The Real Story

Handed down by: James Harvey

Out of respect to my wonderful wife and mother I will take a few minutes to write the true tale of Rebecca and James and their meeting and courtship. I still have not read Rebecca's version so we shall see how closely they align.

I got home from my mission on January 3rd, 1995. Two days later I was on a plane to Salt Lake City and the next day was in a car on my way to Rexburg, ID to continue my education at Ricks College. I had no time to be the weird RM because I was surrounded by many good looking young ladies and I wanted to impress.

My second Sunday at Ricks we went over to meet our Family Home Evening sisters. Come to find out later, our roomate Jordan was in charge of selecting which apartments would be together in FHE groups and he conveniently made sure our guys apartment was in a "Family" with 2 girls apartments that were teeming with good looking young ladies. With that said, we went over after to church to meet our "sisters" and found one the apartments watching the AFC championship game. At the time being a brand new RM this was kind of shock to my system - watching sports, and on the sabath none the less! - but trying not to be the weird RM and being a huge sports fan, I went with the flow and thought that it was kind of cool that they would be watching football (I now get in trouble at times for watching football on Sundays). I found out at that time that the impetus behind watching the game was none other than the beautiful Rebecca Andersen. She was interested in the game because she was from the San Diego area and the San Diego Chargers were in the game (thank you Steve [my father in-law] for teaching your daughter to enjoy sports). There you have it - James and Rebecca meet.

Weeks went by and we continued to have FHE together and spend a lot of time over at our "sisters" apartments. I was, again trying not to be weird, going on numerous dates with numerous young ladies. Although I was having some fun, I realized after a while that I didn't totally enjoy spending money that I really did not have on a lot of different people and decided that it was time to only worry about my education. All the while I was still doing a lot of things with Rebecca and her roomates and found her to be quite attractive and very fun to be around - and learned later that she was thinking that I was totally HOT!

Spring Break was rapidly coming and some of our FHE group decided we needed to do something fun, so we hatched a plan to go to San Diego for the week. Somehow we managed to fit ten people and all of the stuff we needed for the week into a rented Suburban. Needless to say we were tight and I will be eternally greatful for this - explination to follow. We started out on our trek in the afternoon with the plan to take turns driving, which would allow us to drive through the night and make it to San Diego faster. I don't know if drove first or second, but I do know that I was driving between Cedar City and Saint George Utah when a huge snow storm hit in the dark and I had a fun time trying not to be mezmerized by the snow. I found out later that Rebecca was impressed with my driving and felt safe and pictured me as a dad driving my family at that time. After the snow storm was over, it was someone elses turn to drive. I was lucky enough to get a place (I would usually call it a seat, but as mentioned earlier we were smashed in and the only person to really have a seat was the driver) right next to Rebecca - this is where the fun starts. Our next stop was in Las Vegas, but before we arrived there Rebecca and I started snuggling and eventually had our first kiss. I still wonder if anyone else saw it happen, but no matter because it was awesome! When we got out in Las Vegas for breakfast I told Michael, my best friend, what had happened. He got a little upset with me and said, "No, she is a good one". I guess he thought that I was just, for lack of a better word, ncmoing with Rebecca - something I never did. I propmtly let him know that I would do no such thing and this put his mind somewhat at ease. By the way, he was exactly right, Rebecca is a good one and I am so thankful she is my wife.

The spring break trip progessed and the others in our group quickly found out that things had changed dramatically and quickly between Rebecca and me. We did many things on that trip: the beach, Disneyland, temple baptisms, Mexico; but the best part of the trip was at night when Rebecca and I would stay up late having some serious conversations about what we wanted out of life and what our goals were. I can truly say that I fell in love with Rebecca at that time. She was so impressive to me - her desires for a family, her testimony of the gospel, and many other things. I don't know if I fully comprehended it at the time, but I met my in-laws before we ever went on our first date.

We got back to Ricks and things continued to progress quite rapidly. Rebecca and I finally went on our first date. A few weeks after we got back to Ricks I told Rebecca that I loved her for the first time. When I got back to my apartment that night (our actually probably early morning) I told Michael about this and he freaked out and was trying to figure out how he was losing his friend so quickly. All the while, it just felt right. We were engaged some time in late April (Rebecca propbably knows the date) right before I left to go home for the summer. (That's a little less than 4 months after getting home from the mission.)

This is a brief expination of the proposal: I knew, and so did Rebecca, that I had to propose before I left Ricks. We both knew it was going to happen I just had to decide when. After calling my soon to be father in-law and getting permission (that was a very nerve racking experience and Steve was probably wondering if he should give permssion after hearing me, but thankfully he did) I set up a date to go to a movie. The movie we went to see was "Quiz Show", which turned out to be dud. Before the movie actually started I did my disappearing quarter trick that I had done for Rebecca more than once so I am sure she was just nicely playing along with the trick but probably thinking, "Really James, again". This time the trick was a little trickier because somehow the quarter disappeared and I pulled an engagment ring out of her ear. She said yes, thank goodness, and we left the movie early to just celebrate.

The engagement was tough because we were so far apart. Rebecca actually stayed at Ricks for the Spring Term. I drove up to Rexburg with a couple guys from our ward (Gary Sargeant and Steve Garletts) to help Rebecca pack up her stuff and drive down to San Diego. I went down to San Diego a couple of more times and Rebecca come up to Manteca once during our almost four month engagement. Needless to say I racked up a pretty good size phone bill for my parents at that time. I truly missed her when I was away from her and loved the times that we were together. Finally, August 19th, 1995 (less than eight months after getting home from my mission) Rebecca and I were sealed for time and all eternity in the San Diego Temple. We had a rocking reception in her parent's backyard and then headed off on our honeymonn.

We had a wonderful honeymoon. We spent a couple of nights in Coronado and then headed up the coast of California so we could get to Manteca by the next Saturday for another reception. We spent a day at Disneyland (a place we now have a ton of fun taking our kids to), a day in Monterey (we now take our kids to the aquarium there), and a day in Tiburon a little town north of San Francisco.

There you have it, the Real Story. How thankful I am that it worked out like it did and that Rebecca actually liked me enough to marry me.