I'm the most blessed girl... I get to marry Alden Arakaki! For those of you who don't know, here's our story...
In 2002 I moved to Hilo, HI. Honestly, I wasn't happy about it. That's no secret- my parents knew I didn't want to move (I think my mom dragged me on to the plane). We began attending Kinoole Baptist Church. This is where I met Alden and where we will stand before God on June 6th, 2009 and become man and wife.
From 2002-2005 me and Aldie had been "just friends". I admit that I liked him all along. He was that one boy that would cause me to melt whenever he entered a room. He was always a little bit of a mystery to me and I think that's something that really attracted me to him.
Our highschool days together were great building blocks to the relationship that we have today,
(DCLA 2006)
In 2005 I moved to Riverside CA to start going to CBU. He also moved from Hilo to Washington to play music. My freshman year of college I spent a lot of time talking to Alden on AIM. If you don't believe me you can ask Jen, my freshman year roommate and one of my bridesmaids. This is the time that my feelings really began to grow! I was actually really sad when things didn't work out between us at that time but it is all so clear now why it didn't. After a few months of talking every night our conversation slowly died out and we didn't talk nearly as much.
Summer of 2007 is when everything changed. For the first part of the summer things were pretty crazy, we both had gone overseas, he went the Maui for a week to play music at a camp there, I went to Indiana for a week to visit my brothers family, and I went to California twice, once to visit my mom's parents and once because my dad's dad had passed away.
By Mid-July we were both back in Hilo and planned a trip to Kona since we hadn't hung out in such a long time. We had such a great time on that trip! We were able to talk and we felt it was time to begin a dating relationship. We didn't want to jump in to it too fast so we just prayed about it and waited...
August 8th, 2007, after much prayer and thought... He asked me to be his girl friend!! :) August 10th I flew back to California to start my Junior year.
(This picture was taken when he came to CA with his family and I got to see him)
After a year of long distance dating, it was finally summer! I couldn't have been happier to spend time with my boyfriend.... well, the unexpected happened, we broke up... i know- not what you were expecting huh... we'll luckily I already told you the end of the story and you know we get back together. It's interesting, the 3 weeks that we were broken up we were able to talk and grow in a way that we never may have been able to. The break-up may have been the best thing for our relationship.
That summer came to an end and it was time for me to move back to Cali. This time Alden came too! He started going to Eternity Bible College in Simi Valley, CA. it's about a 1 1/2 hour drive from my school but we get to see each other much more then the previous year!!!
In these last few months there has been so much growth in both of our lives. I've never known anyone who loved God the way that Alden does. He really knows what it means to be a follower of Christ. He has been such a great example to me and really led in our relationship. His character and love for God were what truly got me thinking that this is the man that I want to spend the rest of my life with!
December 16, 2008 HE PROPOSED!
It was perfect for me, he knows me so well!
We started the night off by going to look at Christmas lights! We had such a fun time laughing and enjoying one another. We ended up at Mission Inn (which looks incredible during Christmas) We walked around for a long time and had fun with one another...
After we hung out and explored the whole hotel we found a private cove (He knew I wanted it to be just us when he asked me) After a special talk, that I'll always remember, he got on his knee and asked me to marry him... After the shock and tears I said yes.
This is not the end of our story... it's just the start. Our reason for marrying each other is because we believe that we will bring our God more glory by being together than apart. God isn't finished with us yet, as individuals and as a couple.
