Our History: Why You Always Agree To Speak In Church

Hey everyone! I'm David, and this is Ashley and I's blog. Apparently I'm in charge of all the writing here, so that means I get to tell about how Ashley and I became Ashley and I. :) (I suppose if she wants to make any corrections, she can add her own version...) Anyway, here we go!

I moved to Austin, Texas in late July of 2007, and began attending the local singles' ward. I had just graduated from BYU with a true bachelor's degree in Computer Science, and was hoping to get a fresh start on the whole dating thing. My plan was to give myself a month or two to "survey the landscape," and then jump in and go on a whole bunch of non-committal first dates to get to know the girls in the ward better. Also, I figured that if I knew a girl liked me, I'd move her towards the top of the list, after the ones I was personally interested.

Ashley, on the other hand, was living away from her family for the first time. They moved to Houston for her father's job right after high school graduation, and she stayed here for nursing school, living with a member of her family's ward. She started going to the singles' ward in early summer.

After about a month of living here, I some girls after me (apparently I was "fresh meat"), but none that I was really interested in. That's when I got a call from the bishopric, asking me if I would speak in church. I said yes, of course - that's the best way to see the ward, from the stand. ;) And while I was waiting to speak, suddenly this knock-out girl walks in and sits in the back... Later that day after a fireside, this same knock-out girl walks up, introduces herself as Ashley Hayes, and says she liked my talk.

At that point, we were both interested, but worried about scaring the other one off. But a Facebook message led to some instant messaging, which led to some math tutoring, which led to a date, and we were both very happy with how that went.

Unfortunately, I'm addicted enough to BYU football that I was flying back for all the home games, and that combined with all the other activities that were going on in the ward made me forget that you're kinda supposed to call after the first date to set up a second date... Ooops! Well, it all turned out okay. In late October, we ended up spending the entire ward retreat together, and immediately went on another date once we got back. Things were going pretty well.

The next day in church, I was sitting all by myself, but Ashley was too shy to come and sit next to me - and everyone let her know that was a big mistake. She felt bad, and to "make it up" to me, invited me to a Halloween party over the phone after church. That's when I had finally figured out that she felt for me the way I felt for her, and by the end of the conversation, we were a couple!

It would have been nice if the drama ended there. However, Ashley's evil landlady had been scheming all along to have Ashley marry her son when he got home from his mission. Tensions built between them, and so by the time she was going to make dinner for me that next Friday, she had been kicked out of the house! We found a place to crash, and so our first full Sunday as a couple was spent moving her to her friend Natalia's house - which was a lovely, 25 minute drive from where I was living - and taping up the window of her truck, which had been smashed so that someone could steal the radio the first night she was there!

A little later we went to Houston together to meet her family - and get the window repaired. Usually, a window is a good thing to have when driving through a torrential rainstorm, and a radio is good to have for a long drive. But honestly, we're both glad we didn't have either, because we got really close during that trip. Ashley got to meet my family later when we went up to Utah around Christmas time.

To make long story a little less long, we started talking about marriage in January and got engaged in February. Ashley got kicked out of the house again in March, so we found another place for her to crash, and I got to help her move twice within a week to make that happen. The wedding planning and invitations were finally finished in April, and we were married in May. And now that we're finally married, we've been happier than we've ever been in our lives.

Anyway, that's us! Stay tuned for more news and pictures, as well as the random occurrences of everyday life. What do I mean by that, you ask? Well, here's a perfect example:

Just yesterday, we went to the store, because Ashley was craving caffeine-free Pepsi. We grabbed some, and got in the Express Lane. The Express Lane is so named because it is supposed to be fast. It's supposed to be for the people that just needed a couple things and want to get on with their lives. It even has a sign that says "10 items or less," in plain English. (Since we're in Austin, maybe that should be in Spanish, too, but that's another rant... ;D) Two places in front of us, we see this guy. And he goes through with 17 items. We know, because we watched him slowly pull them out of his basket, one by one, and we counted for him, out loud. Hopefully we were just as annoying as he was inconvenient. ;)

Anyway, the moral of the story is, if you are asked to speak in church, you should do it. And if you liked a talk that was given, go up to the speaker and say so afterwards.

Also, if you hear someone counting out your purchases at the store, it's probably us - and you should get in a different lane...