I had just graduated from Brigham Young University-Idaho in July 2012. My plans after graduation were to go back home to Illinois and get a job at my old high school. However, in May/June, my parents started talking about moving to Florida to be closer to family. Though I was always one to be homesick for Illinois (especially being all the way out in Idaho for school!), I was surprised at how okay I was with the prospect of moving to Florida. Plus, there was the chance that I could work at Walt Disney World, so I was really quite excited!
Plans and travel arrangements were made, and my family and I moved to The Villages, Florida (the cutest, little golf cart community you will ever see!) in the middle of September. I was able to get a spot in an apartment of all LDS girls who worked at Disney, and I even had a job opportunity at Disney! Everything seemed to be falling into place quite nicely, but something just didn't feel right to me. After a lot of prayer and contemplation, I decided that my current plans would not do. So I stayed in The Villages with my family and began a tedious job hunt.
During this time, my mother so "lovingly" reminded me that I lived in a retirement community. Not only were my chances of finding an eternal companion anytime soon slim because there were few Latter-day Saints in the area, but none of them were my age either! In a moment of stubborn - "I'm going to prove you wrong" - ambition, I just happened to see an advertisement for LDSSingles.com on Facebook. I quickly signed up and left it alone for a few days.
It was early October when I finally went back to peruse my options online, I felt like I was wasting my time. I was seriously thinking about deleting my account right then and there, when I decided to "look" one last time. After looking at a couple pages, I still hadn't seen anyone that I really wanted to know more about, but then I got to page three and there he was. The first thing I thought about Colt was how kind his face looked. I clicked on his page and realized that we already had some things in common, like how we both love band, and we're both the youngest of four children by eight years!
Then I did something totally out of the norm, I messaged him! To anyone who truly knows me, this is incredible; I never do anything like this, but there was just something about him and I needed to know more. I was very pleased when he messaged me back. It wasn't too long before we were exchanging texts and talking on the phone for hours on end. When we started skyping, we both realized very quickly that we wanted to meet in person, but that was a little difficult since he lived in South Carolina almost eight hours away. Regardless, we managed to meet and the rest is history.
It didn't take Colt and I very long at all to realize that we were in love. It took even less time to realize that we wanted to spend the rest of eternity with each other. When we were in Virginia, visiting his family for Christmas, Colt proposed. Employing his family's help, Colt used a traditional family scavenger hunt with scriptural clues leading to his favorite tree on their farm. Under the tree was the final box with our prize. As Colt read off the last scriptures (Matthew 25:21, Matthew 6:19-21) before we opened the box, I started to notice his family lining up around the house and began to wonder if maybe there was more to this scavenger hunt than met the eye. When he finished reading, I opened up the box. Inside was a smaller box, which held the ring box.
Obviously I said yes because I can't imagine going throughout eternity without this wonderful man! It might be that matches aren't made in heaven, but I can tell you that there was some definite heavenly help in our coming together. We are so perfect for one another in more ways than I can count, and I can't wait to see where life takes us!
