We met early 2021 at the young adult adult group at our church. I wasn't thinking about dating at the time but considering that I do actually want to get married, after a few months (around early May) God seemed to prompt me to at least pay attention to the guys in the group. I gave myself a goal of choosing even just one that I could try to casually get to know, opening myself to the possibility of dating. Jonathan came to mind. We only had a few interactions at this point, but he was one of those people I found easy to gravitate towards in a group due to how friendly and easy-going he was. And he was handsome! One day in early May I prayed for an opportunity to have a longer conversation with him. On May 10, towards the end of the night at Alliance, we started chatting. In my mind I thought this could be one of maybe multiple conversations to try to scope our who this guy is before making a decision if I were interested. But the longer the conversation went on, to my surprise, the more I felt interested. I guess I dropped a little hint when I casually asked him what his last name is. We got along really well, he was fun, and his faith in Christ seemed sincere. By the end of the conversation I actually wanted him to ask me out. Even though I kind of saw it coming, I was still a little surprised when he asked me to coffee. I knew I wanted to say yes, but out of caution and wanting to think/pray about it more first, I asked him if I could think about it. I realized it was getting late, and feeling a little flustered he just asked me out, I kind of rushed out of the room to go home. Yes, I knew exactly how bad it looked! The next day I ran into him after Bible Studies on our church campus and told him yes. Our first date was May 15, 2021. It was about 12 hours long...and here we are now! I love our story. God was clearly involved in bringing us together. He is such a great guy and I'm so blessed to have him.

January 2021, I began attending a young adult ministry group at Compass Bible Church, called Alliance. During dinner, my very first night there, I sat at a table with one other person, and Katlin, my fiancé to be. At the time I had no intention to start dating anyone; I just wanted to make some friends who were Christians. After attending Alliance a few more times, Katlin stood out to me as a thoughtful, kind, and loving friend to those at Alliance. Although I didn't know if I was ready to start dating, I was definitely interested in getting to know her more. For two months, I prayed to God to reveal to me if she was someone He wanted me to pursue, and if she was, for Him to provide me with opportunities to get to know her better through conversation. Praise God because He absolutely did provide those opportunities! On May 10, 2021, after having a great conversation with her, following the Alliance small group session, I felt it was the right time and asked her out to coffee. She ended up saying..."Let me think about it." At the time, I thought she was politely saying no, especially since soon after asking her out she said bye to her friends and left to head home. The next day, after our respective Men's and Women's Bible Study meetings she actually ran up to me and said she would love to go out with me. Turns out (after talking about that night more after we began dating) she was curious about me as well, and actually was expecting me to ask her out. However, she was still shocked when I did, and was so flustered that she had to leave to compose herself. Our first date was on May 15, 2021. We originally planned on just meeting for coffee. It went so well, we ended up also getting lunch, then meeting up with some friends for coffee, then attending evening service, and then discussing the sermon after at the Church library for a total duration of 12 hours for our first date. I knew I had found someone special.