Sarah's page

yes, i know, i turned a mrs. a week and a half ago, but i haven't had time to come on and shout it out to the world yet...well, the blog world that is.

the wedding went awesome! it was so amazing to be in the temple, getting ready for illya and i to be married. it was strange, too. in my head, i kept on saying,"is this really happening? am i really in the temple right now, about to get married?!" even after we were told we were man and wife i didn't realize it. it wasn't until after we were married, when we were sitting in the celestial room by ourselves did it hit me that this man i was staring at was my husband. it was so nice to be able to hug and kiss and take a moment alone before the madness hit.

i couldn't have ever gotten married anywhere else. i told myself when i was 8 years old that getting married in the temple was the only way i was going to get married.

we had quite a scare a couple weeks before the wedding, though. illya didnt have a renewed temple recommend, but my bishop couldn't give him one until he got his records over from here from russia. we thought that would only take about 5 days. we found out just 5 days before the wedding that because of red tape that the governments have set up for us getting church records from one country to the next, it could take anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks!

the only option we could think of was calling the moscow office to see if they could push it along from their end some how. if not, then we'd have to do a civil ceremony outside of the temple.

for me, i knew that wouldn't happen. don't get me wrong, i was stressed out! but, when i thought of marrying illya, i could never see it anywhere but the temple. i knew something would work out.

well, we got ahold of someone over there and once he heard our situation, he was more than happy to help us. well, we didn't know until we talked to our bishop the next day that when the man said "help out" it meant "illegally send it to you"!! i guess our bishop got chewed out from the offices in salt lake because they thought it was our doing! once bishop told them that we had no clue what was going on, but it was the man over there in russia, they relaxed a bit. i guess both the lawyers of the churh from the u.s. and the europe side where mad and putting the blame on eachother. the people over here were just happy to know that it was, actually, THEIR fault over there, not ours over here!

illegal or not, i didn't care! THIS was a blessing. we were suppose to get married there and The Lord saw to it to make sure it happened!

so, thank you, kind brother in moscow, for putting your butt on the line for us and for helping us to have the wedding we wanted. you're our angel!!

love~

sarah plaksey =)

yes, I know, Illya is so much better at updates then me (trust me, I hear it from him all the time!). But, life has been SO busy!!

First off, Illya finally made it here. I can't believe w/ all my luck that the day Illya would've came in would be the same day that the east coast decides to have the worst snow storm in over 75 years! I told Illya that it's a good think I know the Lord wants us to be together or else I'd see all these delays as a sign for him to stay in Ukraine!!

But, he made it and it was amazing to see him coming! My mom, dad, sister and 2 neices made it to the airport w/ me, all w/ signs, flags and even my dad in his fur hat we got him from Ukriane! As soon as I saw the top of his head come through the security airport, I ran to him and almost knocked him over. He could tell I was emotional and he told me to not to cry, so I did my best to obey! =) I couldn't stop touching him though. I had to have one hand on him at all times, just to make sure he was actually there that it wasn't a dream.

As soon as he got here, we began the move to our new home. What a sucky, stressed out time that was! And Illya was such a good sport about it too. He helped nonstop, even when his back was killing him. My family couldn't help but love him after that (my dad starting calling him,"slave boy"...that didn't fly too well w/ Illya =).

With all of this, Illya and I had a scare w/ his records from the church in Russia being sent over to my ward here in Portland. We needed it here to get his temple recommend renewed for the wedding. But, even my bishop didn't know that it could take anywhere from 3- 8 weeks (we had less than 2!). Through a miracle from God, though, we were able to get his records here (somewhat illegally) and I'll be getting my endowments out w/ Illya by my side the day before the wedding (talk about cutting it close!).

Add to all of this tying the loose ends up for the wedding and reception and you got one hell of a headhache!!

But, my boy is worth this. It hard at times for both of us to adjust w/ Illya living here now (more for Illya, as I'm sure you can imagine). But, we just hold eachother as much as we can, knowing this will pass and we'll be in normal life soon.

I am amazed at his sacrifice to be here just for me. I don't think I could be that strong. I don't feel worthy of it either. But, I'm so happy he's here. It sounds corny, but I finally have found I can take a deep breath. It's as if my whole life has been waiting for him so it could truly begin. I can say, at this point, my life is complete

Sarah