For those of you who don't know Elyshia, she lived in Guatemala for 11 years of her life and through the same school that Daniel attended she was able to homeschool. The reason she homeschooled through Calvary Downey was because her family were missionaries through the church they attended. So since 3rd grade, Daniel and Elyshia attended the same school but never crossed paths because she lived in another country. Now fast forward to 12th grade in high school and Daniel is now homeschooled through the same program as Elyshia. They did not know each other but one day through their homeschool program, the director of the program decided to host Elyshia on a Zoom call in front of all of the kids of the homeschool group and asked her questions. Daniel remembers looking over at his mom and asking "Since when did we homeschool from other countries?". The week before their graduation from high school Elyshia flew back from Guatemala and attended graduation for the school, and they even have a group graduation photo in which they are both in the photo. They both walked and graduated together, and they are pretty sure they even congratulated each other after the ceremony through mutual friends but the Lord had not opened the door for them just yet to date. Fast forward 6 years later and Daniel had now met Elyshia in different settings at young adults through more mutual friends but Daniel and Elyshia had never really talked or went out enough to consider each other friends but more of just mutual acquaintances. Now Daniel had just gotten off of work one in February of 2021 and it was a couple days before Valentines Day and Daniel drove down to church for the young adults group. However, the gates were locked and no one seemed to be in the building for the normal Friday night meeting. There did happen to be one security guard and Daniel asked the security guard if there was a new location for the young adults meeting in which he responded that there was. Daniel would now walk around the building to the new meeting location and realize it was a Valentine's day themed event, and Daniel and Elyshia were both in attendance for the event. As the night went on, Daniel and Elyshia were both enjoying their night and Daniel had looked in the direction of Elyshia without knowing who it was but Daniel was intrigued by this beautiful young woman. Through the night Daniel and Elyshia would not have any interaction but finally as the night was getting later and later, Daniel had walked over to a table to bid his goodbye and Elyshia happened to be at the table as well. As Daniel was getting ready to leave, some of the friends from the table had invited Daniel to sit and join in some of the card games being played. One of the individuals inviting Daniel to sit down and join was the beautiful young woman who caught his eye earlier, it was Elyshia. Daniel would go on to sit down and talk to Elyshia throughout the night as they played cards in which Daniel would ask for her contact information, and for the next couple week or so they would chat frequently which lead to Daniel asking Elyshia out on a date. The first date of choice was to go to Afters ice cream and well let us just say it went extremely well because on December 3rd of 2022, Daniel dropped to the single knee in hopes of getting that beautiful young woman to become more than just his girlfriend. He would want Elyshia to be his wife. Now here you are reading this story and we hope that you will continue to help us writing this story as we celebrate our special day in September. We cannot wait to see you there and bring your dancing shoes cause it will be a very fun night!