Question & Answer 3

Julie asked "How did you and J. meet? What was your courtship like?"

I will write my version...and I have asked Jay to add his version, without reading mine. Let's see how close these 2 end up at the end!

Jay and I met in Colorado. I was there, living and preparing to go on a mission. I had my papers ready and was not looking to date or get involved with anybody. Jay was home from Ricks College, and was getting ready to go to BYU- he had just come out of a relationship - He was not looking for a relationship. I think that is why things clicked so quick with us, we were not "trying" to make things work.

We met at church- actually we met a year earlier than that. My roommate worked with him-he was there for the summer, and brought him to our lunch. We sat outside of where I worked and ate subway sandwiches on the sidewalk. (I worked at a drycleaners)
Fast forward about a year later. March. He came to church late. Saw a space between me and a "friend" and squeezed his way in between us.

That night we were at a fireside at church and he was "dared" to ask me out. He called me that night and asked if I wanted to go out on Monday night, that way, if we had fun we could go out again that week.
We went out- we had fun-we went out again. We had fun. and so on and so on...He was funny. He was sincere. I could be myself around him.
I did not realize how fast things were going. I was still planing to go on a mission.
It was the night that I went to the temple for the first time- and I just knew. I had not even asked the question to myself, but I just knew that Jay was the one I was going to marry. I found him at the end of the evening and just said with a big smile "I know"- and he smiled back and said "I do too."
That was the end of April.
He officially asked me to marry him May 2- We were married July 2- We moved to Provo that August to attend BYU- and the rest......
We celebrated our 12th anniversary this summer.



Alisa asked me not to read what she wrote. She simply asked me to write about how we came to be together.

I had returned from serving as a missionary in California in 1994. I spent the summer that year working for a company called omni point. I was invited to lunch by a coworker. We grabbed Subway sandwiches ... she grabbed an extra sandwich for one of her good friends Alisa Hodge.

We took the sandwich to the dry cleaners where Alisa worked and the three of us sat on the front steps and shared a quick afternoon lunch together.

That was the first time I met Alisa. I think how unbearable it would have been to say goodbye to her after lunch that day if I had the knowledge of the life we were going to have together in the future.

But ... but, it wasn't to be ... not that day. I am sure we were polite to each other; shook hands or whatever.

I finished out my summer and drove my green Volkswagen bus back to Ricks College in Rexburg Idaho. I had a final semester to finish my associates in generic studies that I had began before my mission.

That was an interesting semester, to say the least. I fell for a girl that I had known in Idaho in my previous years at Ricks. She and I made plans to get married early the next year. You can guess that it didn't work out. And the reason why I bring this up within the context of this story is that this put me in the mindset that was just right for meeting up with Alisa the second time around.

I was back home winter / spring of 1995 ... working, preparing to go to BYU that fall. I went to church one of my first few weeks back from college. I think I was a little late and the meeting had already started.

I found a seat next to a friendly face, that girl Alisa I had met the summer before. I don't remember the talks in the meetings that day. I do remember easy, smiling, quiet conversation with Alisa.

I ran into her again that night at a church fireside. With a little coaxing from the guys standing around me I asked her to go on a date. I told her we should go out early in the week ... in case we had a fun time we could make the most of the rest of the week and go out some more.

I looked at this comment simply as me expressing my confidence that things would be fun and she would most certainly want to go out with me again. It's funny but she saw the other side of this and we laugh about it now and then.

Alisa heard me say, "[If] we have fun, we can go out again this week." Which made her think I was questioning whether we would have a good time or not.

So, we went out and had a great time. We had Italian for dinner and then spent an unusual amount of time slow driving through crowded mall parking lots looking at parked cars we thought we would want to own. Then we went and rented The Lion King on VHS at Blockbuster and watched it at my house.

That was the first in a whirlwind of great dates with Alisa. The next couple of months included but were not limited to ... our first kiss, slow dancing when ever and where ever we could ... usually in my kitchen while waiting on the waffles ...

We made and ate waffles quite often and at random times of the day.

I remember that growing connection with Alisa ... you know how that goes ... taking 43 minutes to say goodbye at the end of the date ... as if I was heading off to war. Four words - I fell in love.

And the really great part about this was that I was [not] going to fall for another girl any time soon, you see! Because I had just done that, only to have it end in a rather unpleasant way.

So, you see, my guard was down. Or, in other words, I was the true Jay Spear. I was not some nervous ball of twine psychoanalyzing every interaction between the two of us. I did not play mental chess in our relationship because I didn't think I needed to.

By the way, she fell in love with me too. I asked Alisa to marry me [in] the Denver Temple. Dinner and a date to the temple makes for a wonderful evening, and we managed to do this a number of times.

She agreed and after a brisk springtime courtship we were married July 2nd 1995.

There is more to tell, obviously! I reserve the right to edit this post with a few other tidbits when time permits.

Jay