thinking about conference

i just listened to Elder Holland's talk from this last General Conference. what a powerful witness!! if you don't feel the Spirit bear witness of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon as you listen to this, then you at least have a burning desire to find out for yourself if it is true. i know it is true. so does johnny. here's the link to watch the talk :) click on "sunday pm" then scroll over to Elder Holland's talk. amazing!!

this is the life!!

ok seriously, being a wife and mother is the BEST thing in the world. i've been thinking about that a lot lately and it just amazes me how many people put it off. i think we all get freaked out thinking about the responsibilities of marriage and family (which are a big deal, don't get me wrong) and lack the faith to take that step. i remember when before getting married having the attitude like, "i don't want to get married young, and even when i do get married, i'm going to wait a while to have kids." i think everyone has different circumstances and different things work for them, but it seems so sad that so many people almost cringe at the thought of marriage and family. it's almost looked down upon, even in the BYU environment. we were listening to a talk given by Sister Julie B. Beck to seminary and institute teachers and she talked about how a lot of youth/young adults today don't have faith in the institution of marriage because they don't feel that they can be successful in marriage. she talks about how marriage and family is a "faith-based work". when she and her husband got married, they had a grand total of $3 and they lived with her grandpa for awhile!! but they knew that what they were doing was right and they had faith that Heavenly Father would help them out as they worked hard for it.

i know that everyone's situation is different and i'm not trying to tell people what to do, i just hope that this gives hope to anyone who's afraid of marriage and family--it is the BEST EVER. don't ever doubt it!! having a family is the most important thing we can do in this life and is the center of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it's really quite glorious. this is the life!

baby kate :)

well the newest edition to our family is finally here!!! kate emma eklof was born on october 8th at 3:31 pm at orem community hospital. she's so awesome!! we hang out pretty much 24/7. babies are so amazing, especially when they're yours!! kate is like a little johnny-lindsy person, but with her own personality. i'm so glad we made the choice to bring her into the world. i know families are ordained of God and that without them, His plan would be frustrated. having a family is the biggest step we've taken so far in our lives, but it's by far the best.

so on october 8th, i was just chilling at home, reading my scriptures on my bed, and i kept falling asleep. so i just decided to lay down and take a nap. about 10 minutes later, i woke up feeling a pain kind of like period cramps. then i felt a trickle run down my leg. then another. that wasn't normal, so i stood up and it felt like a bucket of water dropped into my pants--my water broke!! i screamed and johnny's little brother richard (who was sleeping in the other room) jumped up wondering what the crap was going on. i told him my water had broken and he said, "oh my gosh!! do you need to go to the hospital??" i was like, "yes, yes i do." ha! so he drove me to the hospital because johnny was at school. i called johnny, but he didn't pick up. a few minutes later, he called back and i told him what was going on. he was so excited and said he'd get there ASAP. it was perfect timing--he was just about to walk into his next class :) anyway, we got to the hospital, my pants soaking wet, and i checked in. the nurses kept thinking that richard was the dad and asking him questions hehe. soon enough johnny got there and then my mom and then my dad. i wasn't really having contractions, so they gave me petocin, which got me going. as soon as i started to feel pain i got an epidural, so the next 5 hours or so were pretty comfortable. then kate's heart rate started dropping with every contraction, so i had to start pushing. that was probably the hardest thing i had to do. it felt like my head was going to pop off!! but kate came and the doctor said, "oh! you've got a little girl!" wow. amazing. since then it's been a crazy ride, but a good one. we're looking forward to all the days ahead :)

anniversary :)

well we made it!! yesterday, august 16th, marked the day that johnny and i were sealed for all time and eternity and created our eternal family. it's been a crazy fun year!! it's so interesting how love grows--tiny increments day by day that add up to amazingly huge feelings. i think we learned a lot about each other and we are definitely looking forward to (in the words of Spongebob), "one more year! one more super-duper year! one more super-spectacular, ex-ter-a magical, extra fantastical YEAR!"

oh baby...

ok guys, we need help! we cannot, for the life of us, think of a baby boy name! and no, we're not having a boy for sure, but we already have some girl names that we like.

any ideas?

duality

so i just read a quote by President Hinckley that talked about the duality of the sexes. i looked up duality and it says, "the quality or character of being twofold" or "composed of two parts". he goes on to talk about how the relationship between man and woman is complementary and the man's functions and the woman's functions go together and accomplish the purposes of God. i have never felt that to be more true. being married teaches me something different about this truth each day. it seems like as johnny and i keep going on our road of life, we are always helping each other with the different gifts that we have. when one is lacking, the other picks up the slack and helps push/pull the other. what a beautiful thing and what a wonderful world!!

there's no place like home...

well hey hey hey we're back in utah! our job back east kind of fell through and we ended up going home early. it was guided by the Spirit, though, this i know! we went and visited johnny's mission on the way home--Pennsylvania is pretty darn sweet. i got to meet a lot of the people johnny taught/baptized/associated with. almost every person we visited said that they had been thinking of johnny just the day before or they had remembered him and wished they could see him. one lady named tara (whose family investigated the church but kind of peetered out after johnny left), ran into the missionaries 2 days before we got to PA and they tried to talk to her and she was like, "no, no, there's only 2 elders that i love, elder tiato and elder eklof." so they left and then we showed up 2 days later. when johnny knocked on tara's door, she yelled, "EKLOF!!" haha it was cool. we also got to spend time with an awesome family named the O'Hara's. we got into that area of johnny's mission on a saturday night and they were moving the following wednesday!! had we waited the rest of the summer to go visit, we would have completely missed them. so yeah, it was a great time.

then we went to NAUVOO!!! yeah. we drove all through the night to get there on my birthday, and it was glorious. a lot of our friends were there rehearsing for the nauvoo pageant. we got to watch and just bask in the glow of amazingness that is nauvoo. we got to go to the nauvoo temple together as well, which was great! one of the directors, alex makenzie (spelling?) found out that it was my birthday and she insisted that we have a little party for me. it was so cool, almost the whole core cast came and sang to me and we had ice cream and oreos :) we had a hard time leaving, ended up staying a few extra days than we had planned.

we drove straight home from there and made it alive, thankfully. we're just chillin' in alpine now and it's been awesome. we have zucchini and yellow squash fresh from johnny's dad's garden each day, and occasionally a cucumber. johnny's starting at the salt lake community college august 26th, and i'm getting more and more pregnant and life is good. and that is all, i think.

so sorry!

hey guys, sorry it's been awhile!!

johnny and i are still plugging away in boston. it's been really rainy here. sometimes the rain comes like a mist, and it's really strange!! but we like it since we're from the desert :) so yeah, just working each day and going to the temple every week and it rocks!! i'm 22 weeks pregnant now, just 4 more months to go!! i wish i had some pictures, but, sadly, i do not. it's pretty fun, i get heartburn every day but that's the worst of it. i feel the baby 4-5 times a day. cool.

johnny applied for SLCC for the fall, so we're really excited about that right now. he'll FINALLY be starting college and getting going on making his movies. he has a friend eric who he's talked to about writing screenplays and they're both really excited, so we'll see what they come up with!! we're both stoked at the idea of coming home! boston is great, but there really is no place like home. we'll probably be living in riverton with or near my parents for a little bit, because it's close to one of the campuses for SLCC. so goodbye to provo for us for at least this semester. i'll be deferring fall semester to have the baby, then probably do night classes at SLCC (still through BYU).

we have the calling of primary choristers and what fun it is!! church goes by like nothing when you have this calling, seriously.... it's hard too, but a lot of fun. our ward is really great and we're loving all the missionary work that's been opened to us out here!! some people have never even heard of the church before!! anyway, life is good, we'll see you around august!!

wordle :)

boston update

hey hey!  i know it's been a really really REALLY long time since i updated this, so here ya go.   we just barely got internet.  well, boston is great!  the weather is amazing and there are so many trees that you can't really see any wide expanses, it's just trees.  i love it.  johnny and i got a Costco card, which is splendid, and there's a Costco just 5 minutes away.  the Boston Temple is also 5 minutes away!  woo hoo!  we try and go there as often as we can.  work is good here, we meet some pretty interesting people....there are a lot of jamaicans, haitians, puerto ricans, and black people here.  it's really cool to see some different colors than white :)  a lot of people live in apartments that are stacked on top of each other but look like a house.  the drivers are crazy, but johnny has learned to be a very aggressive driver, so we're doing good with that.  we're also starting to kind of get the ropes of the highways and freeways, so we're getting around pretty good.  we found an Olive Garden and a Kohl's, both of which we hadn't seen yet, and we've tried a lot of different food places.  none are amazing--yet.  we'll keep searching.  

so i've started buying maternity clothes because i'm getting a little baby bump :)  it's very exciting.  we spent some good money at Kohl's and got me some good stuff.  pictures will come soon.  

driving, driving, driving

WOW that took a long time. but we finally got to Boston!! all in all, we passed through 8 states--Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. it got pretty monotonous at the end and we had to keep slapping ourselves to stay awake, but we are here in Waltham (pronounced Walth-ham according to the locals) Mass, and it's great!

Boston

we are way stoked because tomorrow we're going to Boston! we'll be working for Pinnacle installing security systems. look out for a lot of pictures and video of the trip and other events, speaking of which...
LAST NIGHT WE WENT TO GO SEE WICKED!!! it was SOOOOOOOO good! also Olive Garden. also SOOOOOOO good. wow. a crazy cool weekend for sure.

why hello!

well, basically, this is our blog. it's new, so there's not much on it but look out for pictures and stuff!! we want to use this to let you know what's going on in our lives.

you rock!