They moved in some of his things last night and will be going back for the rest this afternoon. Thomas and I spent the evening with him and Eler Beth yesterday, helping to move things in, and we bought them dinner. This boy is serious!
I was having lunch with them a few days ago and I mentioned how he is making so many big changes all at once, and that, believe it or not, it's going to suddenly hit him. He's only 21, after all, and has always lived with his parents and worked for his dad's company. He is used to having a somewhat flexible schedule. And he has always gone to the same congregation all his life. So although he has many friends down here, and he loves our congregation, and he has us, he is going from his old life to a new job with more hours and less flexibility AND the responsibility of taking care of expenses that he has never had before -- and all this well BEFORE he has the joy of having a wife. He told me he was more worried about Eler Beth getting stressed over the next few weeks and months, making wedding plans, saving for the wedding, working more hours, and so forth. But then Thursday night I went with them to Columbus so he could visit his home congregation for their mid-week meeting for the last time as a member of that congregation. As soon as we entered the doors he was greeted with, "I hear this is your last night with us!" And then they made an announcement from the stage that it was his last night as a member of their congregation, and they wished him well as he moved on to his next assignment at our congregation in Jeffersonville. Then everyone gave him a round of applause. He hadn't been expecting any of that, and I could see it affected him. (It isn't as though he won't see them. He and Eler Beth will visit often, and they will see the friends up there on other occasions as well.) His mom and dad were there, of course, and I enjoyed having a nice chat with them. Someone asked Tom how he was handling Anthony moving away, and he said, "They all have to at some point, and he's ready. He's going to a good place and a good family." But he was their baby, and I know they'll miss him.
(FOR THE RECORD Thomas and I did not, even once, try in ANY way to influence them about where they would live. We assumed they would live in Columbus after they were married, and we had been steeling ourselves, mentally preparing ourselves for that eventuality, knowing that visiting them, only a little over an hour away, was not going to be a hardship, and that we'd get used to not having her nearby all the time. We never said anything about it one way or the other. But when Eler Beth told us that Anthony really wanted to live down here after they were married, inside I was going, "YAY!!!")
We went out to eat afterward with a large group of friends, (and his sister who lives a little further north joined us as well) and on the way there, I asked, "So...is it hitting you yet?" Then Eler Beth, typically the over-worrier, apologized to him for taking him away from Columbus, and he said, "Are you kidding me? I'd move to another country to be with you!"
So, yeah, that's how things are progressing in the "true love" department. We have a general idea of when the wedding will be -- March or April, but no set date or other plans yet, and they have made no formal announcement because he hasn't got her a ring yet. But I heard some of the girls at dinner Thursday night offering to do Eler Beth's makeup for "the wedding" because they'd done his sisters' makeup and would be happy to volunteer their services to her as well. So it's pretty much established in everyone's minds. Everyone knows Anthony and Eler Beth well enough to know that they were serious from the get-go.
They are young and hard-working and determined, and they have a lot of love and support. And I am so very sure that they love one another in the right way. Just as I saw Andrew and Alexandria putting the other one first I see that with Eler Beth and Anthony. So it is going to be an interesting next few months!
