Six Years: Hot Cocoa and Cookies

Six years ago yesterday I begrudgingly walked onto a plane and flew home from Michigan after two years of full-time missionary service. Six years ago today I made a decision that changed my life. I went tracting--because I just couldn't leave missionary work behind me.

Actually, it was because I had a letter from two young ladies whom I had never met, but really wanted to meet. They had written me a few times during my mission, and I had really enjoyed their letters. The one wrote on just about anything: receipts, napkins, advertisements; and she usually told me about funny names of people that she met at her job. The other wrote absolutely hilarious letters about all sorts of stuff--her writing style employed clever quips and pictures, and then insights from religion classes at BYU.

The night before I left Michigan I was given a letter in the Mission Home that had just arrived from these two girls, and the one had written at the end of the letter: "If you want to meet us faithful cheerleader/supporters [when you get home], just call or stop by." So that's what I did. On December 13th, 2001, after a morning temple session, watching a pre-school Nativity Christmas play, and getting a TB test, I steered my parents' Isuzu Trooper onto 650 North and looked for house number 1072. The address numbers were not clearly marked, so I boldly approached the most likely home and knocked. A young lady with long brown hair and brown eyes opened the door.

"Is this 1072 West?" I asked.
"Yes. Are you sure you don't need the girls downstairs?" she responded looking confused because she'd never seen me before.
"I don't know," I said. "I'm looking for Jessica Smith or Sara Nash."
"I'm Jessica," she said.
"Oh good! I'm a hologram," I told her.

And then she knew who I was.

Perhaps the main reason I wanted to meet these two was that the one, Jessica, had this running joke with me in her letters that I was a hologram. She was convinced of this fact because everything she had heard about me from those who knew me (such as my former band-mates Aaron and Spencer who I think were so distraught about losing their drummer that they used hyperbole when describing me, and my former co-workers at Teriyaki Stix where Jessica worked for a few months not long after I left on my mission--apparently I was missed there too) was "too good to be true." She could not believe that someone like "Brian" existed, so when she wrote me the first time she told me she thought I was a non-entity, a hologram.

For whatever reason, this little joke was so fun to me, and so when I got their invitation to stop by in that last letter, I was determined to do so. When Jessica realized who I was she invited me in, and she and Sara served me some cookies and hot cocoa while we talked about... probably my mission, I don't really know. But a year and eight days later Jessica and I knelt across from each other in the Jordan River Temple to be sealed for time and all eternity.

And every December 13th since we have had cookies and hot cocoa in the evening, usually with Sara, who will come by tonight for this little tradition.