Flash back to day 1 of my Freshman year at Benedictine. FOCUS put on a bonfire in front of Turner Hall. I remember walking up to Alex and her friends to introduce myself and thinking that girl with the Nebraska t-shirt and glasses is pretty cute (but then again I am a sucker for curly hair.) Well, Alex and I got into a pretty good conversation and I am pretty sure I got her number that night (I know, smooth huh?). A few days later, I asked Alex if she wanted to pray with me in adoration (definitely was not trying to pull a move). Well, classic Andy, I go to the wrong adoration chapel (Benedictine problems) and Alex wasn't there. I thought: well I came here for Jesus so I am just going to stay. Come to find out Alex totally thought I stood her up. As you may be able to tell at this point, our "friendship" is a little complicated. Our freshman year "friendship" peaked when I built up the courage to ask her out to dinner on Valentine's Day. Alex asked if she could bring a friend and I was devastated. I got friend-zoned before I even had a chance! We still had dinner, but Alex shortly after pulled the classic Benedictine girl move and told me that "God was not calling her to date." Begrudgingly, I decided to respect her and only considered her a friend from that point forward. This is where it gets interesting...Flash forward to junior year, in one of my usual visits to Alex in the RA office, we got into a conversation and ended up talking until 3am. She was acting really weird that night and through my great investigative work she admits to me that she liked me and has all along. Are you kidding me? I was so shocked and kind of annoyed (she couldn't have told me that 2 years ago?) I took a short time of 3 months to pray about it (had to keep her on her toes) and I asked her on our first date when we returned from Christmas break. Ever since our second first date, she just keeps saying yes to me. Moral of the story: if at first you don't succeed try, try again.

...What Andy says is true; I just keep saying yes. The best yes I’ve said yet was on Saturday, April 13th, 2019. For 2 months, Andy had been asking me to keep this weekend free. As a second semester senior and RA, free weekends were hard to come by. He had the whole weekend planned down to the hour (itineraries are kind of Andy’s thing). Friday night was our Senior Spring Formal. Saturday, we were going on a double date with our good friends, Josh and Rebekah. Sunday was a surprise date planned completely by Andy. The whole weekend was going to be unforgettable, but I was especially looking forward to our Sunday date. A whole day planned out for just Andy and I, and I couldn’t know a thing about it ahead of time? Sounds like the perfect proposal set-up to me. So, Friday night came and we had the time of our lives dancing the night away with our friends. Saturday morning came, and Rebekah and I were getting ready for our double date. When the boys came to pick us up, Josh asked if we could take separate cars so that he and Rebekah could run a few errands after our date. Sure, no problem. On the way to brunch, Rebekah called Andy from the car ahead of us, and Andy immediately responded, “hey, Alex is here and you’re on speaker.” Weird. Rebekah called to ask us if we wanted to stop at the Mir House of Prayer adoration chapel on the way to brunch. I asked if we could go afterwards because I was so hungry (I promise I’m not difficult on purpose). Andy convinced me it wouldn’t be a long visit and it would be nice to pray there together. Afterall, we hadn’t been back to the chapel since he took me there as part of our first date a little over a year ago. I complied. We had been praying inside the chapel for about 2 minutes--Andy says 10, but time slows when you’re nervous--when he asked me if I would walk outside with him. He was acting kind of strange. I knew something was up and my heart started pounding.

My prayer immediately changed and I started asking Jesus to prepare my heart for whatever was coming. (Prayer is an intimate thing and I’d love to tell you more of that part of the story in-person some time. Just ask me about it). The next thing I knew, we were outside the chapel walking towards the crucifix. I kept moving to the side because I didn’t want to distract the other people praying inside the chapel. The entire wall facing us was made up of glass windows and I was hyper aware of that. Andy convinced me to stand still long enough to get down on one knee and ask me to marry him. Like I said, the best yes I’ve ever said. Turns out, there was never a plan for brunch. We went back to Atchison where our friends had thrown us a surprise engagement party. We have the best friends in the whole world. We thank Benedictine for that. Our 14 months of engagement have been full of joy and a few trials. We are learning to love each other better every day. Pray for us as we continue to prepare for marriage. With every new adventure and whatever the Lord may ask of us, pray that we just keep saying yes.