How We Met As Told By Ian

Due to popular request, the long wait to hear Ian's side of the story is over and you can hear it told in its dramatic entirety.

I had just recently come off of my mission in December of 2006. I was attending my first semester of college with a head full of determination and desire to be diligent in my assignments in school and church. (hopefully that has not changed, as I still strive to be diligent in my doings). However, I came into the semester half-way through on the second block which meant that I did not receive a calling nor a home teaching assignment the whole rest of the semester! You can imagine what this did to a brand new return missionary. I was going insane. I tried to volunteer for what ever I could so that I felt like I was doing my duty. When the semester came to a close and the new one began, I was finally able to receive a home teaching assignment and a calling in the ward. I was called to be the Elders Quorum president, which caught me by surprise. I was a little overwhelmed by the task but set out as best as I could. My first task was to organize the home teaching in the ward. Because I had missed out on the opportunity to do home teaching earlier, I made sure that everyone received a route and a companion, and I prayed and tried to insure that everyone was matched up correctly. I assigned myself a few people that I knew nothing about, and that I thought would be good for me. I also assigned myself a companion who I had been told was a little on the less active side. With enthusiasm I set out to be the best home teacher I could be. (Contrary to want many people have felt, I did not assign my self her apartment to home teach because I thought she was cute, it just happened that way).

The first apartment that I visited was a group of guys (all return missionaries) who lived two doors down from us. That was a piece of cake. The next apartment was a house full of girls. On the first Sunday of the month I approached one of the girls that I recognized from my list and tried to set up an appointment. Her name was Cristina Baron, and as I came near her and called out her name she just walked past me. I could not tell if she just did not hear me or wanted to ignore me, but I did not lose hope. I saw her roommate and then set up the appointment with her.

during out visits, I quickly came to realize that my companion was not at all as less active as people made him out to be, and that the girls really enjoyed having him as their home teacher. He was a recent convert from Hong Kong and pretty funny. I tried to be a good home teacher, but they took to him quicker than me. Despite this, we had really good visits and I really enjoyed home teaching them. My companion was great and we worked really hard.

When I tried to get a hold of their apartment to talk to them the only number that I had on my list was that of Cristina Baron. Consequently the girls thought that it was odd that I always called for her and set the visits through her; But for me it was my only way of contacting them.

I will not lie, but when I first saw Cristina I could tell that she was the kind of girl that I would date. She seemed to have a certain glow about her that made her stand out from all of her roommates. I did not invest much into that thought at the time, but I did not completely forget it either.

As the semester progressed, my roommates and I started this group that would play sports every Saturday at 8:00 in the morning. We thought it was a fun way to make the most of our summer in school, and get to know some new people in the ward. We started a vigorous recruiting campaign so that we would have enough people to play sports with. We started going door to door in our apartment complex and asking every one we knew if they wanted to come. Subsequently I ran into Cristina at church and started talking to her about fixing another appointment when our Saturday Sports idea come up and she said that she would have liked to have come the previous Saturday had she known about it. So the following Saturday I invited her to come and play softball with us. Little did I know at the time that softball was her favorite sport! She could not resist. She said that it was a little outside of her comfort zone, but she loved the sport so much that she showed up and played with us. We had a lot of fun, and I remember teasing her and having fun with her the whole game. When I returned home I told my roommates that I was "in like". Here was girl who was fun, cute, and loved sports; What more could I want?

From then on I started to believe that she really liked me. It seemed that I was always being invited over to hang out with her and her roommates, eat rice crispy treats with them, and she even came over to my apartment and gave me brownies personally. It was only later when we were dating that she told me that her roommates were the ones who kept inviting me over because they knew that I was starting to like Cristina. And that when she brought me over brownies that they were intended for another boy that she liked, and she thought that the left overs could go to me for being such a good home teacher. Funny the way things turned out. However, I was sure that she liked me, so I did all I could to be around her and interact with her. My roommates were all excited because I was the first of the four of us to have a girl singled out as the one that I wanted to date. They did all sorts of odd things like take over my cell phone and send text messages to her claiming to be me; They said a lot of mushy things that I would never say to her. But they did not scare her away because she saw through them and knew that it was not me witting those things.

I really began to like her the more I was around her. She had a firm testimony of the gospel, and real commitment to serve in the church, not to mention her love for sports and fun personality. When our summer was coming to a close, and we decided to play kickball in the morning and then have a big barbecue after wards. I resolved to ask her out on a date. I figured that we were going a really steady pace and that it was now time to ask her out. The barbecue was a lot of fun, and contrary to what you might have heard her say, I did not cheat in the game of capture the flag that we played, I merely allowed a certain team member of hers to get across our lines(only one person in particular) unopposed, and then I went after her flag. I chickened out that night and even though we had a great time, I did not ask her on a date. It was not until the next night that I got the courage to pose the question. When I told my roommates that I had asked her out and that she accepted, it was the talk of the complex.

Our first date was a lot of fun. We took a long walk. I could not believe that she thought that I could never be serious, so we had a serious conversation as we walked. In the end I wanted to pursue a relationship and so I nervously told her that I liked her. ( I was even nervous to hold her hand). I told her I liked her and then we decided about where to go from there. From then on, things have gone well for us. It is interesting to look back on our story; the whole time I thought that she really liked me, and that she was just waiting for me to ask her out, but that turned out to not be true at all. I had to convince her that I was the type of guy she wanted to date and eventually marry.