We met at Calvary Midtown Church on the morning of Super Bowl 2018. After church service that day, Ben saw a girl, whom he never met before, talking to someone up front. So he asked his friend Seth Berbano who she was, and if he could introduce her to Ben. And that girl turned out to be Bonnie; she started attending Calvary two months prior to that Sunday, after Seth invited her. We quickly forgot about each other, until we met again two weeks later at a Chinese New Year party. Bonnie was impressed by how many dumplings Ben ate that night. After spring break, Ben asked Bonnie out for bubble tea at Cafe Wow. Bonnie agreed because she hadn't had bubble tea in a long time; she wanted a bubble tea buddy because she didn't want to spend time and money on empty calories unless there was social purpose. We ended up talking for nearly two hours, from graduate school to Christianity to Chinese songs. Over the next few months, we saw each other more at church and Wednesday Bread Basket lunches, and we couldn't stop talking every time we saw each other. We even went to karaoke together, and Bonnie was impressed by how good Ben was at singing Chinese pop songs (Ben later told Bonnie that he practiced beforehand).

Over time, Ben wanted to hold Bonnie's hand. So he came up with an idea. One day in May 2018, he proposed the horror movie "A Quiet Place" in the Tuesday Movie group that we were both in. Before that, he already convinced Bonnie to join. And as he expected, no one else from the group ended up going, so it became a two-person movie "date". And as Ben wanted, he held Bonnie's hand when she was scared during the movie, although Bonnie's original plan was to watch Avengers 3 again if "A Quiet Place" became too scary. We had our 1st official date 10 days later, after Ben returned from his trip to Toronto with his brother, and Bonnie returned from TRUE Leadership Conference. After having dinner together at Fuji & Jade, we went to Orchard Park (in State College) on an early summer Friday night. There, we had our first kiss, followed by a long walk in the park, and officially started dating! We had a romantic long weekend together; we saw another movie, went to Calvary Church (where we first met), and went to the Arboretum at Penn State. Bonnie even got baptized (as a Christian) that weekend!

In August 2019, Ben tricked Bonnie by asking her not to schedule any business travel on the week after his real proposal weekend. And the trick almost worked, until Bonnie saw a message from Ben's "roommate photographers" by accident, one hour before Ben was about to propose. Still, it was soooo romantic that Ben took Bonnie to Orchard Park, where our first date and first kiss took place. Ben showed Bonnie two cute photo albums with our memories together over the last two years. (Those albums took him a long time to prepare!) Fun fact: Ben's two photographers were so busy hiding themselves that they missed the actual proposal moment. Not to pick on them, hahahaha.

We both enjoy food and travel. We both have a heart for Christ, and enjoy incorporating our travel with Christian conferences. Visit our "Photos" page to see our memories from our dating and engagement journey!