After a devastating breakup, broadcast journalist Tamara decides to do something a little different for her 31st birthday: 31 dates in 31 days. But what starts as a fun blogging experiment quickly turns into big news and an even bigger spiritual eye-opener than Tamara initially assumed as she discovers more about who she is and how God sees the potential in all of us. SHOW NOTES This episode of This Is The Gospel is sponsored by GOSPEL DAY BY DAY. To find pictures and videos, please visit LDSliving.com/thisisthegospel TRANSCRIPT KaRyn Lay 0:04 Welcome to This Is The Gospel - an LDS living podcasts where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith everyday. I'm your host KaRyn Lay. A few years ago LDS Living made a video series called, "Love Lessons." You may have seen them. We invited three couples who had collectively been married over 125 years to share their well- earned wisdom about life in the trenches of love and faith. I had just hit five years of marriage myself and was quickly learning that there was still so much I didn't know about this business of tying your life together with another person. I was so grateful to hear these honest stories of work and sacrifice and frankly, longevity. We made four videos with those couples, including the video of our friends, Jim and Lyndia and they are a delight. So, to kick off our theme today, which... we sort of stole from that video series, we thought it was only fair that we share the audio from the compilation video that features Vern and his wife, Myumi, Bonnie and her husband Bruce, and our buddies Jim and Lyndia. Bonnie 1:19 We've been married for 51 years. Lyndia 1:22 54 years Vern 1:23 we're celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary this year. Friday the 13th turned out to be the luckiest day of my life. Bonnie 1:30 I think what I love the most about Bruce is he's very kind. Jim 1:35 She's a good cook Vern 1:36 Serene Lyndia 1:40 He is a very compassionate person. Bruce 1:41 She is truly the person I always wanted to be. Vern 1:47 She is the epitome of serenity. Myumi 1:51 That's not.... Lyndia 1:51 One surprise to me about marriage after all these years is what a joy it is at this stage. Bruce 1:56 I didn't know that it would be that wonderful again, As it was, you know, before we had all these little screaming Mimi's Bonnie 2:04 Well, it's not easy. And if anybody thinks that you're going to be on your honeymoon for 51 years, It's ridiculous. Jim 2:11 Sometime the tunnel's pretty long, Lyndia 2:14 and dark. Well, it has been an enjoyable challenge. Because I've been introduced into a culture that I was just totally ignorant of. Bruce 2:23 It was very hard for her, I know that. What hurt so much? Bonnie 2:27 You! I think I had to been like in my 30s or early 40s. And I thought, this is it? This isn't....This isn't fun. Lyndia 2:38 It didn't matter to me that Jim wasn't a member of the church because I loved him very much. And I thought if I only live with him for this time only, then that was what I would be happy with. But a couple years later, when our children started to come along, I realized that was not true. That I wanted to be with my children and him forever, Jim 2:55 Really, the only reason it worked in those early years... We both loved the Lord. And we taught our children to love the Lord, Bonnie 3:05 The secret to anything I think, is holding to the rod. If you hold to the rod, and don't give up, when things are hard, there's always a way through. President Hinckley always said it - that that this will pass and that things will get better and things always do get better. Lyndia 3:25 So you have to be patient and loving and see where it goes. Bruce 3:29 Yeah, Bonnie 3:30 you're gonna have ups and downs and but it's worth it. You cannot change someone to fit the mold you want them to be. Myumi 3:38 I just respect his space and he respect my space. I love him the way he is. Vern 3:45 Be sure to buy two tubes of toothpaste. Bonnie 3:50 I will say you are the love of my life. And I'm so grateful that we have stuck it out this long and I see us together another gazillion or Google? Do you say Google now? Jim 4:05 she's my babe. Bruce 4:08 And I love you. And I love the fact that I'm going to have you by my side forever. Lyndia 4:13 I love him so much. love being with him. Bonnie 4:22 How could you not kiss? Bruce 4:24 Yeah. KaRyn Lay 4:34 You'll have to watch the videos to see those really adorable little smooches that you heard at the end of the audio. And we'll have that, as well as each individual couple's video in our show notes at LDSliving.com/thisisthegospel . Really, if you're looking for something fun to celebrate the Spirit of St Valentine - This is it. You know, one of the things that I love most about the Love Lessons videos is that they represent the end result of a lifetime of learning about the true nature of love. Each of those couples paid the price to sit on that couch and dish about what love looks like for them. Well, in today's episode, we have one story about someone at the beginning of that journey, who decided that in order to learn her lessons well, she needed to take an unconventional approach to the world of dating. And whether you are well seasoned in your own understanding of Christ -like love or struggling to make sense of something that sometimes feels like nonsense, Tamara's experienced will probably ring more than a few bells. Here's Tamara. Tamara 5:35 You know, some people would say I'm kind of living this Hollywood love story, because of the way that things played out or the ending or...well, I happen to actually live in Hollywood and work in Hollywood as well. But, I think it's more of this Hollywood love story because I honestly did not anticipate going into this with any expectations. Isn't that the best kind of story? So, let's go back to New York in 2009. That's when this all started. Before that, I'd gone through two major breakups. You know, those heart heartbreaking types of breakups where it's like, you don't really care if you collapse into a ball of tears in public. You just aren't sure things are ever going to be mended again. And you start questioning yourself, you know, what am I doing wrong? And ... am I lovable? You know all these terrible things that we start to ask ourselves, and that was where I was, and my 31st birthday was coming up. I was in a Singles Ward, and being in a singles ward and turning 31 means that you no longer go to the singles ward. Instead you go to a family word, and that was tough for me. I'd been in a singles ward since I joined the church in my early 20s. And so leaving a singles Ward was a big deal to me. It was leaving my friends. It was leaving my spiritual connections and kind of truthfully felt like I was a failure, because I was still single. I know that sounds terrible to say, but I did. I remember when I was 21 years old meeting a woman who was 28, who was still single in my ward and thinking, "Ah, how sad." And then I was 31 and single, and thought, "it's not terrible." But I did feel like I didn't get it at this point... that I didn't understand dating. I wanted to learn something, I wanted to figure out what I needed to do to improve myself. So I decided that it was time for me to just go back to the very basics of dating. And for me, that was first dates. It had been a long time since I'd just kind of dated I would go out on a first date, and then think. "it's going to be a long time until I have another first date. I should invest in as much in this person as I can right now." And I would decide that I was their girlfriend. They were my boyfriend. And probably way too soon. I decided I needed to just start over and go back to trying to develop friendships with people. I'm a TV news producer, I like to think of things in terms of projects. So I turned this into a little bit of a project. For my 31st birthday, I thought 30...31... 31 dates in 31 days. That's 31 days straight in a row of going out every night with a new guy. I kind of came up with a set of rules. The first 30 dates, I decided, would be a first date, and I would blog about it along the way. I wasn't intending on dating these guys much less marrying them, so they didn't have to meet any of my past list requirements. But I would go out with somebody as long as they didn't give me the creepy serial killer vibe. Basically, I'd go out with anybody who would agree to go out with me You know, I would make sure to do something that wasn't just like, a sit down dinner where it felt like I was like, interviewing the person in front of me. I definitely didn't want to do just your dinner and a movie for 31 days straight. I wanted it to be something more as a way to explore my city around me. And I kind of figured, if the guy and I did not have as much fun of a time as we wanted, then at least we'd enjoy the scenery a little bit. I wanted to make sure that the date lasted at least 31 minutes. So you couldn't just walk up and say, "Hi, nice to meet you." and then bail. You had to start investing some time. It had to be in a public place. I put a price tag on it. I decided that if I were going to spend a month trying to invest in learning about myself and learning about men, I kind of looked at this a little bit of like my master's class in men. And just like any class, you should be willing to pay for it. So I set a budget of $31 a date And I had a secret rule for myself, no kissing any of these guys. The 31st date, I decided, would be a second date. One of the guys that I'd met from the first 30 days. I'd hold a poll on my blog... people would help me decide who I would go out
