It’s been a few days now, so I figure it’s time to get this down. First off, thanks to everyone for the well wishes and congratulations. I really appreciate all of your support and couldn’t be happier!

And of course, everyone wants to hear the story of how it all happened (especially since it did not go according to plan), so here it is. Just as a warning, this might occasionally slip into “romantic” stuff. I bet if I was just seeing this in my news reader, I would probably skip it…

Anyway, my original plan was to arrive in Provo around 7:30 PM and take care of things by around 8:30 PM. Well, of course my flight from Denver to Salt Lake City was delayed, so I didn’t land until around 7:00 PM. I picked up my car and headed down to Provo to find her. As an aside, I must say that my rental experience with Alamo was MUCH better than Hertz. Very quick service, free upgraded car, and no trying to scare me into getting insurance.

Well, Mariam wasn’t at her apartment. This didn’t surprise me too much, since she had mentioned she might go out with a friend that night. I had thought ahead to contact the friend so I had her phone number, but when I called, she said she wasn’t with Mariam. She told me Mariam had mentioned something about a ward activity. Mariam wasn’t picking up her phone, so I had to start searching. None of the apartments in her building had any fliers about an activity on their doors, so my next best guess was some big event going on at the Wilkinson Center on campus.

As I was walking up to campus, I was coming up with the ways I would convince the BYUSA people to let me inside without a BYU ID card. Turns out I didn’t have to try, since I was able to see in through the doors enough to see she wasn’t there.

9:49 PM Jan 22nd:

Everyone keep a lookout for a tall brunette Latina woman. She’s not at her apartment nor the Wilk…

I headed back to her apartment and tried knocking again, and this time her roommate was there. She told me she was at a stake activity that was somewhere near Payson, UT (a bit under 30 minutes south of Provo). Mariam finally returned my calls, and she confirmed that that is where she was. I didn’t want to spoil my surprise, so I just pretended I was at home and asked her to call me when she was done. Her roommate wasn’t sure where the activity was, but thankfully some people walking into the apartment building had a flier to give me.

Of course, the address on the flier didn’t come up in a Google Maps search. So I just started driving south. I have yet to mention that the weather was somewhat crappy, with quite a bit of snow falling. Everyone was going around 40 MPH on the interstate, so getting down to the exit took longer than I had wanted. With no map to help me and limited visibility, I drove past the street I needed to pass twice.

Once I finally figured it out, the roads weren’t any better and people were going even slower. I started getting close to the address and the road turned into an incline. All of the cars in front of my began stopping and a long line of cars coming the other direction was inching it’s way down the hill. Still dunno why everyone was stopped, but the only thing I could think was “Gosh, the roads aren’t that bad.” Well, I ended up sitting there for about ten minutes before figuring Mariam was in one of those cars coming down the hill, so I turned around and started heading back to Provo to meet her when she got home.

Not being one who gives up easily however, I wanted to just double check. So all the driving back to the interstate, I was calling her phone. After about 30 calls, she finally picked up (I think the #1 thing on our wedding gift registry is a phone Mariam can actually hear while it’s in her pocket). She told me she was actually still in the parking lot of the place and about 200 cars were lined up trying to get out of the parking lot. She figured it would be at least an hour by the time she got out of there. This was not an acceptable solution.

I told her to just call me when she was home (still trying to keep my secret), and I turned back around, ready to drive any stupid drivers off the side of the road if needs be just to get to where she was. I got to the final turn off to the parking lot, which was an uphill narrow road. A couple of cars coming the other way started blinking there brights at me, so I stopped.

A very excited dude came running up to my car yelling something about having 400 people stuck in a parking lot and saying I couldn’t go any further. I might have argued with him, but stopping on the snowy road while on the incline left me with no traction to go up, so my only option was to turn around and go back down. As I started driving back to the end of the road, the guy started yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs that I needed to slow down because the road was so slippery. I should have told him to go back to the OC. I made it to the bottom of the hill without incident.

Anyway, being turned around by the “bro” in his first snowstorm was the final straw for me, so I called Mariam and said “Ok, I am here, I have come to rescue you, walk down to the bottom of the road and I will be waiting for you.” Took her a few seconds to realize what was going on, but then her and her friend started coming down the road. This is when I first checked my phone to see that everyone was congratulating me because this had posted.

11:41 PM Jan 22nd

omg it did not all go according to plan!!!!! sitting on the side of the road in elk ridge Utah!!!!!

11:45 PM Jan 22nd:

this will make a great blog post.

It was definitely a relief to finally see her and have her next to me. Of course, getting back to Provo took forever and a day. The snow had stopped and the roads were slight damp and slushy in places, yet everyone was still driving like molasses in February. We FINALLY got back to Provo around 11:30 and dropped off Mariam’s friend.

12:35 AM Jan 23rd

found her, alive in Provo, still haven’t given her the ring…

Of course by this time I am starting to get sleepy, but I need to get it taken care of that night, so I finally set my plan in motion. Before we go on, we need to take a short trip (or two) down history lane…

I spent the beginning half of the summer of 2007 in Japan. For the month of June, I was staying with a really cool elderly couple, Nobuomi and Yoshie. Nobuomi was one of those old men always cracking jokes even if no one laughs, and Yoshie and I spent many evenings together enjoying Japanese t.v. dramas such as 冗談じゃない！. Anyway, Nobuomi spent one evening showing me how to make nesting origami boxes similar to this. As I was folding these boxes, I thought how great they would be for giving a girl some sort of gift…

Fast forward two and half years to last October. I flew out to Utah for General Conference and to celebrate Mariam’s birthday a bit early. My gift for her was a bunch of these little boxes with a love note written on each piece of paper, and then inside the smallest box, a promise ring. I thought it was a pretty sweet idea, and I think she liked it too.

Ok, now getting back to present day! We finally got to her apartment and I told her I was hungry so she made me something to eat. After I had eaten, I told her I had something to give her, so I pulled out another set of the origami boxes just like I had given to her before. She opened it up, and inside was… a little clay heart I had painted with our initials on it. She was expecting the proposal, so I thought I would tease her a bit with that. I could tell she was half disappointed but also half relieved that I didn’t use the exact method as before to propose.

By now it’s almost four hours later than I had hoped to pop the question, but there was no stopping now. I told her that we should go out and play in the snow. She agreed.

How about some more backstory? And a also a quick digression… :D

Mariam and I first met at Wendy’s. Well, more like walking with a couple of friends to Wendy’s, but standing in line to order food was the first time I actually had the courage to look over at the beautiful woman whose presence I couldn’t believe I was in. So the original plan was to take her to Wendy’s before proposing to bring things kind of full circle, but it was too late by then, so sadly that part of the plan got nixed.

Anyway, Mariam always tells me that her favorite date (also the first time I got to hold her hand!) was going out to play in the snow on the fields next to Wyview. We made snow angels, wrote each other messages in the snow, and gave each other white washes. Good times.

So, I figured if that was her favorite date, we should do it again. This is finally when I realized that the snow that caused me so much agony a few hours earlier was actually a blessing. The field was covered in a beautiful layer of fluffy, pristine snow. We ran out and had our date all over again. Snow angels, white washes, and a few snowballs.

I started writing a message in the snow and told her not to look until I was done. It said “Kiss Me”, which she did, so that was cool. Then it was her turn, so she wrote “TKM”, which is apparently how all of the cool kids write “I love you” down in Mexico these days.

Then it was my turn, so I wrote my message while she closed her eyes. When I was finished, I told her to look. It said “Marry Me”. She turned back to me and I got on my knee, pulled out the ring, and told her I loved her, I wanted to be with her forever, and asked her if she would marry me. She then started saying something about loving me too, blah blah, and I was like, “Wait, are you going to say yes or not?” She laughed and said yes. Kissing, hugging, putting on the ring, more of the kissing and hugging. It was good.

As we were walking back to the car, I pulled us both into the snow just for good measure.

And that’s how it happened.

Middle-of-the-night sources reported that Jobs then began work on double-spacing his Keynote presentation and increasing the font size to make it appear longer.

I lol’d. (via @chillylint)

• Apps come from the App Store only. I can handle having a locked down system for a phone, since I expect a lot less from it. For this large of a device, I expect a more flexible and open platform.
• Syncs through iTunes. iTunes is for syncing music and other media to media devices. The iPad takes us even farther from the original iPods, so why are we still using the old system? The iPad should be able to act as a stand alone device, and all syncing should be through a separate sync application with plugin functionality. That way syncing is not restricted to what Apple builds into iTunes. When I press sync, why can’t I have ALL of my apps sync? It sounds like iPhone 3.2 allows for a shared files folder that can mount on the host computer, though how this works, we still don’t have details. If somehow apps can automatically sync using this, that would be a little bit better than the current situation, but it seems like an awkward separation of syncing methods.
• Honestly I don’t care that much about multitasking; the only things I wish I could have are: 1) streaming audio apps being able to play in the background and 2) an easier way to handle texts/emails, such as a pop-up that doesn’t force exiting the current app.

The hardware seems great to me. I don’t care about the specs.

I guess I really just wish Apple would have taken Mac OS and skinned it with a new touch interface instead of taking iPhone OS and making it bigger. I don’t want a big iPod touch, I want a tablet Mac.

Honestly, I am secretly hoping that this will be a big flop so that Apple can take the beautiful things they have done and make a really amazing device.

Yeah, this is a bit old, but you should go check out the second Twitter account listed in the post. Oh man, I am famous! Daniel Jalkut wrote about ME!!! (kind of)

Just for the record, the last two posts were concerning the above article and the debate it has caused in the Daily Unifarce. Many students were upset at the choice and argued that other Mormons such as Mitt Romney, Glenn Beck, or even Stephanie Meyer are more deserving. Meh.

I find it a bit ironic that Harry Reid was lambasted in the Daily Unifarce’s Reader’s Forum and now multiple students are proposing Mitt Romney for the “Mormon of the Year” award. The most common criticism of Harry Reid was his comments on Proposition 8. Perhaps those submitting Romney’s name should know what one Massachusetts anti gay marriage group thinks about their former governor.

Livejournal: You have been blogging since before it was cool and you probably like fanfiction.

Blogger: You don’t care if your blog looks butt ugly and you haven’t moved on from 2005.

Wordpress: You think that SEO actually works.

Tumblr: You desperately want other people to think you are hip and a design snob.

Moveable Type: You are a masochist.

BTW, I’ve put back comments on my blog. Don’t be shy, say hello!

Ani, a friend of mine since, well, the womb, sent out an open letter to a bunch of people in her address book. She gave me permission to republish it and make some comments. Here is the entire text of the letter and my commentary is at the bottom:

To those who are concerned:

I am sensitive to the pervasive questioning within the church of what to do with all these un-married young adults. As a 26-year-old unmarried woman I am eager to share my perspective.

I am excited and awed by my current position in life and by my opportunities for the future. I do not doubt the great influence for good which I can affect on the world, nor do I shirk that responsibility. I seek to enlarge it. For the last two years (and for the first time in my 26 year-old-life) I attended a YSA ward as I completed my degree at Brigham Young University. I feel that I have a unique perspective on such congregations, as the majority of my “young single adult” life I have attended family wards and branches. I grew up in a small Wisconsin town and attended two Midwestern universities before transferring to BYU. In each University setting, LDS were in the minority and the closest YSA congregations met at least an hour away; so, I only visited them for monthly activities. Each Single Adult Ward I have attended in Provo has been a positive experience. I have relished the many deeply spiritual Sunday school lessons where the focus was uniquely adapted to the needs and concerns of our demographic. I have been impressed by the well-prepared talks, musical talent, and the silent reverence concentrated into sacrament meetings. I have gained life-long friends and confidants. And yet, I feel deeply persuaded that Single Adult Wards are in fact resulting in the exact opposite effect than that which was intended by their creation. Rather than encourage growth, these one-dimensional communities perpetuate stagnation. By sequestering individuals on the basis of marital status, the church as a whole is losing out on valuable time, talents, and energy. And, the ones labeled “single” continue to grow—just as the label suggests—in unnatural, monochromatic isolation.

As time passed at BYU, I increasingly felt more estranged from real life. One day I caught myself staring, entranced, at a young child skipping across campus. I realized that it had been months since I had even seen a child. It had been months since I’d been in any family setting at all. I found myself fully immersed in a peculiarly unsustainable community of transients. No elderly, no children, no married couples, no permanent residents. Such a scenario is impossible in a family ward, where just by attending church on Sundays one networks with all societal age groups. In Wisconsin and Iowa, I gained from the insight of older adults who had both lived my experiences and had wisdom beyond my years to share. And I, in turn, was looked to as an example and mentor for the young children and teenagers. Heeding my current sense of loss, I have since made attempts to get to know elderly neighbors, and to serve in areas where I can connect with young children and see families interact. But, these opportunities only come in secular environments. All BYU church settings are saturated by one “single” dimension of our population; they are void of families.

My desire to move my records into a family ward came as a shock to both my Bishop and my peers. Though most students I talk with roll their eyes at the state of single adult wards, few would feign to change his or her position. It is just so easy in a singles' ward, especially at BYU. Half of the sisters in my last Relief Society served missions, and all of the Elder’s quorum held the Melchizedek Priesthood. There were not enough callings to go around. For months last year, my sole calling was a visiting teacher to two active girls who lived next door to me. My VT companion was my roommate. Our visits were always enjoyable, but mostly our best efforts to serve were just a perpetuation of a good habit of obedience rather than requisite to our spiritual community. Please don’t misunderstand me. I make this observation not out of ignorance at the spiritual importance of Visiting Teaching, but out of a throbbing understanding of the need that exists in this world and a passionate desire to be part of the solution. After growing up in a small branch where I accompanied my mom on visiting a list of 10 women, mostly inactive, and many who lived an hour’s drive away, and after serving a mission in areas where the “inactives” outnumbered the “actives” by a magnitude of ten, I have experienced the undeniable power of Visiting and Home Teaching. I know they are divinely inspired programs. I have witnessed their miracles. I absolutely recognize that no singles' ward is devoid of need, yet the summer-camp experience fostered by these family-less congregations unhealthily hides need from view. Following the sterile definition of our label, no one has a family; the majority of us have only one person to look after.

In stark contrast to the mission field, I find myself enveloped in a self-centered world. My well-plotted daily plans are full of necessities: attend my classes, do my studies, complete my homework, go to my work, earn my money, prepare for my future family. Following this agenda, it sure did not take long for me to notice that my happiness factor was diminishing in direct correlation to the amount of time I spent on my own personal growth. I have covenanted with my God to give all I have to the building of His kingdom, and so, when I scan the rows of chairs at a single adult sacrament meeting, I am burdened by the thought that my peers and I sit as a mass of wasted time, talents, and energy. I have seen the work of a single mother, the financial strain of working parents, the inescapable busyness of parenthood. At this time of our lives, when our responsibilities have not multiplied to that magnitude, I believe that young single adults are the greatest potential resource for service that the church has. And yet, if there is a community of need around us, we do not know it. Instead, own wards' activities committees toil day and night to discover new and exciting ways to entertain us: renting out the movie theater for ward movie night, preparing an elaborate evening carnival up the canyon, brainstorming new water games to play in the park. I am neither a prude nor a recluse; I enjoy the entertainment as much as the next. But, I worry that the institution of Singles Wards simply delays adulthood and hinders real community-impacting experiences.

Conversely to what I perceive the intention of singles' wards to be, being immersed in a population of stellar singles actually increases my desire to stay single; there is great freedom, opportunity, and predictability in it. In contrast, when I am in family settings, observing healthy marriage relationships and interacting with children, my desire to be a wife and mother is re-ignited. So, how does one resolve the dilemma of being in a singles' ward, but not of a singles' ward? Marriage—though the most obvious answer—is the least controllable. Moving to a new location had to wait until after graduation. To find balance as a student, I occasionally attended a local Hispanic ward in the mornings before my assigned ward met. Now I work and reside in Salt Lake City where I have chosen to attend a family ward. In doing so, I have encountered numerous other singles who have made my same decision. One YSA in my current family ward told me she feels like she is now a member of a “real ward” again. We feel that our lives are enhanced, not hindered, by connecting with a more diverse population of less transient people. I understand that a large scale flood of singles into family wards could very well dilute the family wards to an un-stable condition, and so singles' wards may be an unfortunate necessity. However, some creativity may lead us to more productive arrangements where the sequester non-married members of the church may become more integrated into the church family, and where our un-tapped time, talents, and energy may be of greater use to the Lord’s kingdom.

Sincerely, ani

Hard to know where to start commenting on this.

In contrast, when I am in family settings, observing healthy marriage relationships and interacting with children, my desire to be a wife and mother is re-ignited.

(emphasis mine)

Actually, I think if single guys had to interact with children at church, none of us would ever get married… I kid, I kid. Children are great… from a distance :).

So, let’s start with my criticisms first (some of these will even venture into realm of the devil’s advocate).

As time passed at BYU, I increasingly felt more estranged from real life.

Honestly, I think this is the nature of attending an educational institution full-time. Even when setting aside the “Provo bubble”, going to university, sitting in the ivory towers, does not give anyone a sense of what “real” life is like. So I don’t think we can completely blame single’s wards for this.

In Wisconsin and Iowa, I gained from the insight of older adults who had both lived my experiences and had wisdom beyond my years to share. And I, in turn, was looked to as an example and mentor for the young children and teenagers… All BYU church settings are saturated by one “single” dimension of our population; they are void of families.

I think that interacting with young adults provides unique opportunities that those other relationships cannot. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with an environment outside of the typical Mormon cultural setting.

I make this observation… out of a throbbing understanding of the need that exists in this world and a passionate desire to be part of the solution… I find myself enveloped in a self-centered world. My well-plotted daily plans are full of necessities: attend my classes, do my studies, complete my homework, go to my work, earn my money, prepare for my future family.

What is so wrong with a temporarily self-centered world? Should we really expect to be able to go out and change the world without focusing some time and energy on developing our knowledge and talents? And even though our college years are full of self-serving activities, even within the Provo bubble there are plenty of opportunities to take a break and help someone else.

I am burdened by the thought that my peers and I sit as a mass of wasted time, talents, and energy.

Calling the time, talent, and energy wasted seems rather subjective. Like I said, focusing during one’s college years on personal development is hardly a waste.

[I]f there is a community of need around us, we do not know it. Instead, own wards' activities comities toil day and night to discover new and exciting ways to entertain us…

I think the fault here lies completely with the ward’s activities committee. I know I was able to take part in a number of community service oriented activities while in Provo. And of course, just because there is suffering in the world doesn’t mean we are required to eschew all entertainment.

We feel that our lives are enhanced, not hindered, by connecting with a more diverse population of less transient people.

I think the transient aspect of a single’s ward can be viewed as a blessing. It provides countless opportunities to form long lasting relationships that can turn into a personal world wide network. Such a network can become an extremely powerful avenue for doing good things in the world.

Ok, now for things I agree with. Actually, I do agree with Ani that single’s wards often do not provide environments that explicitly encourage marriage between members. However, I am not entirely sure I believe that that is the actual purpose of a single’s ward. Sure, it defined by the marital status of it’s members, but the purpose of the ward is much greater than changing that status.

As a college student I was too self-centered sometimes, I admit. I look back and wish I had taken more opportunities to step outside of my study cave to serve other people. Single’s wards do have a responsibility to promote community service and to do things besides movie nights.

I don’t think single’s wards should be done away with. I don’t think the ward structure itself is the cause for any complacency or social myopia, that is strictly a personal choice. Single’s wards can be a force for much good (outside of nuptial inspiration) and I think they provide opportunities that a family ward could not provide to a young adult.