Welcome

We first met at Vanderbilt University when I was a senior and Elise was a sophomore. Like most things in 2020 went, we first met over a Zoom call - a prayer meeting before the start of the school year. My roommate Sam and us were the only ones there, and so we took some time to introduce ourselves - who we were, where we're from, and how we came to know Jesus. Even though her camera was off, I knew from that moment that she shared her story that she was going to be someone special in my life. After the call, I immediately asked her to grab a meal. Nothing romantic, I just knew I needed to get to know her more. Of course, not knowing about her dairy allergy nor her aversion to tomatoes, I asked her to go to a pasta place. We got our food and found a table outside. It was a beautiful night. We shared more about our testimonies, our interests, our hobbies, and everything in between. We were amazed at the fact that we had never met before that night, even with so many mutual friends, and we talked and talked until long after the sun had set. It really was like talking to an old friend that I never even knew I had. I had never met someone so easy to talk to, so thoughtful, and so emotionally connected to her faith. From there, I continued to bug her, sending random texts and secretly wishing to get placed in the same dinner groups at campus fellowship. Even though the dinner group thing only happened once (😢), a long chain of unlikely events led to us to leading a Bible study together (ask us for the details! It's another fun story). It's there that I grew immensely in my faith alongside Elise, learned that I worked with her better than anyone else in the world, and where I started to fall in love with her day by day.

Teo and I first met in college when he was a senior and I was a sophomore. I attended a Zoom prayer meeting hosted by my good friend Sam, who happened to be Teo’s roommate. No one else showed up to the meeting, so it ended up just being the three of us. Weirdly enough, even though Teo and I were in the same small Christian fellowship, went to the same church, and had a ton of mutual friends, I had no idea who he was. When Teo was introducing himself, he shared a bit about how he had become a Christian in college. Coincidentally, I had been praying a lot about certain things that his words were a direct answer to. I was so moved by his testimony and the genuineness of his prayer that I started uncontrollably sobbing (thank God for Zoom’s ability to turn your camera off) and had a mountain of tissues piling up on my desk. After the prayer meeting was over, Teo texted me asking if we could grab a meal and get to know each other more. I was pretty nervous for some reason (I hardly ate anything, but he also wouldn’t make eye contact with me so I guess we were both nervous haha) but we ended up talking for over three hours. I appreciated how genuine and thoughtful he was, and his perspectives on life seemed much more mature than I was used to from college guys. :’) After a series of almost comically coincidental events, we ended up leading a small group together dedicated to answering questions from those who have doubts about Christianity. I had been set on not dating until age 25 at least— I wanted to focus on career, outreach, volunteering… definitely not men. But as we quickly became close friends through leading small group, I found that he was the kindest, most patient, and most thoughtful person I had ever met; he understood me, he made me laugh more than anyone else, and I grew as a person so much by learning from him. I knew that I would regret it forever if I didn’t do anything, so after many months of drama, I ended up confessing to him and here we are today :)