Our story begins in a way I never expected it would. Following persistent encouragement from my parents to create an online dating profile, I had my first contact with Cami. I don’t remember exactly what she’d written in her profile but I immediately knew that she was someone I had to meet. Unfortunately for me, she graciously notified me that her interests were elsewhere. Though disappointed, I knew that God was in control and that ultimately His will would be done. To my surprise, six months later on a Friday evening I received a message from Cami asking if I was still interested. She will never know how happy I was to receive that message. We texted back and forth that Sabbath and decided to have a phone conversation on Sunday. Our chemistry was instantaneous and it seemed as if we had known each other for months and not days. Plans were made for Cami to visit me in Aspen as soon as was possible which was about a month later. We spoke on FaceTime for hours every night and I couldn’t wait to meet her in person. I’ve never been so excited to pick someone up from the airport. I’ll never forget seeing her beautiful smiling face as she hurriedly walked down the sidewalk towards me. We spent the next few days together hiking, cooking, fellowshipping with church family and most importantly talking. I officially asked Cami to be my girlfriend on June 12 as we sat on a rock next to a beautiful, flowing river surrounded by towering mountains. The following day she willingly agreed to our biggest hike yet, La Plata which has a 14,360ft peak. Though I underestimated how much food and water we would need, she joyously completed the nearly ten mile, 4,300ft vertical gain hike without a single complaint. The views from the summit were breathtaking and so was Cami.

We both realized the significance of our relationship and knew that we needed to be living closer to each other. Cami was planning to relocate to the Spokane area so I started looking for jobs and housing nearby. Through God’s providence I found a job in Sandpoint Idaho which allowed me to be within an hour of where Cami would be living. Following about a month of living near each other and continuing to get to know one another better, we decided it was time to be engaged. We hiked to the top of one of our favorite mountains near Sandpoint were I knelt on a rock and asked Cami to be my wife. Going from strangers to spouses in seven months may seem fast but we’ve seen God’s guidance through the whole process and we are both excited to see how He will lead in our future together.