A recent question asked El-ahrairah and Owlet "what's your story?" I asked El if I could answer it, and, well, I got a liiiiitle carried away. I'm not sure how much of this we'll actually post in our answer, but here's the full version (I was going to write it in third-person, but that
ended up feeling awkward and inauthentic)(see also
BQ#81792,
BQ#81814, and
BQ#81817) :
One of the first things that impressed me about El-ahrairah was his intelligence. He’s very humble, so this isn’t an impression I got so much from him as it was from those around him—his peers and teachers at our high school. I would often hear El-ahrairah got such-and-such a score on this test, El-ahrairah got an academic award, El-ahrairah is so smart, etc. One time during my senior year, my statistics teacher mentioned a student from the previous year who “never did the homework, but always aced the tests because he just figured out the answers logically.” (That’s paraphrased, but dang close.) That was, of course, El-ahrairah.
I didn’t know all this when I first met El, though. He was introduced to me at cross-country practice in the summer of 2009. He had moved to my hometown a year earlier, but our paths hadn’t crossed until I joined the cross-country team that summer. We started talking, particularly about one of our favorite things, books, and became friends—well, maybe more like good acquaintances, as I was a shy girl and kind of intimidated by athletic, smart “older” (by one year) guys. I used to eat lunch by myself to read a book, but sometimes El-ahrairah would come sit by me and ask about what I was reading.
When the formal girls’ choice dance was around the corner, my friends excitedly discussed who they would ask, and I thought I might possibly potentially maybe ask El … until the girl who spoke just before me said she was thinking of asking him! We had a good laugh about that and I said she should ask him because I wasn’t really sure I wanted to anyway. I went with another mutual friend, and El-ahrairah says that it was at that dance that he saw me in my beautiful dress and resolved to ask me out at the next chance he got.
Our first date was a double with some mutual friends; we saw El-ahrairah's sister perform in a ballet and then went to his house to play Wii sports resort, where El was planning to let me win but accidentally got totally creamed. It was simple, and fun. Per our own policies about not going on consecutive dates with the same person (you know, no significant others pre-mission and all that), we didn’t go on another date for a while, but then El-ahrairah asked me to prom!
It was again a simple affair; I bought my dress for $10 at D.I., we had dinner in a backyard, and we had an amazing time at the dance. (El-ahrairah would like to mention that the dinner was very fancy. *Correction: not “very fancy,” just “fancy.” Thanks, El.) A few weeks later, El-ahrairah moved down to BYU to start his freshman year, where he discovered the Board! So he’s been a reader since fall 2010 and, like most people I’m sure, mildly entertained the idea of someday applying.
At the end of his freshman year, El-ahrairah left on his mission, which was when I graduated from high school. While I did write to him consistently, I wasn’t “waiting” for him. I wrote to some other boys I liked, too, although inevitably I would slack off on writing the other guys. El-ahrairah turned out to be the only boy that I wrote to for the entire two years.
Sometime in 2012 I discovered the Board, either through googling a BYU-related question or through my roommate, we’re not sure which. I do remember that I somehow came upon the random question page before the home page, and I used to just reuse that one to find new questions. All the writers seemed to live in the same time-frame for me since I only read the archives, using the “I’m Board!” feature. I finally realized that there was actually a group of contemporary writers accepting volunteers, and I applied and became a writer in February 2013, a few months before El-ahrairah returned from his mission.
The semester before, I had an interesting choice to make. I heard about a linguistics study abroad and made plans to go, and then in October 2013 came the mission-age-change announcement. I was 19 at the time and torn between going on a mission as soon as possible, which had been my plan since I was 10, or continuing my study abroad plans. The obvious solution would be to do the study abroad first, then go on a mission, but in the back of my mind I knew there was more to it. I realized that if I didn’t go on a mission
right then, El-ahrairah and I would be at BYU at the
same time while I worked on my papers, and I had a suspicion that if we spent too much time together … my mission might not be happening.
After a lot of prayer, I decided to go on the study abroad. It was a blast, and
Ardilla Feroz even saved me from a scorpion. When I returned, El-ahrairah was back from his mission. We went on some dates, while I wrote for the Board and he read it. He was more seriously contemplating the idea of applying, and then he found out that not only did I read the Board too, but I was a writer! That gave him the motivation to really try becoming a writer. Meanwhile, I still couldn’t decide if I liked El enough to forego my mission plans, so one fateful night I told him I was really committed to going on a mission and that we shouldn’t go steady.
He took it really well.
I didn’t.
I cut 17” off of my hair as a sign of a new beginning, I started my mission papers ... and I was miserable. Something wasn’t right.
So when we were both in our hometown for Christmas break, I sneakily held his hand during a New Year’s party, making El-ahrairah kind of confused, but also happy. During our year of dating, El-ahrairah was accepted to the Board. (Incidentally, I
also got him a job at my workplace! It’s a good thing that things worked out between us or it would have been really awkward on the Board and at work.) We dated for one year and one month before getting engaged, to a chorus of “Finally!” from our high school friends. After a quick three-month engagement, we were married in our hometown. At some point during the craziness of wedding-planning, job-searching, and graduating, I left the Board. (I was going to have an awesome retirement answer, but that’s how life goes sometimes; maybe I’ll give it during Alumni Week.) El-ahrairah's still going strong as a writer and I go to Board parties with him from time to time.
We’ve been married for about half a year now, and it’s been great! Sometimes I wish that I had gone on a mission, but I think that marriage has taught me the things that I really needed to know now. I’ve learned that the promptings I’ve had throughout my life to prepare for a mission weren’t misread. That preparation has still been immensely valuable.
I feel like this story kind of went in a lot of different directions, but I think that’s the takeaway here. I love hearing about people’s true love stories because it shows you just how many different ways there are to end up with your sweetheart. Thanks, El-ahrairah, for taking this journey with me!
-Owlet
