How I Met Your Father, Pt. 3

(To read Part 1, please go here.)
(To read Part 2, please go here.)

It wasn't three days later that I met your father. January 11 - 1/11. We were in choir, singing a piece I had sung in Hong Kong. (It's called the Holy City. It's about 15 million pages long, and rather difficult to sing.) I made some sort of comment about how nice our little choir sounded, after only one run through, and compared it to the one I had sung with in Hong Kong. (BBJ, if you don't know it yet - your mama's a jerk. Sorry.) Lo Gung heard me and piped up. "What are you saying about Chinese people?"

Well, BBJ...I did a mean thing. Your Daddy was handsome. I had been home from Hong Kong for two months, so I could at last see this! I assumed he couldn't possibly be Chinese. (Remember - missionaries aren't supposed to notice how attractive people are! I remembered most of the men I had met in Hong Kong as rather plain.)

In my arrogance, I answered him...in Chinese, "Jung gwok yahn cheung mh dou gou' yam'!" (Chinese people can't sing high!) I wanted to show off my Chinese, and make him ask me to repeat myself. (Don't try that trick on your future boyfriends. Imagine if he HADN'T been Chinese? I would have looked pretty stupid!) Imagine my surprise when he answered me, in Chinese!! (Serves me right - of course he would be the best tenor in the choir. Are you catching the irony here?)

From Bubba Bubbles

My social skills knew no bounds. We lost ourselves in our own little world for a minute. "Why are you speaking Chinese?" "Why are YOU speaking Chinese??!" "I served a mission in Hong Kong." "I was BORN in Hong Kong!" After a few minutes, we realized there were 8 other people standing with us, around a piano in a large chapel, waiting to continue the rehearsal. We continued the conversation after rehearsal, in the hall. Turns out I had worked with your Daddy's cousin, during the last part of my mission. What a small, small world! He was just another Elder, being trained when I knew him. We all got a kick out of the fact that he was half
Chinese and knew no Chinese before he entered the Missionary Training Center. (You won't get off so easy, young lady, so don't even THINK about it!) We said goodnight and each went our separate ways.

A few days later, I noticed him at church. (I must have missed him my first week attending that congregation - a Singles Ward.) I sat near him in the chapel during sacrament meeting. Trying to be polite, he turned to me afterwards and said, "Oh! I wished, on Saturday, that I'd had your number - I was sitting at home playing video games. We could have hung out!" Remember all my social graces? Yeah - not so much. I pulled out a piece of paper, wrote down my number and handed it to him. "Here you go!" "Umm...thanks?" (Apparently a girl ought to wait for a man to actually ask for her number before she goes handing it out. Who knew?!)

At the end of our meetings that day (there are three hours of them, every Sunday!), I was chatting with some girls in Relief Society when I noticed him out in the hall. "Hmm. That's interesting - I guess guys in this ward wait outside Relief Society for their girls? How sweet!" As more and more girls left, and fewer and fewer of us were left in the room, and I STILL saw him standing out in the hall every time the door swung open, I realized he might be waiting for me! I walked slowly out into the hall, watching him. If he looked at me, I'd talk to him. If he looked past me, I knew I'd misinterpreted and I'd just keep on walking. He was looking at me! Waiting for me!! This was the Sunday after I'd met him, so it must have been January 16. He wanted to let me know that he and some friends were going to dim sum the following Saturday, and would I like to join them? I said yes, we parted ways again. (How clueless can I be? I ought to have been doing a happy dance or something...instead, I was just pleased that I was making friends and had something on my calendar besides endless job interviews and church functions!)

To be continued...