The Day I Fell In Love With A Foreigner

"Quel est votre nom?" A tall dark-haired handsome young man asked me.
"Whaaat?" I giggled.
"Whas yudr nam?" He tried to say it so that I could understand.
"Lori," I replied with another giggle.  This time with a blush.
Who was this guy?  If he wasn't so cute, I wouldn't have been so amused.  
"I'm not from around here," He said.
"No kidding," I replied.  He missed the sarcasm in my voice.
"I'm not kidding."
There was an awkward pause between us.  I was waiting on him to explain while he was interrupting my alone time at the mall.   Who was this foreigner and why did he single me out?
I was laughing nervously but secretly loving the attention.
There wasn't much explanation, but our conversation continued.  The trip to the mall turned into a date at a small cafe and three hours of talking.  I'm not sure that he understood what I was saying to him, but he always acted like he did.    After we exchanged phone numbers we parted ways.

That was the day I fell in love with a foreigner.

Weeks turned to months and months turned into one year of dating.  We celebrated at the cafe in the mall.  Then it happened.  The proposal.  Then a few months later, the wedding.

There was only one problem.
Everyone warned me that this would happen.  It did.  
The cuteness wore off.  He no longer seemed to understand what I was saying to him.
I was sure he would understand my language by now.  He didn't.  In fact, he quit speaking to me in my native language and would only speak to me in his.  If I wanted to understand him, then I would have to speak his language.  I had taken language lessons before we got married, but since we got married and were both working full-time jobs, there wasn't much time for the lessons, or so I thought.

Then there was baby number one.

Two years later, baby number two.

We both tried a little.  I spoke to him when I could in his language, just enough to communicate the necessities.  He did the same.  But we weren't growing and learning.  We weren't REALLY trying.

I had enough.  I began to secretly schedule my language lessons.  Every day I learned a new word.  It didn't seem like much the first week.  Seven new words.  But in that month I learned 31 new words.  I was making new sentences now.  Then things started making sense.   He didn't really notice until about month three.  I was speaking complete paragraphs in his native language.  By month six, I used my own language as little as possible - just enough to get by or communicate things I couldn't say any other way.  By one year, I was fluent.  I was so fluent that he decided it was time for a vacation.  We flew out on our own and left the children with the grandparents.    

I fell in love with my foreigner all over again.... all by learning to speak AND speaking his language.

What is your spouse's love language? Find out and began to speak it -one word at a time-!

Words of Affirmation - Acts of Service - Receiving Gifts - Quality Time - Physical Touch

We took this on our California Vacation, 2013