Our Engagement continued:)

If anyone has an engagement story they would like to share we would love to hear it!  So here's mine guys!

I was born, (now don't get bored already, this is very romantic)....in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1959.  My husband was born in Lone Star, Texas in 1963.  When I was 12 we moved to California, and then to Oklahoma.  Mark's family moved to Colorado and ended up in Utah!!! So we kind of switched places.........Then when I turned 21 I decided to serve a mission for my church.  I left from my wonderful Alma Mater, Oklahoma State to go to British Columbia, Canada.  My husband was also called as a missionary to British Columbia, Canada.  LDS missionaries do not date while they are on their missions.  We knew of each other in Canada but did not know each other well.  In my next segment I will tell you a funny story where we the Elders and Sisters( missionaries) were invited to dinner at the same person's house at the same time..........Just remind me and I'll fill you in:)
Anyhow I left to go back to Okaloma after my mission, but something inside of me said, "You need to go to BYU in Provo, Utah."  So with not even a dime to my name I went back to Utah.  Mark came home to Utah about a month after I did.  We still didn't know each other very well, but one of the other return sister missionaries, (Grace Chen), was a good friend of his and she wanted to go say hi to him.  So we did.
I couldn't go to BYU because I was absolutely penniless.  I went to visit my Grandma Keddington at her apartments and was asked by the owners if I would like manage the apartments!  I was given my own new apartment and had the bonus of being near my grandmother for a couple of months before she passed away.

So where is Mark in all of this?  It just so happened that his family lived only two blocks away from these apartments.  Now you're probably saying to yourselves....so this is where all the romance began...........hmmmmm, let's just see.  I did invite him to a Christmas Business dinner my employers had.  I remember we got stuck in the back of  this crowded room in the restaurant.  We didn't know each other very well and were both a little timid.  We both drank way too much water and well  let's just say we were anxious to get up and find the little girls and boys rooms very very quickly.  We laughed about that and by the time we got home to the retirement center where I worked the folks there had left out some of their goodies from their Christmas party.  I remember Mark chasing me and trying to stuff banana bread down my throat.  It really was fun.

I thought maybe we would date a little more after that but Mark is four years younger than me and frankly he didn't like the idea of dating a fellow return missionary.  This is only the beginning.  I will keep writing if anyone wants to hear, "the rest of story."


Finally getting back to "the story,"  
So let's see, oh yes.  I moved to Salt Lake and tried to go to LDS business college, then I moved again in Salt Lake and tried to go the The University of Utah...Neither of those places felt quite right.  Mark would call me up and ask me how I was doing and who I was dating.  I would ask him the same thing.  At one point I did say yes to an engagement proposal from someone else.  I remember Mark calling me and asking the same question he always asked, "So who are you dating."  I told him that I was engaged.  All I can remember him saying was, "No you're not going to marry that guy."  I thought, "Who are you to tell me who I'm going to marry?"

He was right.  I ended up breaking up and decided that where I really wanted to be was down in Provo at Brigham Young University.  This would put Mark and I over an hour away from each other.  At work on campus I met a really nice girl who I thought would be a great match for Mark.  I called him and asked if he wanted to bring another friend of  ours along and we would all double date.  I remember feeling a little like I was with the wrong date that night, but kind of shrugged it off.

Mark and I both served as full time missionaries for our church in British Columbia, Canada, so we would see each other occasionally at our mission reunions or when fellow return missionaries would get together.  I think almost three years had passed since we returned from our missions and neither one of us had really found the "right one."

We started to date each other a little bit, and one Saturday he invited me on a boat trip with a married couple who were his friends.  They were so nice and made comments like they thought Mark and I would be a great couple, so I pulled him to the side out by the lake and I said, "Mark, do you think there is anything between you and me?"  He looked at me and said, "I like you but.............long pause............I just really don't feel like there are any sparks between us."

I got mad.   I was thinking to myself.  'What sparks?  So why do you keep asking me to go out with you?"  The ride home was about six hours long and I did not say a word."  I got out to go into my little house in Provo and thought, 'Well I'll never hear from him again."

Two days later I get a phone call and it's Mark.  "Hi DeAnne would  you like to go out this weekend?"  Boy did my Irish temper flare!  "Why?"  I said.  He was quiet for a minute then said he just really needed to talk to me.  "Okay, I said, but this is the last time."

That weekend we went to dinner in Park City, then drove around and for the first time in about four years I began to see the real Mark.  He said, "After I dropped you off on Saturday I felt like the life was sucked right out of me and all I can say was there was a big void in my life.  I think maybe we need to date for a while and see if we are meant to be together."

Then I came up with the bright idea to invite him to some of the BYU football games.  Little did I know that he loved and breathed BYU football.  He would come down, we would have a blast, then he would walk me home.  We had a wall at my apartment housing then that we called, "The Wailing Wall," because it grew harder and harder to say goodbye.

One beautiful Fall evening when we were walking along the BYU path around the school, he asked me to sit down.  I don't think he got on one knee because he has football knees and it hurts to kneel, but he looked at me with his clear blue eyes and said, "DeAnne I want to ask you to be my wife."  Now I was pretty scared of marriage.  My parents marriage ended in a terrible divorce, so I just looked at him.  He knew what I was feeling and said, "Do you trust me?"  When he said that my fears melted and I knew that I did trust him, and that everything would be alright.

Now 23 years and six fantastic kids later, I still look into those baby blues..............we both have a lot more around our waists than we did back then,  but it's like I told him, as long as I can hold your hand, look into those eyes and get little kisses every now and then I know that everything will be alright.

(If I've missed anything please comment and I'll try to reach back into my memory banks again.  Thank you for reading this by the way:)