Around the summer of 2009 I was working at Verizon Wireless in Sugarhouse and I was working with a man that started asking me about where I served my mission, what singles ward I was in, etc. He later told me that he was in the Stake Presidency of a singles stake nearby and he had the perfect ward for me to attend. President Sanford Owen was convinced that the Garden Park ward was the best singles ward in Salt Lake and that it had the girl for me there. I kind of brushed off the idea because I wasn’t really in the game of ward hopping. Probably 5-6 months later he came into Verizon again and I made it a point to help him because we had had such a good conversation before. As I helped him he asked if I was attending the Garden Park ward and after I declined he urged me to go. He emphasized all the amazing girls in the ward and even started throwing out names of people to his wife that I should meet. I still wasn’t really up for it but decided that I would look into it.
Finally in May of 2010 I decided to start attending the ward and I decided that I would go to as many of the activities as I could to meet as many people as possible. I remember one Sunday just kind of gazing over the congregation and seeing Madison and thinking “I’ll have to get to know her”. It took some time before the timing was right but we slowly became friends over the course of the next 8-9 months. We hung out a little bit at a ward Halloween party where we officially met and then a couple months later I was looking for people to hang out with over Christmas break. Since I didn’t have her number I tried to send her a message through facebook to see if she was still around. I remember sending her a short message to see if she was around and she responded with some long message about her trip and I kind of thought “Ya ok whatever, you’re not around to hang out so I don’t care.” We kind of just chatted when we saw each other at church or church activities and I remember always liking the conversation but never really acted on it. I seemed to run into her all the time at different social events and I started to realize that we had similar interests. One night I saw her at the Radical Reels show and she looked really cute and she was trying to give away an extra ticket. We chatted for a second and she complained about not being able to give away the ticket and even said, “ I swear I’m a cute girl and I’m nice. Why doesn’t anyone want this ticket for free?” We laughed but I remember thinking, “she is a cute girl, and I see her everywhere. Maybe I should give her a chance.” That night I sent her a text to see if she wanted to come up to Park city with a group of us the next night. She and her friend Sara came and it was up there that we spent some time talking alone and I realized what a great girl she was and that I genuinely enjoyed talking with her. I decided that I would pursue her but it wasn’t as easy as I wanted it to be. I remember inviting her to come rock climbing with me on a Monday and she said she couldn’t’ because she had a test for her teaching certificate that she had to take that Friday. I was completely turned off that she couldn’t take an hour out of her day to spend with me because she had a test in 5 days. I also remembered her telling me about a ward basketball game she was playing in on Wednesday and so I figured if she had time to play basketball with a bunch of girls she would have time to rock climb with me if she were interested. I decided it was a “cop-out” and wasn’t going to call her anymore. About a week later she texted me about something and opened the communication back up. We ended sitting by each other in Sunday school and sacrament meeting that week in church, going to a desert party that night, and then rock climbing and watching the bachelorette with some of my friends the next day. Then on Thursday of that week we went on our first official formal date. We watched the BYU Gonzaga game and then went out to dinner at Bombay house and afterward found a geocache. And the rest is history…
