"the choice" in Dave's words

Dave wrote a short, funny version of our courtship several years ago but he humored me and fleshed it out for you. Enjoy!

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Although I had really poor grades in high school, I had managed to do really well on the ACT and been accepted to go to BYU after I finished my mission. I thought for sure that this would be where I would meet my eternal companion. The mission president would sometimes joke about how hard one works as a missionary would determine how pretty the girl is that decides to marry him. I finished my mission strong having no ties to any girls at home and determined to find "the right girl"

On the last week of my mission I wrote a list of everything that I wanted in a perfect companion down to the eye color and everything and then began to prioritize the list from "eternal life sustaining" down to "eternal life threatening". Luckily nothing i had listed made it into the latter category. Once I was done I said a prayer for my future wife so that she would find her way to me. I was hoping for her to find her way to the airport when I got off the plane but wasn't going to hold it against her if took her a little longer. That night as I was falling asleep I saw myself sitting in a chair and watching her play the piano from behind. She was so beautiful and when I woke up the next morning I got my list of things I wanted my wife to have and moved the item titled "Plays the Piano" from "nice to have" up to the "vital" category. Once I got home my search began to find this piano player that I saw in my dream.

When I got to BYU I quickly found work in the laundry room of the Provo temple. This was a good job for me because it was really quiet and forced me to reflect on the direction I would take my life. I was focused on finding the girl I had seen in my vision. Finding dates at BYU as a returned missionary is about as hard as finding chocolate or ice cream in any of the girl's dorm rooms. They were everywhere. Someone left a bag of mushrooms on my door once with a note that read "Dave since you're such a fungi will you go to the dance with me?" I had never been introduced to the whole creative dating thing so I called the girl and told her I already had plans that night. Later that day I was rushed by all her roommates and told how rude I was and that I crushed her heart. Eventually I was forced to ask her out with a box of cereal or something "Honey Comb to the dance with me." so she would think that I wanted to ask her all along. The only problem was she was kind of short and didn't play the piano so I failed to see the logic in spending any time pursuing that relationship. I made time to date as many girls as I could while at BYU but quickly found that I may have to revise the list I had made that last week of my mission for fear of taking to long to find her and becoming a menace to society. I would rarely date the same girl more than once and saw no need to even ask a girl out if I knew she didn't play the piano. It got to the point where we would be talking over dinner at a nice restraunt and the conversation would go something like this: "Do you play the piano?" -- "Not really" -- "Do you play any music at all?" -- "I play CDs" -- "CHECK PLEASE!"

One thing I also learned quickly at BYU was how much girls talk to each other. I remember being cornered on one occasion by some girls that had figured me out. They asked why I never went on more than one date with the same girl and always asked every girl I went out with about their piano playing skills.

One day I decided to get up early and spend the whole day in the temple. I got this strong feeling that my wife wasn't in Provo and that I needed to move back home to find her immediately. This didn't make any sense at all because I was right in the middle of a semester and would fail all my classes if I left right then. But what if she was engaged to the wrong guy or something? I had to at least go home and visit to see if maybe I could find her there.

The next morning I loaded up my broken down honda with most of my belongings and went home for a "visit". Somehow I ended up landing a decent job as a web developer so I had to borrow my mom's van the following week and drive back to utah to get the rest of my stuff and tie up any loose ends in Provo. I quickly found some roommates in the singles ward and moved in with them. I still remember my first Sunday going to church because I had expected to find my wife. As I looked around the chapel I didn't see anyone that matched the image I still carried from my mission. I went to FHE at the church where a bunch of singles played broom hockey the following day and I got to meet quite a few people and quickly learned which ones could play the piano. I was already planning an audition in the primary room after the hockey game so I could see which girl, if any, was right and which one I should join or were they all wrong together? Anyway I ended up playing all the songs I had memorized and nobody wanted to play after that so I decided that maybe she hadn't moved into the ward yet.

Quite a bit of time had passed when I finally settled on a girl that could kind of play a casio keyboard and seemed like a pretty quality girl. I even got to the point where her and I went to visit her parents in Wyoming but all the while I kept feeling like I had been settling for less. One night Hillary said "i love you" and I felt pressured to say it back but knew right then it wasn't true and wasn't fair for her so I told her she deserved more and took off. I was back to square one.

A couple weeks later I was at a fireside and I overheard the institute director talking about a girl that had been traveling around as a photographer but was going to quit her job so she could take a calling as the institute choir pianist. All of a sudden I became really interested in joining the institute choir. I remember dragging my roommate Nate along since I didn't want to go alone and we got there a little late so we had to sit in the front row in the chairs furthest away from the piano. The piano player had her back to us and she played the piano beautifully. I kept looking over my sheet music knowing that she was the one but not knowing how I would bring it up to her. I didn't want to say one wrong word and then be forced to spend eternity alone because I messed up my chance. After choir practice I decided to just play the hardest song I knew on the piano to see if she would just leave or maybe come over and talk. When she sat down next to me on the bench I never wanted to leave her side. She was so beautiful and perfect and hopefully single but no matter what I had to try and ask her out.

I could have waited until next week but I never was very good at being patient so instead of risking eternal anguish of waiting a week only to get rejected I made Nate go back so I could write down the information of the new girl on the sign-up sheet so I could give her a call.

I chickened out on calling her phone number so instead I just emailed her from my work the following day. She emailed me back twice where the second email was a summary of the first email with the following explaination:

Hi Dave....
I just sent an email....but my computer tripped out at
the last second and I don't know if you got it.

I did get both emails and kept them forever. I proposed 2 weeks after meeting Misty and we were sealed in the Seattle Temple 5 weeks after that. I had pawned off all my video game equipment so that I could put a good down payment on a platinum ring. I had already purchased the ring before she hinted at wanting white gold instead of yellow. I took it with me when I went to meet her parents over Christmas so I could propose to her by the waterfall in her back yard but was too chicken to ask her dad for permission despite all the times Misty and her Mom left me alone with him. I would probably be weary of some guy that just shows up out of nowhere wanting to marry my daughter though I felt like I had won over Misty's mom fairly quickly when I sat down to their grand piano and started to play. Her mom warmed up to me right away showing me all sorts of Misty's baby pictures. I'll never forget when I was palying the piano and talking to her she asked me how I felt about scouting and I told her I was an Eagle she ran over and opened their back door and yelled "Larry! He's an Eagle Scout!" Made me feel good so I didn't want to tell her that my mom made it a pre-requisite to getting a driver's license.

Everything happened so fast and is still sort of a blur but the feelings of the spirit on that first night I met Misty are still there. I finally found the love that I would spend eternity with and each day she proves to be every bit as good as the spirit said she was and then some.

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Ok, it's me again. I totally forgot to add the part about the checklist! I still have that thing. I matched his list. Right down to the blue eyes. It was like he was describing me.

Also, regarding the dream he had of a piano player on his mission: Not long after we were married, we were over at his parents house. I was sitting at their piano playing one of my favorite Michael McLean songs. It's a short one called "Let His Love Reach You" with a really pretty melody. Suddenly Dave came running in and goes

"what were you just playing?"

I started playing it again and he sat down and said "that's the song you were playing in my dream." I got chills.

I pulled out some pictures yesterday. I'll try and get them scanned in so you can have pictures with the story too. :)