I just got married a month ago, and people keep asking us how we met, or how he proposed, and how it feels now, so I've decided to write our story of how we met, and how we got to where we are now, and then after this I'll just continue to write stories about us and what life is like.
Once Upon a Time...
I decided to go on a mission (which I wrote about in one of my last posts). It was great! I was overcoming all of my fears, I was making friends, I was meeting new people, I was talking about Jesus and sharing the gospel, and I was gaining a confidence in myself that had never been there before.
About 4 1/2 months into my mission, I was transferred to Olympia, Washington. That's where I first met Ryan. But at the time his name was Elder. And I have to admit that I didn't like him very much.
(Sometimes I like to go back through my journal and laugh about my first impression of him.) He was my zone leader (which is a missionary who is a leader over a group of missionaries in an area.) Him and his companion were the zone leaders over the missionaries in Olympia. I didn't understand why he was a zone leader. He seemed awfully immature and annoying to me.
From the beginning we argued about all sorts of things, but over time it became just playful banter, and I didn't dislike him anymore. All of us missionaries in Olympia were pretty good friends, and over time I got to know all of them better. I didn't think Ryan was as annoying and I admired his work ethic and his testimony of the gospel. Obviously, we were still missionaries, so no sparks flew or anything, but I didn't dislike him anymore.
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| He told me recently that his only regret from the mission was not shaking the bridge more during this picture. (It was a pretty long drop down and a very rickety bridge.) What a pest! |
I hoped that we'd be able to stay in touch and that after the mission we could be friends, but I didn't have much hope of that happening since I am the most awkward person on the planet and he was very cool and collected. He went home December 2015, and before he left I went to say goodbye to him, and because I am so awkward and don't know what to do in social situations, I gave him the most awkward fist bump on the planet, my face turned tomato red, and then I decided that if I never talked to him ever again that would be okay too. Plus, I thought he'd be married by the time I got home and married people don't become friends with awkward return sister missionaries. So, that was that.
(Obviously, that's not the end of the story like I thought it was because here I am married to him now.)
Fast forward to August 16, 2016, 9 months later, and I came home. I got on Facebook, and I did what I do and uploaded my thousands of pictures from my mission. I felt really self conscious about all the pictures I had to post, so I did it in the middle of the night so it wouldn't be as obnoxious. I also started adding all my new friends from my mission and I was surprised to see that Ryan had already sent me a friend request. I wasn't expecting that.
I then proceeded to continue to be the most annoying person on Facebook and changed my profile picture and my cover photo. On August 21, 2016, I was even more surprised to see that Ryan had commented on my profile picture to say "Welcome back :)". (My chances of him being my friend were picking up!) I said "Thanks!" I took a screenshot of the conversation that followed... so I'll just put that here.
I didn't see his next comment "So, hypothetically, would you ever be interested in going out to dinner sometime?" until the next morning. And I felt physically sick. Not in a bad way though! I just had only been home for a week, and hadn't been asked on a date (let alone GONE on a date!) for like 2 1/2 years! Also, I wasn't expecting the friend request, or the "welcome back!" so I REALLY was not expecting him or anyone, for that matter, to ask me on a date. It made me nervous, which is why I felt kind of nauseous.
I learned later that all of my annoying posting on Facebook was a good thing, because he saw that I was home and he was like "Oh, cool. Sister Warburton's home." Then he went to sleep. And then sometime in the middle of the night he woke up real fast thinking "I have to ask her on a date before anyone else does!" (I like to think that it was the Spirit giving him a little help.)
We weren't going to go on a date until September 1st, but we had a missionary reunion in Provo on August 26th, and that was my first day back in Provo, so I came up with a good reason for him to spend the afternoon with me before the reunion. He couldn't help me unpack, that would be weird. But I had to go pick up textbooks and it's no fun to do that by yourself, so I invited him to walk with me to campus.
I felt nauseous again right before he got there, and I told my roommate that I might throw up, and she said "Oh, boys like it when girls are sick, it gives them an opportunity to help you and comfort you." I didn't throw up. (Thank goodness! That would have been embarrassing!) I was a little nervous at first to be hanging out with a guy, and a good looking one at that. Also, the last time I saw him he was a missionary, so that was kind of weird. But it turned out okay, in fact, it was even better than okay!
We spent the whole afternoon together, driving around, talking, he told me he had always thought I was cute, which shocked me some more. I felt like it was all a joke, like eventually he would tell me it was just a dare or something, but he seemed to genuinely be interested in me, which was even more surprising. (I didn't mind.)
We ended up going to the wrong place for our mission reunion, we were told to meet at Rock Canyon Park, but we ended up accidentally going to the actual Rock Canyon. We walked the trail at Rock Canyon for a bit though to see if the reunion would be there, and it wasn't, but it was a good opportunity to enjoy a nice view and hold hands. Before we got out of the car he asked me how I would feel about holding his hand and I told him I wouldn't mind. (That's one thing I really liked about him from the start. There weren't any guessing games. When he wanted to hold my hand, he asked me if he could, and I said yes. I didn't have to read cues or try to figure out what he meant by having his hand strategically placed here, and he didn't have to guess if my hand being placed there meant I wanted him to hold my hand or not. I appreciated how easy it was to just be with him.)
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| This is the only picture I took that first day hanging out with him. Wasn't it a nice day? :) |
I felt super awkward about going to the mission reunion holding hands with Ryan. He didn't feel awkward at all. He told me later that it was kind of like he was staking his territory. (According to him, that's just how guys work.) I didn't know yet exactly how I felt about him (I had only just gotten back to Provo THAT day!) But I also didn't want him to stop holding my hand, so there we went, right into a crowd of return missionaries who were sure to judge me hardcore for holding hands with another return missionary after being home for only a week.
After the reunion, he dropped me off at my apartment, we made plans to see each other a week later, and then he left and drove back to Logan. (I didn't realize at first just how long of a drive it was to Logan. But he must have REALLY liked me from the start to be willing to drive TWO hours to Provo and then back.)
Oh, before we left the park that the reunion was at, we spotted a great hill for rolling down. So, we rolled down it, obviously. Then the sprinklers turned on, so we obviously had to run through them. (Any guy that invites you to roll down a hill with him and then run through the sprinklers is definitely a keeper.)
He came back on September 1st. We spent the evening swinging on swings at a park, until some children came and we realized that we'd be jerks if we kept the swings to ourselves. Then we ate dinner at Cafe Rio. We finished off the night by going back to Rock Canyon Park to "stargaze." That's what he calls it, I don't feel like it's really stargazing at a public park in the middle of Provo when you can't even see the stars. But, we say that we went stargazing. We were one of about 25 other couples that were also there. Really one of a kind. (I like to make fun of the stereotypical Provo couples, even though I am clearly just like them.) We may or may not have ended up kissing. But we mostly just talked. (That's another thing that I liked about him from the start, we still haven't run out of things to talk about. We always spend more time just talking to each other than we do doing anything else.)
When he dropped me off, I was telling him about this game that I had been thinking about playing with my roommates. If you hold hands with a boy, you owe everyone candy. If you kiss a boy, you owe everyone a cookie. If you make out with a boy, you owe everyone pizza. If you get a boyfriend, you owe everyone ice cream. If you get engaged, you owe everyone steak. (Wow, looking back at this I am so glad I never actually started it, steak is expensive!) We played this game my freshman year and it was pretty funny. So, I was telling him about it, and he said "So, after tonight you would owe your roommates candy, cookies, pizza, and ice cream." (Don't judge me.) So, that was super easy. I had been wondering what to call him, or if he was my boyfriend at this point. I kind of assumed that that was kind of what was happening, but I was also kind of out of the loop with these kinds of things, so I wasn't sure exactly what we were. But right there, in saying what I would have owed my roommates, he let me know that he considered himself to be my boyfriend at this point, and that made things easy for me! :)
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| This is after our first official date. |
So, after that he started coming down once or twice a week. (Love makes you do crazy things, like drive a million hours a week and get almost no sleep when you do just to come see the girl you love.)
We were twitterpated. I was so determined when I came home from my mission to not be addicted to my phone, but that went out the window because I wanted to talk to him as much as possible. He had never had a problem with being on his phone too much, and freaked his roommates out because he always had his phone so he could text me back. We rolled down hills, swung on swings, tried to go geocaching (it was something I had always wanted to do), we ate curry at Thai Village (our favorite restaurant), and we spent countless hours laying in the grass at Rock Canyon park talking about anything and everything.
From that first official date, I kind of had a hunch that he was going to be the person I would marry. Maybe I was just smitten, but I think I just kind of knew.
Once, I showed him this list in my journal that had the traits that I hoped for in a husband. I wrote one like 6 years ago that is absolutely ridiculous (by ridiculous I mean one of my requirements was that his last name had to be Darling because I wanted my name to be Kinsey Darling, that's how ridiculous it was), and right before my mission I wrote a new list that was much more realistic and had more important traits. (It was still long and ridiculous, but not nearly as long as my first one.) I hadn't looked at my list for a while, but as I read each one, they all applied to Ryan. Every single trait. I had been working on getting rid of every expectation I had for a husband (besides the important ones, like him being a worthy priesthood holder or treating me well), because everyone told me that there was absolutely no way that I would find someone that had every trait that I had on my list. I was told it was impossible. BUT IT WASN'T! Because Ryan fit my list perfectly. Ryan isn't perfect in every way, but he is perfect in every way for me.
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| How could I not love a guy that likes to say things like "You got Naked, in the store, on your MISSION?!" as loud as possible, in Walmart, when I tell him that in an attempt to be healthier, I would buy "Naked" juice while I was on my mission. (Imagine the face on an old lady that was walking past us right as he said that.) |
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| Also, how could I not love a guy who is willing to go stand on a frozen lake in 7 degree weather, just so I can cross "stand on a frozen lake" off of my bucket list. And let me document it. |
It wasn't hard to date Ryan, nothing went wrong, we never had any problems. We've always disagreed about silly little things, since we first met in Olympia, but those have always just been fun, teasing arguments. There was never a doubt in my mind that I liked him. And I was head over heels by the first date. I knew that I truly loved him by date 3 or 4. I knew that I wanted to marry him around that same time. I felt like couples always have to have one really hard trial, and I was hoping that ours was that we lived 2 hours away from each other. I think it must have been, because we're still waiting for that hard trial.
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| This is when I got my wisdom teeth out. He took 4 days off of work to come and take care of me. When he left he even put my medicine into baggies and wrote when I needed to take them, so I wouldn't have to figure it out. Isn't that sweet? And he kept telling me that I looked beautiful, even with cheeks like this and and bad breath. |
On November 8, 2016, he proposed. He put a lot of effort into finding a ring that I would like. I'm probably the pickiest, most fickle person on the planet, and I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been to him to try to find something that fit my expectations. (I may or may not have prayed multiple prayers that he would find something I liked, or that I would be able to like whatever he found. I know, I know. I'm ridiculous.) We drove to the end of the Alpine Loop and couldn't go where he wanted to go, because it was closed for Winter. We walked a little ways, then turned around, then he had me sit on a rock so he could take a picture of me. It was kind of dark, so the pictures weren't turning out very good (also I knew exactly what he was actually doing, he isn't the most subtle guy on the planet) but eventually he got a picture that he thought was good, I walked over so he could show it to me, and then he pulled the ring out of his pocket, and asked me to marry him. :) I put the ring on and hugged him. It was too dark to get a good picture of him proposing to me, but, if you know me, you know that I love pictures, and I really wanted a picture to help me remember it. (I also didn't want anyone there, so I made that difficult for him also.) We walked back to the car so we could get a picture of it. He knelt down for the second time and told me that I never actually said yes to his actual proposal. So, I said yes, and we were engaged. :)
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| This is the picture he took of me right before he proposed. |
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| This is when I actually said "yes." (: |
Fast forward a few months as he patiently put up with more of my ridiculousness as we planned our wedding.
On February 9, 2017, we had a perfect reception that literally came together without any problems. (I have a lot of faith in the power of prayer, if you can't tell... because I prayed for that also...) Almost all of our family members could make it, and a bunch of our friends.
On February 10, 2017, we had a perfect wedding in the Provo City Center temple where we were sealed together for time and all eternity. And we spent 2 hours taking pictures outside with no rain, even though the forecast said 100% chance of rain. (Here's another testimony of prayer, because it started POURING minutes after we finished taking pictures. "There are few things more powerful than the faithful prayers of a righteous bride." ((that may not be the actual quote...)))
And now, I am married to the most perfect guy for me. I am so grateful for the blessing that he is in my life and, I can't wait to see what the rest of eternity has in store for the two of us.
Congratulations if you made it all the way to here! You win a prize! (Which is getting to know the best love story that has ever happened!)
