We're Engaged!

As you know, Will actually unofficially proposed to me back in June when we were in Hawaii. However, we decided to not tell anyone until a later time when we had done it "right", with the ring, etc.

The "official" proposal was AMAZING! And being that Will was the mastermind behind it all, I wanted to quote his own words about our proposal, and then I will take you step-by-step through the proposal DAY. (Yes it took ALL day).

In Will's Own Words:

After returning from Hawaii, we continued our relationship with renewed determination to prepare us for the transition into marriage. We spent countless hours in sweet conversations getting to understand one another better. We developed goals and habits to help guide us along the path of righteousness. We learned to read and ponder the scriptures daily, we choose to conclude each day with prayers of thanksgiving to our Father in Heaven. All in all we choose to make the main focus of our relationship around the Gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints. We felt the blessings pour into our lives as we did so and our love for one another grew stronger each passing day.

The months following Hawaii where joyous ones.

We traveled throughout the rest of the summer visiting friends and family and seeing new places. Each journey and adventure always brought us closer together. All this time we continued asking Heavenly Father that He would let us know when the appropriate timing would be to enter into an official engagement.

This process heightened with much supplication and fasting during the weeks prior to October General Conference of the church. It was during the priesthood meeting of that conference that I finally received the answer I so longed for. I was listening to a talk by Pres. Monson (which I later found out was titled, “Anxiously Engaged” but has nothing to do with wedding engagements).

He used most of his time to tell stories that help portray his message, as he is an excellent storyteller. He had told one story that I recalled hearing before. As he was starting into the next and last story I again knew I had heard this story, but this time it was different. I knew I had heard not just these stories before, but his whole talk I had heard before somewhere.

I felt the Spirit touch me lightly, I stopped listening to the talk and started pondering on this. Why had I heard this before? What was the Spirit trying to tell me? I thought of Jenni and my desire to marry her for eternity. Then my mind exploded with excitement. Was this it? Was this the answer to all my prayers?

I bowed my head and said a silent prayer asking Heavenly Father that if he would answer my prayers and give me the privilege of marrying His precious daughter that I would do all in my power to lead the life that He desired for me. I promised Him that I would always continue to treat Jenni with the respect she deserved. As I concluded my prayer, the Spirit washed over my entire body leaving me no doubt in my mind of the answer to my prayer. A smile hit my face, I said a silent prayer of Thanks and lifted my head from prayer a new man.

That night I related this experience to Jenni. Her face beamed with excitement as she had patiently awaited this confirmation from me.

The Proposal:

I knew over the following months Jenni would have the majority of the say in how all the wedding events would take place. I knew the engagement was my one time to solely act by myself.

My time to shine was here.

A few things I knew:


1.) Jenni loves surprises, even if it’s just a night out on the town, dinner and a movie. Jenni loves to be held in suspense. I knew the proposal had to be the biggest surprise ever. I had to keep her in suspense as long as possible. She knew it would be coming but she didn’t know how, when, or where.

2.) Jenni had mentioned a few times that she always wanted to be kidnapped by her friends for yet again some type of surprise.

3.) Jenni had never been to a day spa. I wanted her to feel loved, pampered, and taken care of on the day of her proposal. I wanted her to feel beautiful. I wanted her to be able to look back and always remember her proposal day as a day of bliss.

4.) Jenni loves Italian food. I had to find a place that could measure up as having the best romantic setting with the highest quality Italian food.

5.) I wanted to be able to capture the proposal on film, so that she would always have something to look back and remember her special day with.

6.) The ring, we had gone ring shopping a month or so prior to the engagement so that I could get some ideas of what she liked and disliked. Out of the 50 plus rings she tried on there was one that stood out. When she put it on I knew it was the one for her. I had to find it again and purchase it before someone else did as it was very unique and being liquidated.

The rest, Jenni will tell you...


In Jenni's Words:

Yes, Will played out one of the best proposals I'd ever heard of, and that the majority of my friends had heard of. He definitely got a LOT of kudos for a job well done.

Since his proposal was a sting operation of sorts, that is how I will give you the details. Let the Mission Impossible music begin...

The Kidnapping : Jenni's Apartment, Tualatin, Oregon, 07:55 hours

While peacefully sleeping a little before 8 AM on Saturday, October 16th, the victim is awaken by her bedroom door being opened by four giggling wide-eyed girls. First came Elizabeth (Will's younger sister), then Sandy (Will's mom), then Dalynn (Will's sister-in-law), and then Tessha (Will's older sister). The victim screams as each one enters the room. She is informed that she is being kidnapped and has 3 minutes to get dressed and get whatever supplies she needed. Confused but obedient, Jenni Southworth scurried around to find clothing.

Soon after getting dressed, Jenni is brought downstairs, immediately blindfolded, and put inside the getaway car. The 4 accomplices proceed to confuse Jenni by leading her to believe that they are taking her up windy mountain roads where there are dangerous conditions. Tessha makes a 5-point turn in the middle of a parking lot while the other girls throw out cautions to stop backing up any further to avoid going off of a cliff. The accomplices succeed in their deception. The victim has became a little nervous at this point, thinking that they really are on some windy mountain road.

Operation Mountain State Park : Portland LDS Temple, 08:30 hours

Finally, the car stops. Jenni is led outside to what sounds like birds chirping and a waterfall. The victim has actually been taken to the Portland Oregon LDS Temple.

Jenni is asked to sit down, on what she believed to be a park bench in the middle of a mountain scenic park. "It's so peaceful and serene," she thinks to herself. She is asked to hold a piece of posterboard and smile. She wonders if the poster says, "I'm a huge dork." Again, confused, and wondering when all this was going to end with a "Surprise, we just wanted to kidnap you and take you out to breakfast," Jenni continues to unquestionably obey her kidnappers every request.

Meanwhile, outside of Jenni's blindfolded world, the sting operation mastermind, Will Thomas, stands silently coordinating his group of accomplices.

Elizabeth videotapes the entire operation, while Dalynn takes digital photos. Sandy and Tessha act as Jenni's guides as they lead her around and help her know where the mastermind wants her to sit.

Daniel is a helpful onlooker as Will situates himself ever so carefully in the pictures next to Jenni. She misses the clues as some of the girls "ooo" and "awww" while she holds the posters.

Soon, Jenni was loaded into the car once again with the 4 accomplices. She sits in her blindfold for another 20 minutes as she starts to recognize noises of seagulls and water. Then she hears people and street cars. The car stops and she is lead out and into what she thought was the lobby of a hotel. She is taken down a flight of stairs and hears the words, "Okay, we can take her blindfold off now..."

The Day Spa : Lobby of Spa Sasse, Downtown Portland, 09:00 hours

The girls remove the blindfold from Jenni and she struggles through day-old mascara to open her eyes that have been held shut for the past hour. She notices a fireplace, a rack full of hair products, candles, and nail polish. She also sees manicure/pedicure stations and wonders where she is. The girls all blurt out, "Congratulations! You're spending the day at the spa!" The woman at the front counter then proceeds to list off every treatment Jenni would receive that day, starting with a hydrotherapy bath, a full body massage, a facial, lunch, then a pedicure/manicure, spray-on tan, haircut & highlights, and makeup. "You'll be here all day and then someone will be back to pick you up at 5:00 PM," says Sandy. "Someone?" asks Jenni. "One of us," says Dalynn.

Jenni is not that gullible. She has started to figure out (but wondered during most of the kidnapping) that Will had something to do with all of this and wonders if it all has to do with a marriage proposal. She thinks back to the night before when Will had wittingly convinced her to pack a dress with all of her "getting-ready things" for the next day so that she could go over to his sister's house to get ready for a friend's wedding later that night.Jenni giggled and smiled for the rest of the day as she sat in whatever room having whatever treatment done to her. She truly felt like the luckiest girl in the world as she thought how Will had done this all for her.

What was Will doing all this time you ask? He was running around like a headless chicken trying to get ready for his final sting operation. You'll see in a minute.

As it drew closer to 5 o'clock, Jenni was nervous. The girls at the spa all excitedly waited around because they too wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Will showed up in his suit and tie and looked as handsome as ever, and Jenni came out all dressed up in her dress, while feeling like the most pampered girl in the world. The two greeted each other with amazement (and tears) in their eyes and then left to attend the wedding reception of their friends, Melissa and Mark.

Operation Reception and Dinner : Mark and Melissa's reception, Gresham, Oregon, approximately 18:00 hours

Will and Jenni arrive to the reception safely and beautifully (according to the accomplices).

Apparently Jenni's results from the day spa were a hit with all the ladies. And apparently pretty much everyone at the reception knew Will was going to propose that night except Jenni! They did a very good job of keeping it from her. Even Jenni's roommate, Jessica, after realizing that she had told about five or six people, had to retrace her steps and go back and tell those people not to say anything yet (realizing that Will wasn't going to propose until AFTER the reception).

After the reception, Will takes Jenni to a very nice Italian restaurant, Jenni's favorite. They dine on Italian steak and pasta with a chocolate mousse dessert.

After dinner, Will starts to say that he is getting tired (the truth, since he hasn't gone to sleep for 48 hours due to all night preparations for Operation Proposal). He suggests that they just call it a night and go home. Jenni fully expecting more than that out of it all, says, "Hey I'm not tired yet," but Will actually does start driving them home.

Almost home, they pass the Portland LDS Temple on the freeway. Jenni looks over and says, "Oh look how pretty the temple looks all lit up at night." Will then says, "Do you want to go over there and talk?" Jenni says "Yes!"

The Proposal: Portland Oregon LDS Temple, approximately 22:10 hours

The temple had been drenched with a heavy rainstorm that Will had prayed desperately would stop. As Jenni put on her jacket, Will reaches into the back seat to grab an umbrella when he find Jenni's roll of film he had previously developed for her two weeks ago. "Oh! I picked up your roll of film. Do you want to look at it?" asks Will. "Ya, that would be great!" says Jenni.

Will and Jenni walk up and into the temple grounds, but cannot find anywhere to sit because of the wet ground. Will tells Jenni that he will go back to the car and bring back something to sit on. During this time, Will tries his hardest to find a temple security guard because he knows that the temple grounds will soon be closing and he doesn't want to get kicked out in the middle of his proposal. As he comes back to the gate, he finds a security guard and Jenni sees him stopping to talk to him. A few moments later, Will returns to Jenni with padding for the wet cement benches.

Jenni proceeds to get the pictures out and go through them. For a roll of 12 (and of which half were taken by her 3 year old niece), there was a pretty hefty stack of photos in the pile. "I got doubles," says Will. The first 12 pictures or so were of a kayaking/picnicking trip that they had taken earlier in the summer. Upon reaching the last photo, Jenni finds a sticky with the word "STOP" on it.

Will explains that he had also decided to print off some other pictures, and the next bunch were all the pictures they had taken from their very first date together up until their last picture a couple of weeks ago. The two reminisced as they looked through all of the memories they shared from the past year of their courtship. Upon reaching the last picture, Jenni finds another sticky that says, "STOP."

Will then explained that when Jenni had mentioned to him a couple of Sundays ago that she had never heard him bear his testimony, he decided that he would share it with her. He touched her heart as he sincerely and genuinely expressed to her his feelings about Jesus Christ and His plan for God's children. He then told her "Now, these next pictures are very special and you might recognize them."

Jenni turned to the next picture to find that it was a photo of her earlier that morning being kidnapped with a blindfold on. She laughed out loud in half-embarassment and half-excitement. The next photo was of her sitting on what she had previously thought was a park bench in a mountain park, but instead she was at the temple grounds. Next to her was sitting Will. She screamed and said, "You were there???!!" You were there the entire time and I didn't even know it!" The posterboard that she held in her hands said "JENNI" and then the next 4 consecutive pictures each spelled out...

Jenni read the words out loud and then looked at Will to find him getting down on one knee in front of her just like the photo, and in the exact same spot where they were earlier that morning.

Will then professed a bunch of lovey dovey stuff to Jenni (something about how much he loved her and wanted to be with her, etc.) and then asked her if she would marry him.

She said "Yes!!" and instantly hugged him.

"You didn't even look at the ring yet!" Will said through Jenni's giggles.

She looked down at the ring and said, "It's the one!" and he said "You wanted this one too?" Little did they know after a ring-shopping experience a couple of months prior, that after having tried on that particular ring they both silently knew that it was the one.

Above: Main diamond was a little over 1 karat, other 27 diamonds around band were 1 karat. Total weight was 2.2 karats, band is white gold

Here are a few photos that were taken the next day

Moving out of the Morgue

Dwelling among the dead

Thursday, September 30, 2004

JOSEPH ROSE

Just when he had grown used to the corpses downstairs, the stench of death and phones ringing in the darkest hours, Nathan Hale is getting kicked out of his Northeast Portland apartment.

Last week, cardboard boxes were everywhere at 301 N.E. Knott St. On the second floor, the boxes were packed with computer gear, books, videos and clothes. In the basement laundry room, they contained human bones.

"What will I miss about this place?" said Hale, a business major at Portland State University, as he walked past a femur poking out of the top of a box. "The free rent. I think that's about it." The unidentified skeletal remains, some dating back decades, belong to the landlord: the Multnomah County morgue.

Since 1966, college students have lived for free in the apartment above the morgue. Of course, they also have had to answer the phones and open the back door for body deliveries during graveyard shifts.

Friday, that tradition ends. The medical examiner's office is moving into bigger and better digs in Clackamas, where a new regional morgue offers plenty of space for the dead but none for live-in help. Hale and his four roommates, who call themselves "the last of the morgue-hicans," have found other lodging. Three of them will pay $350 a month each to rent a big house. Starting Friday night, an answering service will handle after-hours calls, said Rob Boggs, Multnomah County's chief deputy medical examiner. If another big-city morgue still answers its own phones at night, Boggs doesn't know about it. "We kind of prided ourselves as maybe the only one," he said. "But this change has been coming for a long time."

The county morgue outgrew its Knott Street location years ago. Between 10 and 15 people die each day in Multnomah County, officials said. But the cooler in the building, which housed Pearson Funeral Home until the mid-1960s, was built to hold only five bodies. It wasn't uncommon for coroners to show up after a busy weekend to find corpses on gurneys waiting for them in the hallway.

And to be honest, Boggs said, using college students to tend affairs at night wasn't exactly a glitch-free system. When the office's clerks went home at the end of the day, the calls were directed to a phone upstairs. The roommates were supposed to log the names, locations, times and circumstances of deaths. Often, they would get something wrong. One night, for example, a hospice nurse called in to report a patient had died of lymphoma. The person on duty recorded the cause of death as "nymphoma."

Phone foulups

There were those nights, too, when someone unknowingly unplugged the phone after tripping over the cord, requiring 9-1-1 to send a police officer to the morgue to pound on the doors.

When the phone rang upstairs, the on-duty student was supposed to answer, "Medical examiner's office."

"We had a roommate who could never remember what to say," said Will Thomas, who is studying real estate development at Portland State. "It would be three in the morning and he'd pick up the phone, saying, 'Uh, uh, um.' One of us would have to wake up and yell out, 'Medical examiner's office!' "

Of course, Thomas has his own phone problems. At his part-time job in Nike's copying center, he has habitually answered the phone, "Medical examiner's office." Over the years, dozens of college men lived in what was originally a funeral home caretaker's apartment. For as long as anyone can remember, they have been members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The thinking was that devout Mormons would be less inclined to drink, smoke and party.

Roommates reminisce

Packing and reminiscing last week, the final five morgue roommates said they were proof that college students will tolerate just about anything for free rent: After watching the "The Sixth Sense" one night, Hale said the place felt ghoulish. No more horror movies at the morgue, he decided.

Oh, and there was the ever-present smell. "Like really, really bad feet," Hale said last week. Jogging down the old, groaning stairs that took the roommates past the cooler to the laundry room, Hale stopped at the last step. "This is where I usually begin holding my breath," he said. Even with the ventilation system, foul odors found their way to the second floor, said Will Abraham, an information systems major nicknamed "Bootstrap" by his roommates. The medical staff began a recent Monday morning with an autopsy. "Let's just say some people wake up to the smell of bacon and eggs," Abraham said, "and some don't." Michael Kroon, a nursing student who never really got used to the cadavers 6 feet under the apartment's floor boards, said one of the morgue's side doors frequently seemed to pop open on its own. Thomas said it was weird when pizza deliveries arrived at the same door used for body dropoffs. "Check with Office Before Removing Body," read a sign with bold red letters next to the door.

Oh, and there was what he called "the laundry incident."

In the basement, there were two identical washing machines: one for residents, the other for bloody surgical scrubs. A few weeks ago, the one used by the medical staff died. No one told Thomas, who opened the usual machine to find a load of surgical towels.

"I started pulling the towels out," he said. "Then I reached in and pulled out a hunk of human . . . body . . . something. It was all fatty. It didn't belong to us."

Bryan Hawkins, a business student at Portland State, didn't have the guts to journey alone into the basement. It creeped him out. Not for a blown fuse. Not to wash dirty clothes. Not for anything. "When I needed to do laundry," he said, "I visited my parents in Lake Oswego."

Homecoming Dance

Our Young Single Adult ward held a "Homecoming" Dance, so we got all spiffied up and went to it. I have no idea why it was called a homecoming dance though, since all of us are not in high school anymore and there was no football involved. Haha.

Below: Will's younger sister, Elizabeth, and Jenni

Labor Day Weekend - San Juan Islands

We had the fun experience of going up to the San Juan Islands for Labor Day with some friends. This trip had meaning for us, because it was the same time, place, and occasion the year previous where Will felt inspired that he needed to go searching for someone from the area (that ended up being me, if you remember reading our story about how we met). But this time we got to experience the San Juans together, so even though we were with friends, it was still romantic to us.

The whole purpose of the trip was to go scuba diving. With us were our friends Bryan, Peter, Jennifer, and Shannon. Everyone scuba dived except for Shannon and I - so we went kayaking instead.

Above: Jenni hugging Will as he is getting changed into his wetsuit to go diving.

Above: Peter, Jen, Bryan, and Will preparing to dive into the 50 degree Pacific Ocean, hence the thick wetsuits to preserve their bodyheat.

Above: The first scuba diving spot - Limekiln State Park

Above: A picture of Will, Jenni, Peter, and Bryan after they had dried off and changed

We all got a group camping spot on the San Juan Island and had fun each night cooking dinner, and talking about everything from scuba diving to dating.

Above: The three stooges - Bryan, Peter, and Will

Above: This is how Jenni utilized the downtime at the campground

Caught snoozing!

Above: The next scuba diving spot (on a different day) was called "Deadman's Cove". Fortunately, everyone made it out alive. :)

Above: Kayaking again. I had fun following the bubbles coming up from the water, as I could tell where they guys were diving at. Will and Peter came up a couple of times and showed me some of the "treasures" they found - which happened to include a big sea cucumber and a 3 foot wide sunstar (a starfish with a lot of tentacles).

Below: A beautiful sunset on the last evening we were there

Above: Shannon, Jennifer, and Jenni

Everyone decided to go scuba diving one more time before catching the ferry the next morning. I actually went ahead and caught a ferry that departed hours earlier so that I could spend some time with my parents on Camano Island (being that we drove all the way up from Portland for this trip).

Below: Will and I saying goodbye as I am about to leave for the ferry terminal and he is about to go diving one more time.

Above: Will trying to snooze in the car while he is waiting to get on the ferry

Ah finally! The ferry has arrived.

A beautiful sunset picture that Will took as he rode the ferry home from San Juan Island.

Will Runs Hood-To-Coast

Will ran the Hood-To-Coast Relay Race this weekend with his team of 12. It is a 197 mile relay race that starts at Mt. Hood and goes all the way to Seaside at the Oregon Coast. It takes two days to run it, and each person is responsible for completing three 6.6-mile stretches (not all at once).

The team is continually running, even though the night.

They have two vans that caravan those on the team who aren't running, and they have several stations along the way where they trade and fuel up.

I didn't get to see Will start the race because I had to work, but I was able to drive out to see him run one of his legs on the first night. And then the next day, being Saturday, I was able to follow him around for each of his last two legs.

Above: Will's entire team pictured in downtown Portland

Above: Will stretching before running one of his legs of the race

Above: The entire team is split up into two groups, and Will's van team were the starters up at Mt. Hood. This is a picture of his "team" at the start.

Above: Will's van team

Above: Tyler, Bryan, and Will "stretching" while waiting for their turn to run -in the middle of the night

Above: Sometimes the only time to sleep is in the van between legs

Above: These guys look really tired (Will and Tyler)

Above: But here they look wide awake and excited to run :)

Above: Will and teammate Jennifer

Above: Finally, the team made it to the coast. Congrats you guys!

After they finished the race, Will got some rest. And then later that evening I had a special night picnic planned for us to celebrate 6 "official" months of dating. We had chocolate covered strawberries and sparkling cidar, with a campfire on the beach. It was a memorable evening.