And when I moved into the ward, I don’t like change. So I’m into this ward and the very first day I’m there, this guy is telling this https://getbride.org/pt/noivas-eslavas/ story in the elders quorum meeting, which is the men’s group meeting. And he tells me, well, he tells everyone there. He says, “Well, then brother so and so wasn’t feeling so good. So me and brother Lloyd.” And my ears perk up because the Lloyds are who I did my discussions in their backyard.

And he’s like, “Brother Lloyd and I, we wanted to let this brother go fishing. So we made a little pond in brother Lloyd’s garage and stocked it with some fish so he could come over, sit in his wheelchair and fish.” And I’m just like, that’s such a weird story. And then I go up to him after and I go, this brother Lloyd, did he have two daughters and a son? Yeah. Did he live off of Lynnhurst over at such and such?

And he goes, “Yeah.” And I go, “I did my discussions in his backyard in a bus.” And to me, this was God saying, you are home. This is the right place. Here’s this thing. What are the chances of that? I meet this girl in a chat room. She happens to live down the road from me and she’s going to a meeting that afternoon.

I go to the meeting and then years later, when I’m just dipping my toes back in the water of the church, I move to a new ward. I move a city. And then bam, here’s a person that is telling a story about that family. So then I start taking things a little bit more seriously. I get the priesthood. I accept a calling.

I get my endowment so I can go to the temple. And I’m swiping and swiping. And this girl matches me in another state. And I’m like, yeah whatever. And we start talking. And then a year and a half-ish later, we’re married. And that was at the beginning of this year.

So we had to do that

And it’s never easy being a member of the church because there’s lots of things asked of you and we’re supposed to help people. And then you have your normal obstacles and hurdles too. My wife and I scheduled our wedding in the temple when I’m recording last.

So the temple’s close and we can’t get married. So instead of getting sealed in the temple in May, we have to get married in the church meeting house parking lot with just her parents and just my mother and a random Fox that trots by that, I’m the only one that saw. And I swear there was a fox.

If I’ve told you this story, there was really a fox. I promise there was a fox. No one saw it. I saw it. It was cool. Foxes are creepy, but it was cool. I digress. And then we lost three temple sealing dates and COVID ravaged the lands and et cetera, et cetera. Whatever survivors of COVID are viewing this in the distant future, I was there.

And you don’t always want to do it

I was there when the toilet paper vanished and everything. But we finally got sealed. It took month after month after month. And then finally, in towards the end of November, we were able to get sealed. And then of craziest things, I was called to give a talk at stake conference, which is a church meeting that replaces the normal church meetings that involves every ward in a stake.