SECRET LOVE(S)

Back in the days when radios played music and not noise there was a lovely tune, the lyrics of which said, "Once I had a secret love...and now my secret love's no secret any more."

I've thought of that song this morning ever since I met Joseph as he was skipping like a six-year-old (really!), and beaming all over. I said something like, "feeling good this morning?" His reply: a big smile and an uninhibited, "Do I EVER feel good!" as he skipped on past.

Then I took another ten steps and met Chelsie, and she had a happy look on her face. (We live here, you see, in a church-owned apartment complex that houses perhaps seventy single LDS students--men and women segregated, yet somewhat evenly mixed.)

I'll return to Chelsie in a moment, but let me first tell you the rest of the "Joseph" story: I got in the house and Ranelle told me that Jenny (Joseph's girlfriend) had just driven away, so that means he had just said goodbye to her before I saw him. (And she is so pretty her very presence would make any young man want to skip and smile.) But I just have a suspicion there's more to the story because last night as we were headed out, they two were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the back yard. As we walked past we told them how good they look together. They smiled knowingly as we turned the corner and left.

Returning now to the "Chelsie" encounter, I suggested that maybe she was headed off to work. "Nope!" was her quick reply: "to Krogers--to buy a ticket. Nathan and I are going to the renaissance (whatever that is) and I can get them cheaper there!" There was a happy light on her face too.

And then last night we saw Kelly stepping briskly to meet Mitch as he drove in from his day at school. Happy, happy greeting between the two. Watching her from far away her every body movement reflected her intense joy at greeting her man. (Those two are a very happy story--she's a 29-year-old, six-year convert to the church, and just as beautiful as can be, plus she's a highly-successful practicing attorney who is "on the road" all week long. Mitch is four years younger but he is perhaps the most promising attorney-to-be that the near-by MSU Law School has produced in many years. Mitch and Kellie will marry next November.)

And Elder and Sister O'Dell get to sit on the front row of the grand stands, cheering as this happy, everlasting drama unfolds before them!