How We Met!

So I'd like to start by saying that I am pretty sure Ed Sheeran was talking about us when he wrote "people fall in love in mysterious ways" in his song, Thinking Out Loud. It's pretty interesting and we're convinced it was the only way possible for us to even know the other person existed since we would have never crossed paths any other way. I also want to add that we did not tell our friends and family the real way we met for YEARS because we didn't want to be judged. But obviously, we feel better about it now, almost 7 years into our marriage haha.

The story starts in Provo, Utah; although only one of us was living there. Russell was attending Brigham Young University in Utah and I was attending CSU Monterey Bay in California and in a relationship with someone who was serving a mission for our LDS church. I was not dating anyone else and in fact, I was planning my wedding to this missionary that I was very committed to. Anyway, the night before the beginning of my spring break, I had a friend request on Facebook. I opened the request, it was Russell, and automatically had this very familiar feeling about the face staring back at me on the screen. I wondered if maybe I had met him at a church camp in Utah years before so I accepted with the intention of asking how we knew each other.

The next morning, there was a message waiting for me. It was from my new "Facebook friend", Russell. Here is the exact message that I've kept all these years: "hey look im really sorry...my friend got onto my account last night and started adding people and posting stupid stuff as a joke so you ended up being one of them. that is weird that we are both friends with **** and **** though. anyways you can delete me. sorry once again." I replied with, "hmmm alright. thats weird. you can go ahead and delete me. and its fine. just didnt want to completely ignore the request and be rude if i did know you."

But the conversation didn't end there. A half hour later, he Facebook chatted me and wondered about the two mutual friends we had because the two of them live on the opposite ends of the country. One of which he has known since Kindergarten and I knew her from college, and the other he met on his mission and I "Facebook met" through a FB group for missionary girlfriends (yes, this group really exists.) I explained that to him and we kept chatting about school, my missionary boyfriend, etc. I made it very clear that I had a boyfriend (more like my fiancé in my eyes) and that if we were going to continue to talk and get to know each other, it would only be as friends. Obviously, I thought he was as handsome as can be but I was VERY dedicated to my missionary boyfriend. Don't even get me started on how dedicated I was, you can ask my friends from college haha.

Anyway, I went on my spring break, returned back to work and school, I continued to be dedicated to my boyfriend who was on a mission, and lived my life. Russell and I talked on and off. I think just a week after Russell and I became Facebook friends, my missionary boyfriend and I parted ways. And before you jump to the conclusion that I broke it off with him to be with Russell, you are incorrect. I just don't want to go into details of the break up and point fingers at anyone. Especially so publicly. Let's just say we both agreed to part ways although it was hurtful.

A few weeks after that, Russell asked if he could come visit me for his spring break and I said yes. Remember we had never met in person! He drove from Provo, Utah to Monterey, California in the middle of the night and the next morning we met in person for the first time! It was weird but awesome and we had our very first kiss maybe 10 minutes after meeting face to face! WHAT?! Again, he felt so familiar to me, like he had been my best friend my whole life.

After that, he returned to school in Utah and I stayed in California to finish my senior year. I graduated from college, moved to Utah to be with him a few months after, and the rest is history!

As I am writing this, I am nervous of people judging like, "he could have been a serial killer" "don't encourage people to meet strangers online" "that happened way too fast" and so forth but we truly believe that we met in the way that we did and felt the familiarity that we did for a specific reason. We believe that every couple has their own story and no matter what it looks like to those from the outside, if it's right and meant to be then it'll happen when and how its suppose to! We're thankful God had this exact plan for us to meet. Thanks, Facebook!