Maria and I first met at… you guessed it… a CMi meeting, or at least that’s how I remember meeting her. For all of our friends and family who don’t know what CMi means, it’s a campus ministry meeting. In our early stages of becoming friends, this was one of the main places we’d spend time together! We find it so awesome how our pursuit of God is what brought us together. Looking back, that time was definitely the foundation being laid. We’d study together, eat, and play the guitar. I taught her how to play. I’ll only mention it because she thinks it’s cute. While I was teaching her that, she was teaching me Spanish. When we would study or do assignments, we’d take breaks and just talk in Spanish. I’m sure back then my Spanish was a lot harder to understand, but she always encouraged me and told me I was a natural. One of my favorite memories was sneaking past her class and checking on her while strolling in late to mine. Not proud of that, but we both graduated in the end. I should add that this is all before we were dating! A lot of people might have thought we had a late start in that, but God’s timing is the best timing. Dating Maria was special. It wasn’t quite as long, seeing as it only lasted four months before engagement, but I’ll definitely say it was a blessing. Getting to know one another on a deeper level and learning to work out differences that we truly couldn’t see prior has made us grow stronger and closer together. I told her I loved her the first day I asked her out, so I probably skipped a step or two in how things are done traditionally. If you were to ask me when we fell in love… what’s the date… or the location where we knew… I’d have to say, and I know Maria feels the same, that we truly went from being friends to the next day just being in love with one another. It happened gradually, but with certainty. With that being said, sweet memories were made that we’ll cherish for a lifetime, Lord willing. And now we’re here excited and hopeful for the next season that we’re about to embark on… growing in God and in our relationship with one another.