The Beginning

Procrastination has always been a shadowy figure in my life. I thrive on the adrenaline that comes with knowing that you have two hour's worth of work ahead of you and only one hour to do it. I can count on one hand the number of assignments I have finished more than 24 hours before the due date.

Last spring my procrastination spread into a new horizon. I needed to find somewhere to live in the fall, but nothing I came across felt quite right. The roommate I had lived with for two years in a row found a place, but I knew immediately I wasn't supposed to live there. I had no idea where I'd live or who I'd live with, and I did nothing about it.

A month or two into the summer I still hadn't found anything. Honestly, I wasn't looking very hard, but I was getting a little nervous. Then a girl from my ward sent me a text one day asking if I'd found any roommates yet. We decided to become roommates.

The next step was to find somewhere to live. A mutual friend of ours lived in a certain apartment complex and we decided to try it out. We did everything we were supposed to and were told that at the very latest we'd be able to get into our apartment the first or second week of September. This was a little later than we needed, but was something we could both work around.

August came, and I had to move out of my summer housing. We hadn't heard anything from our fall housing, so we assumed all was well. I went home for about a week, then came back up to Logan--I had work and training for my internship. I slept on the couch of my summer apartment. A few of my old roommates were still living there and gave me permission to crash there for a while.

Toward the end of the week my roommate called the complex we were supposed to be moving into in a week, and she was told that there wouldn't be any openings until at least October. This was not going to work for us. We were back to square one.

That night after I got off work I drove to the temple. As I was sitting there in my car looking at the temple and thinking about what had brought me to this point, a man approached my window. I rolled down the window, and he apologetically informed me that they were about to lock the gates and that I needed to leave. It wouldn't have been the end of the world if I had stayed--I had nowhere else to go--but I pulled out of the parking lot anyway and parked on the street below the temple.

I didn't know what to do. I was legitimately homeless. School was starting back up in just a few days and I had no idea where I was going to live. I didn't know if we would find any place to live. I couldn't stay on my old roommate's couch the entire semester. My world was shattered.

Looking back, that was probably the best disaster that ever happened to me. If that hadn't happened, I never would have ended up living in the southwest end of town in an apartment we have affectionately dubbed, "The Barrio." Desperation and affordability were the only major selling points. If that hadn't happened, I would never have had a reason to attend my current ward, and I never would have had the chance to meet all the friends I have made there. Had everything gone according to plan, I never would have imagined myself sitting on a bench overlooking the Cache Valley on a chilly Wednesday night in April with a man who then asked me to be his wife. What started out as one of the most traumatic experiences of my life ended up being the beginning of the story of how I met the great man who would eventually become my husband.

I vaguely remember meeting this man almost four years ago the summer before my freshman year for orientation. He was on A Team at the time and happened to be the leader of my group. He regretfully admits that he does not remember me, but I don't hold that against him--he came in contact with hundreds of students that summer. Our paths didn't cross again until last fall when I was compelled by the above circumstances to move into his ward. Conveniently, he was assigned to be my home teacher. The rest is history.

Shortly after we decided to get married, we happened to be driving by the apartment complex I was supposed to move into last fall. I pointed it out to him, and we both wondered out loud what both our lives would be like had everything gone according to plan. Maybe we would have met some other way, or maybe we both would have found someone else to build a life with. We're glad we will never find out.