It all started with cookies. In December of 2022, Emma was hosting a Christmas party with her roommate where they had invited a group of friends, which Andren had tagged along with. As he walked into the apartment full of people, the first memory he has of Emma was her bombarding him with a large plate of cookies. These happened to be chocolate peppermint cookies, a new recipe Emma had wanted to try, and they were one of his favorites. When introductions were made, Andren mistakenly thought that he heard Emma was engaged, so their interaction that night was brief. As a result, Emma only remembers that she gave him a bunch of cookies because she had way too many at the end of the night. After that night, it wasn’t until spring break that they met again. Emma likes to think of this as the official meeting, since she had actually forgotten that they had met at the Christmas party (oops). So for her, her first (official) meeting of him was when they were grouped together in a team for a retreat their church did every spring break. During that time, they got to grow closer as they opened up, shared their testimonies, and eventually both left the retreat blown away by the other. Emma had thought that there was no way they would ever hang out again, as they were in completely different circles and would hardly ever see each other around church. Well the next weekend held a surprise. Andren was joining some friends at a small group in Moscow, and it just so happened to also be the one Emma went to. That was the start of many more small groups where they got to know each other more and grow in friendship. After 4 months, Andren finally asked Emma for her phone number and they went on their first date. Their first date went from a planned 2 hours to 6 hours flying by exploring each other’s campuses and getting to know each other more. The date ended with both of them certain that they wanted to pursue each other, and two weeks later they were officially dating.