In a blessing I once received I was told that when I had the
desire to begin a family I should kneel down and pray and the Lord would send
me a husband who would love and take care of me. During my spring semester at the University
of Utah in 2007 I felt like it was time to do this. The past year had been a very busy one for me,
and I had left myself little time for dating.
When I prayed I felt like in order for me to get married I needed to
move closer to the University of Utah and get a new job. So, I did.
I found a job at the university that required less time at work for more
pay and moved to a different apartment that was about 20 minutes closer to
school. This was a great blessing
because I had a lot of time to date on the weekends.
About this same time Allan was praying about marriage
too. He wanted to move out of his
parent’s house and into a new singles ward so that he could meet new people and
be on his own. To his utter
disappointment he felt like he should continue to live at home and go to the
same singles ward. He wasn’t as excited
as I was about the guidance that he had received, but he did it anyway,
trusting that it would all work out.
The first Sunday after I moved, I went to church in my new
ward, and Allan was speaking. He gave a
great talk. It has been over 4 years and
I still remember many of the things he spoke about. I remember being very impressed with
everything that he said. I also remember
that while he was sitting up on the stand he was making funny faces at his
family in the back of the congregation. It
made me like him from the very start. He
was always looking out for new girls in the ward, so he noticed me and my
roommate right away and made a point to come and meet us the next week in the
hallway. He introduced himself to us and
asked a few questions to try and get to know us. My former roommate is a great talker and during
that brief meeting all I was able to say was a quick hello.
The day that Allan stopped us in the hallway to introduce
himself, several people came up to Allan and told him all about my roommate. How perfect she would be for him and that he
needed to ask her out on a date. He was
more interested in me though and wasn’t sure what to do. So he asked if he could carpool with us to a
church fireside. My roommate and I were
already taking two other girls in my car, but we had room for one more, so
Allan decided to pile in with us. (One
single guy with four single girls isn’t so bad after all.)
On the way there my chatty roommate was talking up a storm
with the other two girls, and no one had really said anything to Allan. I wasn’t sure if he knew anyone and didn’t
feel good about not including him in the conversation, so I started asking him
questions about himself. When we got to
the fireside I found our group some seats and made sure to leave a seat next to
me that Allan made sure to sit in. We
talked for a while, and our conversation was really easy and natural. It was like we had been friends for
years.
After that night Allan thought about me all the time. He wanted to call and ask me out on a date,
but he had forgotten to get my phone number.
He had my address because he carpooled with us, but he didn’t want to
freak me out by showing up at my door.
He talked to a friend about it at school several times because he was
going crazy not being able to do anything.
Finally on Thursday he decided he couldn’t wait any longer, so he drove
over to my house and started up the stairs to my door. Half way up he stopped and turned around
ready to leave because he thought it was a crazy thing to do. Thankfully he got up his courage again,
walked back up the stairs and knocked on my door. I had just finished drinking a smoothie, and
it was all over my face, so when I realized it was him I yelled, “hold on a
minute!” and frantically tried to clean up before answering the door. I didn’t have time to look in the mirror
though so the whole time I was worried that I had smoothie on my face! I was very surprised to see Allan and even
more surprised when he asked me out. I
admired his courage in doing it face to face.
I thought that was very brave.
However, I was going to be out of town the next two weekends and didn’t
have time during the week to do anything so I said, “I would love to go on a
date with you but I can’t do anything for the next two weeks.” Allan was really bummed; I can still remember
the look of utter disappointment on his face, but I gave him enough hope that
he waited for two weeks. As soon as
those two weeks were up he called me to solidify plans.
Our first date was wonderful. He took me on a hike that had boulder
climbing at the end (which I love) and to one of my favorite restaurants. On our way to the hike we were having a great
conversation, and he missed the exit because he was paying so much attention to
what I was saying. I took that as a good
sign. I have allergies, and my eyes
watered almost the entire hike! He
thought I was crying at first and eventually asked me if I was okay. It was really sweet. I could hear the concern in his voice. I assured him that I was having a great time,
and that I just had allergies. He let
out this huge sigh of relief and started laughing. He was relieved because he thought for sure
he had done something wrong! We had a
great time and he was very impressed with how I climbed the rocks all the way
to the top, was never scared, and never asked for help. On the way back down a bull moose ran across
our path. We watched it for a while and
then realized that there was a female moose, and the male was chasing after
her! How appropriate. When we got to the restaurant I went to the
bathroom, and when I came out I saw Allan getting our drinks and dancing to the
music that was playing in the restaurant.
He didn’t see me watching him. He
seemed to be totally comfortable and happy, just dancing away. It was at that moment that he stole my
heart. He still dances to the restaurant
music, and my heart still melts every time.
After that Allan started chasing me everywhere! Even with moving and getting a new job I was
still pretty busy so I had asked the Lord to send me a man who would be willing
to chase me, and the Lord certainly answered my prayers. He came over during the week to fix a problem
with my car, he found me at school and walked me to work, he drove me and a
friend to an extra Pilates class we had signed up for, and he came with me to
all of the dance performances that I had to go to for school. He even went to two ballets and an opera in
one weekend! If that’s not true love I
don’t know what is!
One night after I had gotten off of work we were talking and
Allan told me that his mom had wanted to know a lot of things about me that he
hadn’t asked yet and we began talking about how hard it is to ask important
questions when your dating because you don’t want the other person to think you
are “moving too fast” or talking about marriage when you actually aren’t. Then I said, “wouldn’t it be nice to just be
able to sit down and ask all of your questions without worrying about anything,
almost like a game of 20 questions?”
Allan thought that was a great idea, so we took some time during the
next week to write down all of the questions we wanted to ask and set a time to
go and talk. This turned into several
talks that lasted for hours. We called
them “interviews”. Allan came to our
first one with a list of about 5 questions and I had about 5 pages! Mine were a mix of serious questions, and
silly questions to just get him talking and to keep the conversation from
getting too heavy. We had so much fun
doing this and we learned a lot about each other in a very short amount of
time. Our interviews created a very open
relationship between us and now we have great communication in our
marriage. We still add questions to the
list from time to time and hold the occasional “interview” as new things come
up in our lives.
Within a few months we decided we wanted to be married. Allan proposed the night before I left to go
home for Christmas. We went on a walk in
Memorial Park, which was close to where I lived. I could tell that he was really nervous. He kept stopping abruptly and looking around
and then, just as abruptly, start walking again. I kept waiting for it and waiting for it but
he just kept walking. Then he muttered
to himself that there were too many people around and I knew for sure that he
would ask me there. What a cute man he
is. We finally walked up a trail until
we were all alone and were overlooking the park. There he told me some wonderful, beautiful
things about his feelings for me, got down on one knee, and asked me to be his
wife. Even though I knew it was coming I
was so happy, so glad that he would be with me forever. It was a beautiful moment. Then a couple of really funny things
happened. First, Allan put the ring on
my right hand instead of my left! I had
to tell him that it should go on the other hand. He was so embarrassed. Later he told me that he had told himself
that he wasn’t going to do that and went over what hand to put the ring on in
his head, but he was so nervous that he forgot!
It made me love him even more.
Then, a couple of bums walked by and congratulated us on getting
engaged. Random.
On the 9th of May, 2008 we were married in the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ Temple in Salt Lake City. It was a wonderful day. Allan met me at my apartment and we walked to
the Temple. He carried my dress the
entire way and never even tried to peak at it!
It was so nice to be able to have a few quiet moments alone with him,
hand in hand, before we went through the hustle and bustle of the day. When the sealer asked the all important
question Allan gave a resounding “YES!”
I loved that yes. He sounded so
sure, so ready, and so happy. My yes was
much smaller and quieter but with just as much surety and happiness. To marry Allan felt absolutely right.
