Funny story, actually. The first time I met Brian Baldwin, I blew him off.
But let's back up. When I moved to Utah in September of 2014, I hardly knew anyone. One of the people I did know was a sister missionary who had been in my ward in Florida on her mission and had returned home just weeks before I moved to Utah. Her name is Jessica Fox and we became inseparable.
The first time I went to her single's ward with her, she gave me a sad disclaimer: "there are no good looking guys in my ward." Yeah, okay. We walked in, went and sat semi-close to the front on the right side of the chapel, and I looked up and there's Brian sitting directly in front of me to bless the sacrament. Of course, I asked Jessica immediately who he was, but for some unknown reason, she thought I was referring to the guy sitting beside Brian. We'll call him Jeff, and Jeff had a girlfriend.
So, when Brian tried to come talk to me after sacrament meeting, I said hi and then walked away because I thought he was Jeff with a girlfriend.
Then in relief society, Brian came in and sat down beside me to make some announcements... I started elbowing Jessica to imply "hey, look who's sitting beside me," but she was completely oblivious since Brian was not Jeff.
Once we left church, she asked me why I had been elbowing her and once we established that I had meant Brian, and not Jeff, in sacrament meeting, I was totally bummed I had blown him off.
Fast forward another month down the road when I went to church with Jessica again. I may or may not have had a secret mission to talk to Brian, but once I saw him I didn't have the guts to go introduce myself, because saying "hey, I'm sorry I blew you off last time I saw you because I thought you had a girlfriend but now I know you don't and I'm talking to you because you're super hot" is not an introduction. Luckily, he wasn't shy and came up when Jessica and I were talking to two of his friends to interrupt us with a bold "hey I'm Brian" mid-conversation. So we met on January 18, 2015. Of course then the rest is history. We talked for over an hour combined before and after sacrament meeting, continued the conversation over Facebook the next day, moved to texting, and the next thing I knew we were hanging out. Our first unofficial date was to a Battle of the Bands concert that two of his friends were playing in with a big group of people (not that you could tell we were with other people since we talked to each other basically the entire time). Two nights later, I took my friend Kate to her first NBA game to see the Jazz play and while I was there I got a call from Brian asking me to go country dancing with him that week. I easily fell in love with him for always keeping me laughing, for making me happier than I've ever known I could be, and for the person he is. He is by far the best man I know. He is kind and loving, and always puts others (mostly me) first. He's the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I hope I never lose sight of how very lucky I am!
I felt privileged to be the one to break the "Mr. One and Done" identity he had been given. It's true that when you give up on dating and are fine doing your own thing that the right one comes along. It's strange to know that I always knew we would end up together and there was never any question it would be for the long haul. Brian likes to tell me he had a feeling from the first week he met me that he would marry me. I think it's romantic so I let him tell me ;)
*This has been written at a later date than it is posted as, but obviously, we had to start this blog off with the 'how we met' section!*
