birthday Week

My birthday week is officially over as of yesterday . . .

I must have been pretty obvious when talking with Danny that I have a birthday week because he made sure that my birthday celebration didn’t happen just in one day.

We first celebrated by going out to eat at Tucanos a couple days before. He surprised me by coming home to take me out to eat. As any Brazilian would do I first went straight for the rice and beans. I never thought this was a weird thing until Danny pointed it out . . . like four times. I guess I just thought everyone put those two things first on their plates at a Brazilian restaurant, after all that’s what I literally ate every single day for 18 months on my mission. Apparently Danny’s rule for eating there is that if it’s not meat it’s not on his plate. He broke that rule with me though and because of it I think the rice made him too full to enjoy his usual large portion of meat, or shall I say “manly meat”. The only bummer about that meal was that I also didn’t get to eat as much as I wanted to but my reason was because of prego problems. If I eat too much, I throw it up. Super lame but I’m learning.

To be honest I wasn’t expecting much to happen on my birthday because this year it was on a Tuesday and those are the days where I literally don’t get to see Danny all day. He pretty much lives at the University on Tuesdays, so I was glad when our friend Courtney said she’d come down that day to take me out for a late lunch. I figured that Danny would have something planned for later that night after his school, but what he had planned was even better than expected.

I woke up that morning and on my dresser I found the first of many notes that I would find that day . . .

#1 “Good morning my Beautiful Birthday Girl!! Don’t forget to look at how beautiful you are in the mirror!” 

#2 “Wow!!! So beautiful!!! Start your day off with a glass of milk!!!”
(Strawberry milk is one of my top all-time favorite drinks . . . it’s a close second to the drink Gatorade.)

#3 “Mmm . . . wasn’t that good! Now you should read your scriptures!! Nothing better than starting your day off right. Don’t forget to pray.”

#4 “Now that you’re uplifted it’s time to put my hoodie on . . . where is it? I think its in the hamper. I love it when you wear my clothes.”
(To be honest I think I was so excited that I ran straight to the hoodie to get the next clue . . . whoops. I also skipped drinking the milk right away which I had to pay the price for later.) 

#5 “Now that you’re warm and cozy it’s time to go outside!”

#6 “Clean clean clean . . . dang that’s nice!! Well now you get to go back inside, look for a big black travel . . . it’s hidden well . . . in a closet. We took it to Colorado!!”

(Danny took my car at 5am before I would wake up to go get it cleaned inside and outside. It was kind of needed after our recent road trip to Colorado.)

Clue #6 led me to a big suitcase where two smaller suitcases were hidden inside. On the outside of each suitcase was a note and on the inside of the smallest suitcase was a balloon attached to a letter that he spent all night writing. I seriously love this man. He also knows that I’m a huge fan of Gatorade so on top of this scavenger hunt he had another one set up where I had to find the Gatorades he hid around our place. The last Gatorade led me to a present he had hidden in the bedroom which I absolutely loved!!

By this time I was surprised by him coming home from school for a quick lunch break. With all of the scavenger hunts that morning I had forgotten to eat breakfast which was a bad thing. I’ve learned that not only do I throw up when I eat too much but I also throw up when I have an empty stomach. While I was sick in the bathroom Danny decided to make some food. After I was done with the ‘puking business’, I was finally able to spend some time with him which I loved because that never happens on his school days. Shortly after he left to go back to school Courtney came over and we went out to eat at Café Rio. I’m so glad the baby seems to agree with Mexican food so far or I would die. Courtney took me back home once Danny was done with school and from there the two of us went shopping for my main birthday gift . . . a stroller/car seat set :). Never would I have expected that for my first birthday as a married couple I would be asking for a stroller or a car seat. We found one that was pretty pricey but we got it because I was in love with it! I’m pretty sure for Danny’s birthday his gift will be a crib lol. 

 

We ended my birthday week with maternity clothes shopping. Danny and I met his mom and two of his sisters (I love his family) at the mall and went on a shopping spree. It was weird to have them spend so much money on just me and I felt bad but it was fun to spend the afternoon with them. I tried on a fake baby bump thing at the store and for the first time in my pregnancy (actually for the first time in my life) I honestly felt excited about getting a baby bump. With my luck though my baby bump won’t be as cute as the fake one and I’ll just explode instead. After the mall we all went out to eat more Mexican food which was yummy. The best thing about this last week though is that Danny agreed to let me find out the gender of our baby in four weeks instead of waiting for eight more weeks!! I knew he would cave in eventually. 

As For Me and My House . . .

On our wedding night we made a goal to visit every Utah temple within the first six months of marriage. I knew this goal was very possible but that it would only work if we were serious about reaching it. We made road trips out of Vernal, St. George, Manti and Monticello. We're thankful for the people who covered our shifts to make these road trips even possible. We made very long days out of Logan and Brigham. We had to go out of our way to get to Payson and Ogden where those temples aren’t even opened yet. We learned from mistakes that checking temple schedules was important after failing multiple times by traveling to temples that were closed for maintenance cleanings. We drove through blizzards and rain storms to spend our days or nights off in the sacred house of God. We are also fortunate enough to live in a state where the majority of the temples can be reached within a half hour drive of each other. Oh how lucky we are to live in this state.

The temple is a special place for Danny and I and we love keeping the covenants that we have made fresh in our minds by going together. It brings me great comfort to know that because Danny and I have been sealed to each other in the temple that our children will forever be linked to us.   

Life Updates...

We have now been married for almost five whole months and we have now experienced our first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years Day (I slept through New Year’s Eve) and our first road trip as a married couple. We were able to take a last minute temple road trip to Monticello before coming back for Danny’s first day back at school.

          

We can now cross off Four Corners from our married bucketlist. I've been there before but now I can say that we both have been there before. 😄

Best Decision

The other day my mission had a missionary reunion which unfortunately was held in Brazil and not in Utah. Since neither Sister Correa (one of my companions) nor I could be there in person we decided to make a video together and send it to my mission president and his wife telling them about our lives post mission. During my part of the video I surprised myself by saying something that completely caught me off guard. I had said that getting married was the second best decision I had made with the first being my mission. As soon as these words left my mouth I knew I couldn’t take them back. For the rest of that day and into the next I thought a lot about whether or not those words were actually true and in my heart I knew that they were. For some reason I started to feel really guilty about this because I felt like my answer should have been the other way around. The next night I decided to ask Danny to see what his answer would be. After asking “what has been the best decision you have ever made?” he responded without hesitation at all “definitely my mission”. I immediately told him “I’m so glad that you did not say it was me!!” haha I seriously felt so much relief at that moment. Then he went on to explain how he never would have met me if he hadn’t served a mission in the first place. After he had said that everything made sense. MY BEST DECISION LED ME TO MY SECOND BEST DECISION. I no longer felt guilty and instead I felt grateful. It was now 100% clear to the both of us that if we hadn't served we would never have been led to each other and most likely wouldn't be where we are today.

Philippines Bacolod Mission

Brazil Belo Horizonte Mission

              I do realize that a mission is not for everyone, nor is it a requirement to even make it into the Celestial Kingdom, but I will say that I have been eternally changed because of it. Danny and I will both always have the common desire to put God first and center of our lives and this includes our marriage. I wouldn’t want to trade or have any other person standing by my side.

With tomorrow being Turkey Day I know exactly what I'm grateful for . . .