I am way behind here! :) All of last year, after Sam came to Dad, Sam and I started getting to know each other very well. At first it was all between Dad and Sam and then about April we started e-mailing once a week. We truly started to become best friends! We went to the Big Sandy Conference 2006 and REALLY got to know each other in leaps and bounds there I believe! I started work at Shepherd Automotive doing the bookwork and Sam was training me in that. He left for Texas to work at Blepo in Ft. Worth the first of July and at first things were really hard for me. I certainly am glad that the Lord taught me so much back in '05 during the fall and winter months when I was uncertain how Sam felt and I was nervous that Dad had told Guy and I was learning to depend on the Lord because if I hadn't had those lessons learned when Sam left ot would have been a bigger blow on me. It went from seeing each other 4-5 times a week to seeing each other on weekends every now and then. I am soooo grateful to the Lord for His love and grace to me! For His faithfulness! Monday nights became the night that I looked forward to all week long so we could e-mail and chat! :)
At this time Sam and I both knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that God was in this relationship and we both felt like we were certainly the one for each other but we were keeping those words kind of to ourselves at this point. I thought it was going to be a long time before anything serious, serious happened so I was keeping my expectations and peace in the Lord!

Sam came home a lot more on the weekends by now and he started setting with our family in church in September. Oh something else was I had sent my application in for Russia at this point. I had had to send an appeal to get to go though since I was in a relationship/courtship and that was one of the "fine prints" on the application to get to go! That info will be important later in my story here! :) Sam started spending a lot of his weekend at our house and doing things with our family.
I was accepted to go to Russia and we were very careful how we conducted ourselves because of that! We all agreed that when I got home we would announce a public courtship. This whole time we had both been talking to people besides our parents and getting advice and wisdom and guidance from them. Sam had talked to Pastor Wells several times and Jim Sammons as well. I had talked to several married young woman who had been through all this and gave me prayers, encouragement, wisdom, love and support! I believe too that that had a HUGE impact on keeping my expectations in the Lord and trusting in His plans and not presuming upon the future! God was so good to me during this time! I was completely excited about what He was doing and was enjoying where we were at that point in the relationship realizing that we would never have that again! You can never go back and redo your time and I did NOT want to ever look back with regret! I know I sure don't right now!