Mr. and Mrs. Craig Gassaway :)

Well the wedding went wonderful!

We were so greatful to all who joined and helped with the whole thing!!!

It's strange to think it's almost been two months :)

Time flys when your having fun I guess.

Life is pretty much just back to normal with schools and work.

But life is wonderful and we have been greatly blessed :)

2 weeks :)

   This is Craig by the way- just thought I'd point that out lol. We now have less than 2 weeks left until the wedding. I just wanted to record this. I don't know or care too much that lots of people read it but I like the way it makes me feel to say I love her. I guess you could say that whenever my lips say it that my heart confirms it with its' own words. That is one of the biggest ways that I know that I am sincere with Cayla and with anyone. I can feel my heart in it :)
   Cayla has been and is (along with the blessings of Jesus' atonement) my most cherished blessing. I don't know how often I say that lol. Just a couple days ago we were driving along and I told that I love her and she smiled. She said "that still amazes me." She is a humble woman :) Thank goodness that I do not have to be so humble about her lol. My only hope is that she feels cherished and that that does not end somewhere 2 years from now. Cayla deserves my very best in everything. IThat is what someone in love does I think. I may not have the best of material things but what perhaps is much more substantial than density and volume in objects is this- I am with her :) I know what I have seen, and felt, and I have made up my mind on it. I love her. I love her :)
   Sometimes when I look on the blog I think 'Man! These people are living in a dream! Everything sounds like it is going so wonderful.' I've met my share of people and from all over. I know how a normal life goes. I'm well aware of it. We've presented our love and joy in a way that seems almost dreamlike to me. Cayla said it good near the beginning of our engagement. "It seems almost to good to be true." Well it is for us both :) You know on a side note I am going to quote Cayla often to reassure her that I do listen lol. Just kidding. Just kidding. Please, nobody read anything into that lol. Sometimes people say that life is a dream. All I can say is that it is the best dream I have ever had :)
   In my case I am fortunate because I have been paired with the best woman that God ever created :) In a few short words more because I don't have much time this morning I am shocked... shocked at all that has been given to me. I like the words of Malachi from the Old Testament. God has this to say. "... [P]rove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it (Malachi 3:10)." I have often thought about what come forth from the windows of heaven. As I look with seeing eyes I cry with gratitude. God certainly keeps his promises :) I have all the evidence I need. One of my prized pieces is Cayla Janay Hansen. There is nothing I'd rather have in my entire life :)

Craig and Cayla's Reception

Join Craig and Cayla

as we Celebrate our Wedding

at the Reception!

When:

November 27, 2010

6-8 pm

Where:

West Maricopa Stake Center

8702 W. Campbell

Phoenix, AZ

We look forward to seeing you there!!!!

(Photo by kissablephotos.com)

 

Wedding Website

caylaandcraig.kissablephotos.com
Chris did an AMAZING JOB with the photos and everything. This is a website he created just especially for the wedding. It is wonderful!

Wedding is November 27 at the Mesa Temple, and the reception is at the LDS Stake center off of 87 and Cambell (inbetween Indian School and Camelback) from 6-8.

Well it has been brought to my attention that my version of the whole getting together story is not on this blog, so I guess I should tell you all the girly side of it =)

Well for starters you should know I was STRONGLY OPPOSED to writing to Craig on his mission because I figured he would think I was crazy. They tried all summer long to get me to write, I think I sent some little note in his birthday package but nothing really until he wrote an email to his mom and I totally knew what he was talking about, so I finally had my reason that I could say that I could write, and so I did- and threw it away, re wrote it- and threw it away, I did that quite a few times. Finally I think I left it on one of our tables and I think my mom was the one who actually mailed it off. He wrote back and well the letters just seemed to increase a little. Christmas night I was over at the Gassaway house when Craig called, they sent the phone around to everyone so that they could say hi, I said who I was and gave the phone right back, I later found out he actually would have said something back but I gave the phone away to fast, I didn't want to actually talk to him =) But later he bore his testimony to his family and I was able to hear it, what a wonderful person I KNEW he was. He spoke of simple truths, and of simple truths that I needed to hear for me at that time. He helped me even then.

Well after that our letters increased, it was pretty much I would receive a letter and write back and he would do the same. I started to have a crush on this guy I'd never met. I told the girl I drove to school this and she would just laugh, but as the year went on she realized how serious I was about this and she saw how nervous I was about meeting him when he came home at the end of July. Well many other events took place but the best things come to when he came home.

I didn't know if I should go to the airport like his family said I should, so I asked him. He said he would like it if I came, so I did. Come on the girl who has a crush on him just got told he would like it if I came, Of COURSE I would be there. So I went and he gave all of his family a hug and then he gave me a HUG! I about died! I spent all day with his family and later I called my mom and said HE GAVE ME A HUG! I was ecstatic. We talked that night for over an hour, it was great. The next day I saw him at his missionary welcome home party and then I saw him the next day. Friday we went on a double date with his parents. Saturday I had a memorial that I was sad to have to go to and I was asked to sing there, Craig came with me and sat with me. He held my hand and I was ecstatic. I came home that night and said HE HELD MY HAND! My mom said what if it was just for moral support, I said I don't care if it was for moral support or if he liked me HE HELD MY HAND!!!! I know such a girly thing, but hey this is pretty much how everything went from then on out. The next day he said he thought I was the one and then that night he gave me a kiss on the cheek and held my hand if front of his mom and dad and at church. I told my mom HE HELD MY HAND AGAIN!! and HE GAVE ME A KISS ON THE CHEEK! Well Tuesday was the unofficial engagement, as we all call it now. He said "Would you say yes if I were to ask you to marry me?" well what do you think I said no?? Of course not I said YES! :) The next day I went out of town with him and his family and well we just talked about our future life together and about when we could get married. We got back Saturday night  and he met my daddy. They talked and dad made him say that he wanted to marry me. The whole thing was quite funny. That Tuesday we went and looked at rings and then that Thursday Craig proposed at the Mesa Temple. I actually kind of chuckled when he asked Will you Marry me? Because he already knew the answer. But it was still cute. The whole time there is this female photographer there and she is just taking a bunch of pictures, I figured we just made this photographers day. I found out later that it was my big sister Jerrea sneaking around taking pictures. It was fun.

So that is the story. From there many of you know it, it involved telling all of you the news and now it is wedding plans. It's been a wonderful journey and one I am so glad is just beginning and will last for an eternity. I can't wait until November 27! When I will be sealed to Craig and be Cayla Janay Gassaway =)

For those who would like to look at the 2005 talk by Elder Bednar

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=fd4dd04a6921c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

As I think...

I might as well point out that this is Craig. I wanted just to point out the significance of the title "God's Tender Mercy to Me." Awhile back in 2005 General Conference Elder Bednar spoke and referred to the term tender mercies from the scriptures. My dad kind of took hold of that statement and used it to teach us about God. Since then I have often returned that those words and in some ways they have become something of a motto to me.
The scriptures use several times that phrase. It teaches us that God is not a God of penance but of happiness and mercy. He is not solely engaged in this universe-sized effort for our learning as much as for our love. He loves us and that is the hope to which I have consistently returned. That He has mercy and He has tenderness. Like any other principle our awareness of it grows over time and determined effort. I have grown to see His tender mercies the moreso as I live each day.
I do not mean this as some joke although it makes me laugh but I never once concieved, not even once have I imagined such a tender mercy as the one which God has given to me since my return home. Cayla Janay is God's Tender Mercy to Me- and I daresay His greatest.
I don't put this out as certain doctrine so much as my way of thinking about things but there are things, people, or mayhaps events in our lives which God gives us to renew and sustain us and to form a bulwark upon which we will become the more holy and whole possible. You could almost think of it as a glorified 'sword in the stone' from King Arthur or First Vision from Joseph Smith. Needless to say the the mercies change us in significant ways sometimes even to become wholely opposite. Alma the Younger saw an angel and heard his pronouncements. That changed him quite a bit =) There are other examples that are out there but what I have written suffices me.
Cayla- and I say this in a very simple way- is the greatest example, tool, person, event or otherwise that I could ever have hoped for from God. That does not mean that great and special things do not await. We aren't even married yet! I can't wait and I'm shouting it! What I mean is that I have looked over what God had given me, and what He has promised me in coming days and there is nothing that is more important to me, nor that will affect such a fount of goodness like Cayla Janay. I mean it! I love her... When I look at her everytime I see a priceless pearl, a gem that is pure light. Each time I hear God say to me, "Son, I've given you the greatest treasure that you can expect from me. I want you to treat her well. She is not around just to be admired." And I add that on other occasions I have been told that my greatest successes in life and indeed the successful completion in life itself will come from her.
She is not around just to help either. I am here to help her. My happiness in life will come from that priceless gem reaching becoming all that she is. I have had time and time again, vision after dream and what she is amazes me. I'd be a fool not to hop on the two seat band-wagon with her and I ain't gettin' off lol. My satisfaction will come from her realizing what she already is. Most of life's lessons are just realizations and their application.
She is not around just to teach or be helped either. God does not give us companions just to teach us patience =) In my fortunate case Cayla is my friend, my deep friend. She is a person that I want to be around, and one to whom (strangely enough) I have felt a bond from day one. The very first time I heard her name (and I remember the moment clearly) it came with a unique feeling, one which I have come to share with kinship, former and present, and the inklings of the Spirit telling me that something is coming. She is actually the best friend I have ever had, the one to whom I have related most in my entire life, and I haven't seen a fault in her yet. I don't expect I will =)
In essence, she created this blog and gave it the name which I had told her about on several occasions as being words of special significance to me. I want to add my piece for now (and more certainly later) but just to explain the name. Yeah, it obviously is cute and has some specialness but I want to add my bit- Those words are the faith that I live by. They mean everything to me. I've called Cayla those words because she is. Beyond God and my brother Jesus I have no other tender mercy that is so great, so true, so faithful, and so precious to me (speaking very personally) like Cayla.
I mean the words I said. They are the truth. I love her. I love her. I love her.