For Time and All Eternity

On January 25th, we became boyfriend and girlfriend!! We dated long distance from January 2024 to August 2024. During that time, Alejandro went to visit Megan in Virginia every 3-4 weeks! It was important to both of us to date in person as much as possible. Megan visited Alejandro in February and met his three beautiful sons. In August 2024, Megan found a job in Utah and moved to Orem, UT. Alejandro went to Virginia to help Megan pack up the car with all her stuff and drove across the country together! They quickly fell into a routine having fun dates and activities with the kids. They also fell in love! Alejandro told Megan he loved her during a visit to her parent's home one night after a fun night talking the night away! She told him she felt the same! On December 26, 2024, Alejandro proposed to Megan at a beautiful winery restaurant while visiting Megan's family for Christmas in Temecula California. She was completely shocked, but said yes! Alejandro picked out the ring all by himself (ran it past Megan's best friend to make sure), and she loved it!

Megan's Version: I decided last minute to go on a girl's weekend to New York City, where I would only be staying for 24 hours! On my bus ride up to meet my friends early that morning, I decided to download the LDS dating app, Mutual, to see if there were any men worth dating the further north we drove. Upon matching with each other, Alejandro messaged me almost immediately, saying we should meet up that evening. I was not planning to actually meet up with anyone, just doing some research ;), so I told him maybe, depending on if we ended up in the same part of the city at the same time. We messaged me a few times during the day, but I was not giving it any serious thought and just focusing on having fun with my friends. In the evening, we decided to meet up at Highline Park in Manhattan. He called me after a while because he couldn't find the entrance to the park. I was confused because when we matched online, it said he was from New York and the park was a common feature of the city. I asked him if he was new to NYC, and he said he was just visiting from Utah! I told him then and there that I was not looking to date long distance and that we could have fun walking around the city that night, but I would not be pursuing things further. He said it was worth it! So we finally found each other and walked around Manhattan looking at Christmas lights with my friends. He was very kind, friendly, and flirty! and even carried my backpack for me the whole night. It was getting late and time for me to go see the Rockettes for the first time! Alejandro didn't want to the night to end, so we looked up tickets for him to come, but they were not available, so we parted ways with a big hug! He asked to kiss me, but I didn't feel it would be right since I wasn't planning to see him again! We texted that weekend and called on that Sunday. But by the end of the phone call, as nice as it was, I told him because I had not ever found success in my long distance dating attempts, so I didn't want to pursue the relationship further. He disagreed and thought we should give it a chance but respected my decision. And that was it, I moved on and didn't think much about it. Until Christmas Day.... when I was texting many people Merry Christmas, I decided to include him to be polite. He took that as a signal that maybe I wanted to be in contact again, so he cautiously asked me a few questions about my holiday plans and after texting for a few days, he convinced me to let him give me a call. It was a nice call, but I wasn't sure how I felt about him still. Then I had this thought come to my mind: he could pick me up from the Baltimore airport when I flew into there from CA, about an hour from his parent's house in Philadelphia where he was staying, on January 1, and we could go on a date in Baltimore before he flew back to Utah. I would give him one more chance because he kept talking about how he saw a lot of potential and chemistry between us! I wasn't sure about that myself, but thought it couldn't hurt to go on a second date. He ended up driving us that day, January 1, 2024, to Washington, DC, to have our date because it was less rainy and had more to do. We had dinner at Founding Farmers and walked around the monuments. When we got to the Lincoln Memorial, we had our first kiss. He stayed in the guest room of our house that evening (to avoid a late night drive home) and planned to go back to his parent's the next day. But in the morning before I went to work, he said, "What if I delay my flight back to Utah for 2 weeks so I can spend time with you in DC and really give this relationship a chance to get started?" I was apprehensive about the idea and told him to give me a day to think about it. So he drove back to Philadelphia to get his luggage, and by that evening, I had felt no anxiety about his idea, shockingly! So he came back and stayed in Virginia for 2 weeks! I remember rushing home from work everyday, so excited to see him again!