How Missy and John Saunders Met

I was going to change John's name for this but I figured that his full name actually plays a part in this story so I'll refrain from creativity and stick with the norm! Sorry Sarah!

In April of 2002 John got home from his mission from San Francisco. I got a full report from my mom who goes to the Stake Council meetings where missionaries report. She told me there were two missionaries back and both were good looking and gave great reports. A week or two later John popped up in the single's ward and was promptly embarrassed from the pulpit from Tommy Larsen. I eyed him from the front of the chapel where I was sitting and then again from the pulpit where I had to make an announcement for Institute that week. He was cute. dark hair, cool hairstyle, black suit, nice shoes, leaning forward in his pew with his leg up and hand on his chin smiling. He obviously knew Tommy Larsen well and wasn't at all phased by the comment to have the girls promptly welcome him to the ward.

Now during my tenure in the single's ward my best bud and roommate Nikki and I were super outgoing. We invited anyone and everyone to hang out with us, go to activities and to come to our place and watch movies. But when it came to guys I might be interested in, I would get so shy and hope they would ask me out. So I didn't talk to John Saunders. On more than one occasion he'd be sitting by himself and I would never welcome him to the ward or say anything to him.

Luckily for me, John took notice of me. Granted, I was about a buck thirty back then and had tons of clothes and shoes and always made a point to be impeccably dressed hoping a guy would take notice. I will admit I was super cute. Oh how I want to get back to my super cuteness! He had mentioned to Haley Carroll that he thought I was pretty. I have a good relationship with Brother Carroll (Haley's dad) and from that moment on he would ask me if I knew John Saunders and that he was such a great guy and I should get to know John Saunders. He'd tell me how John Saunders thought I was pretty and that I should invite him out to activities. But I was so shy about it, I never did. For some reason he was never just John. They always called him John Saunders.

My sister Melinda was in the First Ward at the time, which was John's home ward. John had gone back and forth from going to the single's ward to the first ward. She had a conversation with him about how the single's ward was going but he said he wasn't feeling very welcome there and wasn't sure he would go back. My other sister, Mandie, asked me what I was going to do about it. I told her I would call him and invite him to FHE.

Which I did. I sat on my sister's bed for a good almost an hour with the phone in my hand before ever dialing. I was that afraid of calling a guy that I had to muster up my courage and breath slowly enough to stop my hands from shaking. I dialed and got his mom who told me he had left to visit his brother in Lubbock about half an hour before. Half an hour? So much for gaining my composure. So I left a message with my phone number and told her to have him call me.

A few days passed and Nikki, Mandie and I made plans to go to NorthPark to eat at PF Chang's. When we got there we had to wait about 45 mintues to get a table so we ended up walking around the mall, going to JCrew, peeking in at Tiffany's. We stopped at a little paper store next to Crane and were browsing through invitations. I spotted one on a display near the front of the store and said that when I got married I wanted those invitations. Needless to say Nikki and Mandie rang out in a chorus of how I was going to marry John Saunders. They thought they were sooo funny!

I had my cell with me because I was on phone duty for Nikki's family to call because her sister was supposed to have a baby and I don't think Nikki had a cell phone at the time. We had a great dinner and everything was so good. We topped the night off with The Great Wall of Chocolate and fortune cookies. My fortune that night was "Just Be Yourself. You Are Wonderful." I remember thinking that was a very Brother Van sort of fortune to get. As we got the check I got a call from a number I didn't recognize and didn't get to my phone in time to answer it. Nikki wasn't sure if it was her dad or someone else so I listened to the message and it was from none other than John Saunders. I was so excited that we quickly paid I called him right back as we walked to the parking lot and drove home. Nikki would tell me later that her and Mandie just watched me walking to the car on the phone with John and got these looks on their faces like I knew exactly what I was doing and so did they. I swear I am not normally so flirty! John wanted me to go see a movie that night with him and Krista Potts, but we were in Dallas so there was no way. We decided to talk later in the week and maybe meet up at the dance on Friday. I was so nervously excited, but in all honesty I had no motivation to be in a serious relationship with someone at that point.

I had dated a guy that I wished I hadn't and he moved off to BYU leaving me alone and sad at Christmas in '01 before John and I met. For some reason I was so heartbroken that this guy had moved and thought we'd keep our relationship going. He broke up with me on the Friday after Valentine's Day and I took it really hard. So because of that I was not really interested in dating anyone seriously. I had completely re-done my room at our apartment and was promoted as Production Manager at the newspaper earlier in the year. I had great roommates and an even greater friend in Nikki and was really happy being single and was very content with how things were going in my life. So I decided to take heed of my fortune from that night and just be myself because I was, in fact, wonderful.

Later in the week John called and we talked for about an hour on the phone. We're both so indecisive that he finally decided to call Justin Jester and hook up a double date to drive to the dance on Friday night. Justin was dating a girl at the time and I knew Justin pretty well and John had gotten to know him in the few weeks he had been hanging out with his friend, Krista. On Friday night I was dressed in my favorite black Gap elbow sleeve shirt, low rise gray pants with a black belt and black flip flops. We decided to meet at the park-n-ride that's by the stake center and drove to the dance which I think might have been in Duncanville, but I really can't remember. John was wearing a button up plaid shirt which I could tell was a little big on him, jeans and sandals. He looked good, skinnier than I remembered. Turns out he'd been running every day trying to lose the 40 pounds he'd gained on his mission. We were both quiet in the back seat and talked a lot at the dance but only danced together a couple of times. We both knew most of the people from our ward that were there so at least it wasn't awkward. After the dance we drove back, he walked me to my car, gave me a small hug and that was it. No fireworks, really. We did discover we had a lot in common and I thought he was really nice. That night, our first date, was May 24, 2002. Ben was born exactly 4 years later on May 24, 2006.

The next night a bunch of us in the single's ward ended up at Braum's. John called me while we were there and wanted to see if we could hang out after he got off work. He met up with us at our apartment where I proceeded to fall asleep while we were all watching Shanghai Noon. I think I was really anemic or malnourished back then. I could fall asleep anywhere! Anyway. I was a bit more awake after the movie and we chatted in the kitchen for a while. John started to finish off the lasagna Nikki had made when we fed the missionaries but then felt guilty for the complex carbs he was eating so late at night, so he threw it away. He was so worried Nikki would be mad a him for doing that! I thought it was so funny!

We ended up sitting next to each other at church the next day, skipped out on FHE early on Monday night to go see a movie and saw each other every single day (minus the 4 days he was in Utah visiting his brother) after that and loved every minute of it.

I still thought I had no intention of getting married anytime soon let alone less than a year later. But late one night on September 7, 2002 I would get a loud knock on my door that would change my life forever....

to be continued...