our love story C and M
!!!WARNING LONG POST AHEAD!!!!
Remember how I said that I lived in Canada for a little bit? Well so did C. Okay okay maybe I need to start from the beginning so that you can see how messy and intertwined our lives have been without us even recognizing it.
C's parents lived and served in France and Belgium for 18 months to 2 years and my parents lived in served in Barcelona Spain for 18 months to 2 years as well. In which both sets of our parents eventually reconnected, fell in love, and had us! (now this is crucial to the story so don't forget this). C was born in Utah on October 29 and I was born in Utah on November 10. OF THE SAME YEAR. We were born 12 days apart and only 27.1 miles apart. (Yes I googled this). Yet we lived completely separate lives until 2016. C lived in Utah for a good portion of his life and then moved to Texas for a hot minute and finally Tennesse. Whereas I lived in Utah for literally a hot second and lived a good portion of my life in Nevada and eventually settled in Southern California. Our lives could not have been more opposite. I am a Westerner through and through. And C loves the beauty of the South, where the street corners are lined with Waffle Houses and the people at Walmart are really the people of Walmart website. Now you are probably wondering now where do you two line up with each other? Like how did this even work out since y'all lived across the country from each other?
Well in 2015, C and I both graduated from high school. With C having the call to go to Canada to live and serve for 2 years and I waving my college acceptance mighty high with all the pride in my heart. However, when you go to serve a mission (that is what we call this service) you have to be properly trained in not only the language that you are assigned to (in our case that would be French) but you also have to know what you are talking about. So you head to this place called the MTC or the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah for anywhere from 3-12 weeks depending on where you are going and how complicated your language is. In C's case, it was for 6 weeks. He would study and learn there every day all day beginning in July of 2015. I, on the other hand, was up beginning my college studies in July of 2015 doing what my school calls a Summer Term. However, this is where it gets interesting.
On the 4th of July that year, which was a Saturday, I had managed to score tickets to this event entitled Stadium of Fire. In which BYU finds a singer or performing group to come and provide a concert in their football stadium on the Fourth of July and then they end with a spectacular firework display. Well here I am partying it up with all my friends on the opposite side of the Stadium and there is C on the other side with his extended family just days away from beginning his 2-year service. We never met or crossed paths that night (although my romantic heart would like to believe that we saw each other inside the Stadium at least once -maybe to get a soft pretzel or buy a bottle of water), and C left the following Wednesday for the MTC and then 6 weeks later went on to Canada. However, fate (or Heavenly Father's will you decide ;)) intervened and 5 months later I too found myself in the MTC learning French and preparing to head out to Canada for 18 months. Later would I find out what my mother meant when she wrote me an email one week saying, "just remember to keep your eyes out, you could meet your future husband there..."
I arrived in the mission field (otherwise known as Montreal Canada) so pumped and amped to begin serving the people of Quebec and was assigned to an area called Laval (which is an island just North of Montreal) in late March of 2016. (At the beginning of your mission you are assigned a trainer who helps you get used to mission culture and the country culture for 12 weeks or 3 months which means you stay there for that long). I would be there until June of 2016. Meanwhile, at the same time, C had just been assigned to the furthest point north in the whole mission called Rimouski. So the chances of us running into each other were extremely slim. In the middle of May, my trainer and I had been teaching a man who had recently told us that for the summer months he moves back up to his home in where? Rimouski and that we would not be able to continue our lessons. We were crushed. However, in consulting with our leaders we came to realize that there was a solution! We could have the missionaries up in Rimouski continue his lessons! So we called the Rimouski missionaries up on the phone and I will forever remember hearing this reply as I called them. "Hello, this is Elder Perkes and Elder Pinkham". I remember thinking that those names were so cute (since they rhymed. I know I am a basic white girl through and through). Upon discussing our situation, they told us that the best way to do this was through a pass off lesson in which we would introduce our friend to them and they would explain why they would continue the teaching. We met on Skype a couple days later and I have no recollection of the events (although C tells me that he remembers that we were sitting outside with an above ground pool in the background). And that was that. We did not have any other encounters with each until November of 2016.
Now, this encounter is extremely funny to me. C had just been moved to Ottawa, Ontario and was living downtown. Whereas I had been in the suburbs of Ottawa since August of 2016. At one point the senior missionaries, who we call missionary couples who are around grandparent age, came to inspect our apartment to make sure it was suitable to live and that we had been taking care of it. I had been sleeping on a broken mattress for quite some time and the spring in the mattress was causing me quite a bit of pain. Thus I had expressed my discomfort to the senior missionaries and they told me that they would be in search of some new mattresses and bed frames. About a month later, on my birthday they called and said they could bring the mattresses and bedframes over that night but that they would be over with another set of missionaries the next day. However, my companion (the other missionary you are assigned to live and work with for at least 6 weeks - since we go in twos) and I had planned to go into Montreal that next day with some members of the local congregation. We told them that they could just come in but that we would be gone. The next day they did in fact come by and who was one of the missionaries that came with them? none other than that Elder Pinkham I had met on Skype 6 months previous. He helped set up our beds and noticed my companions shoes (she is only 5 foot and wears shoes the size of kids due to her small size) and felt obligated to take a picture to show to his family in his email home to them. (hahaha funny right?). This whole interaction, however, was not known between us until I got home and C and I began talking. Now, this would not be my final interaction with Elder Pinkham while we were both out serving. It would all end in Quebec City the following May.
C was nearing the end of his mission and had been moved from downtown Ottawa to Sherbrooke (a city halfway between Montreal and Quebec City. Whereas I from that previous November until then had been to what seemed like everywhere. I had moved from Ottawa to Greenfield Park on the South Shore of Montreal, to Hochelaga in the heart of downtown Montreal, and had recently been moved to Quebec City. Now you are probably thinking, Marin these places (Quebec City and Sherbrooke) are nowhere near each other! How did you and C even see or run into each other? Well, young reader that is a great question! You see every 6 weeks all the missionaries in what we call a zone (or a specific area) would get together and have a bunch of trainings and meetings to keep us up to date with changes or things like that. And Elder Pinkham just happened to be in my zone. It was a tradition in our mission that when it was the end of your mission, in your last meeting with your zone you would be asked to get up and speak for 5 to 8 minutes about what you believed and came to know on your mission (also called a testimony). Well, it was C's last zone meeting and he was called to get up and speak. Now I had the tendency to get distracted as these meetings were sometimes really long. However, the minute our mission president (he is the leader over all the missionaries) got up and announced that "Elder Pinkham will give his testimony". My ears shot straight up. I thought that he had gone home a long time ago! (I even made this remark to my companion Sis. B at the time). Now I don't remember what exactly he said, but it was a good testimony. And that was that. 3 weeks later Elder Pinkham returned home to his home in Tennessee. I finished out my mission and went home in August of the same year, just 6 weeks after C.
Now C and I, due to our limited interactions with one another, never felt any connection or draw to find out more about the other. I always remember hearing good things about him, such as he was a hard worker, he had a lot of success, but for some reason never got the opportunity to talk to him. He, on the other hand, had heard that I was a chatty missionary that got moved quite a bit. Which in his defense was true. Thus our desire to learn more about the other was non-existent. He went home to Tennessee and I went home to California and that was that.
About a year later, on the 4th of July 2018, C was out visiting his extended family in Utah. And I happened to be in Utah for the summer working for a youth program as a counselor but had the week off. C and I this entire time were within a 5-mile radius of each other BUT never saw each other. At this time, I had posted a picture on social media about the 4th of July. C and I happened to be Facebook friends already and he saw my picture and thought I was cute. (hehe ;)). However, he never said any of this to me. Or messaged me or anything.
Fast forward to October 2018, C had moved out to Utah and began going to school. I was still here plugging along in my studies. I had previously been frustrated at my lack of dating possibilities and had been set up on several blind dates with one still looming. C, on the other hand, had been on a couple dates with girls who were a little interesting and seemed to have no other interests than discussing the mission they had served. Thus he had decided to give it one more shot and then wait for a while. (that is where I come into play). I had just gone on a blind date, which went relatively okay since my best friend and her boyfriend were there as well. (It still wasn't anything special though). That following Saturday, I woke up to a Facebook message from C Pinkham saying, "hey I know we served in the same mission, I think you are cute and we should go on a date sometime.. would you want to?" Now I can be a major dummy sometimes, and so I said to myself, you shouldn't respond, dating someone from the mission can get messy. So I didn't respond. Then my best friend called me to see how I felt about the guy that I had gone on the date with. I talked to her for a while and then randomly said, H should I respond to this guy from my mission who just asked me out? She proceeded to get mad at me and tell me that it was rude to read a message on Facebook (since they can see that you read it!!!!) and that I needed to respond. So I drafted up this message that it sounded fun and we totally should! Which lead to us exchanging numbers and then texts and then FaceTime call after FaceTime call.
Basically, it was a fairytale with a lot of dramatic twists and turns. And someday I'll tell you the story about how we started dating and how I almost ruined it and how he proposed. But for now, I will just leave you with this.
Our lives have been intertwined since before we were born and it was meant to be that we would find each other and man am I glad we did.
I love you C!
xoxo
Marin
Remember how I said that I lived in Canada for a little bit? Well so did C. Okay okay maybe I need to start from the beginning so that you can see how messy and intertwined our lives have been without us even recognizing it.
C's parents lived and served in France and Belgium for 18 months to 2 years and my parents lived in served in Barcelona Spain for 18 months to 2 years as well. In which both sets of our parents eventually reconnected, fell in love, and had us! (now this is crucial to the story so don't forget this). C was born in Utah on October 29 and I was born in Utah on November 10. OF THE SAME YEAR. We were born 12 days apart and only 27.1 miles apart. (Yes I googled this). Yet we lived completely separate lives until 2016. C lived in Utah for a good portion of his life and then moved to Texas for a hot minute and finally Tennesse. Whereas I lived in Utah for literally a hot second and lived a good portion of my life in Nevada and eventually settled in Southern California. Our lives could not have been more opposite. I am a Westerner through and through. And C loves the beauty of the South, where the street corners are lined with Waffle Houses and the people at Walmart are really the people of Walmart website. Now you are probably wondering now where do you two line up with each other? Like how did this even work out since y'all lived across the country from each other?
Well in 2015, C and I both graduated from high school. With C having the call to go to Canada to live and serve for 2 years and I waving my college acceptance mighty high with all the pride in my heart. However, when you go to serve a mission (that is what we call this service) you have to be properly trained in not only the language that you are assigned to (in our case that would be French) but you also have to know what you are talking about. So you head to this place called the MTC or the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah for anywhere from 3-12 weeks depending on where you are going and how complicated your language is. In C's case, it was for 6 weeks. He would study and learn there every day all day beginning in July of 2015. I, on the other hand, was up beginning my college studies in July of 2015 doing what my school calls a Summer Term. However, this is where it gets interesting.
On the 4th of July that year, which was a Saturday, I had managed to score tickets to this event entitled Stadium of Fire. In which BYU finds a singer or performing group to come and provide a concert in their football stadium on the Fourth of July and then they end with a spectacular firework display. Well here I am partying it up with all my friends on the opposite side of the Stadium and there is C on the other side with his extended family just days away from beginning his 2-year service. We never met or crossed paths that night (although my romantic heart would like to believe that we saw each other inside the Stadium at least once -maybe to get a soft pretzel or buy a bottle of water), and C left the following Wednesday for the MTC and then 6 weeks later went on to Canada. However, fate (or Heavenly Father's will you decide ;)) intervened and 5 months later I too found myself in the MTC learning French and preparing to head out to Canada for 18 months. Later would I find out what my mother meant when she wrote me an email one week saying, "just remember to keep your eyes out, you could meet your future husband there..."
I arrived in the mission field (otherwise known as Montreal Canada) so pumped and amped to begin serving the people of Quebec and was assigned to an area called Laval (which is an island just North of Montreal) in late March of 2016. (At the beginning of your mission you are assigned a trainer who helps you get used to mission culture and the country culture for 12 weeks or 3 months which means you stay there for that long). I would be there until June of 2016. Meanwhile, at the same time, C had just been assigned to the furthest point north in the whole mission called Rimouski. So the chances of us running into each other were extremely slim. In the middle of May, my trainer and I had been teaching a man who had recently told us that for the summer months he moves back up to his home in where? Rimouski and that we would not be able to continue our lessons. We were crushed. However, in consulting with our leaders we came to realize that there was a solution! We could have the missionaries up in Rimouski continue his lessons! So we called the Rimouski missionaries up on the phone and I will forever remember hearing this reply as I called them. "Hello, this is Elder Perkes and Elder Pinkham". I remember thinking that those names were so cute (since they rhymed. I know I am a basic white girl through and through). Upon discussing our situation, they told us that the best way to do this was through a pass off lesson in which we would introduce our friend to them and they would explain why they would continue the teaching. We met on Skype a couple days later and I have no recollection of the events (although C tells me that he remembers that we were sitting outside with an above ground pool in the background). And that was that. We did not have any other encounters with each until November of 2016.
Now, this encounter is extremely funny to me. C had just been moved to Ottawa, Ontario and was living downtown. Whereas I had been in the suburbs of Ottawa since August of 2016. At one point the senior missionaries, who we call missionary couples who are around grandparent age, came to inspect our apartment to make sure it was suitable to live and that we had been taking care of it. I had been sleeping on a broken mattress for quite some time and the spring in the mattress was causing me quite a bit of pain. Thus I had expressed my discomfort to the senior missionaries and they told me that they would be in search of some new mattresses and bed frames. About a month later, on my birthday they called and said they could bring the mattresses and bedframes over that night but that they would be over with another set of missionaries the next day. However, my companion (the other missionary you are assigned to live and work with for at least 6 weeks - since we go in twos) and I had planned to go into Montreal that next day with some members of the local congregation. We told them that they could just come in but that we would be gone. The next day they did in fact come by and who was one of the missionaries that came with them? none other than that Elder Pinkham I had met on Skype 6 months previous. He helped set up our beds and noticed my companions shoes (she is only 5 foot and wears shoes the size of kids due to her small size) and felt obligated to take a picture to show to his family in his email home to them. (hahaha funny right?). This whole interaction, however, was not known between us until I got home and C and I began talking. Now, this would not be my final interaction with Elder Pinkham while we were both out serving. It would all end in Quebec City the following May.
C was nearing the end of his mission and had been moved from downtown Ottawa to Sherbrooke (a city halfway between Montreal and Quebec City. Whereas I from that previous November until then had been to what seemed like everywhere. I had moved from Ottawa to Greenfield Park on the South Shore of Montreal, to Hochelaga in the heart of downtown Montreal, and had recently been moved to Quebec City. Now you are probably thinking, Marin these places (Quebec City and Sherbrooke) are nowhere near each other! How did you and C even see or run into each other? Well, young reader that is a great question! You see every 6 weeks all the missionaries in what we call a zone (or a specific area) would get together and have a bunch of trainings and meetings to keep us up to date with changes or things like that. And Elder Pinkham just happened to be in my zone. It was a tradition in our mission that when it was the end of your mission, in your last meeting with your zone you would be asked to get up and speak for 5 to 8 minutes about what you believed and came to know on your mission (also called a testimony). Well, it was C's last zone meeting and he was called to get up and speak. Now I had the tendency to get distracted as these meetings were sometimes really long. However, the minute our mission president (he is the leader over all the missionaries) got up and announced that "Elder Pinkham will give his testimony". My ears shot straight up. I thought that he had gone home a long time ago! (I even made this remark to my companion Sis. B at the time). Now I don't remember what exactly he said, but it was a good testimony. And that was that. 3 weeks later Elder Pinkham returned home to his home in Tennessee. I finished out my mission and went home in August of the same year, just 6 weeks after C.
I am the one in the white shirt on the left-hand side and C is in the top row and is the 5th person in.
Now C and I, due to our limited interactions with one another, never felt any connection or draw to find out more about the other. I always remember hearing good things about him, such as he was a hard worker, he had a lot of success, but for some reason never got the opportunity to talk to him. He, on the other hand, had heard that I was a chatty missionary that got moved quite a bit. Which in his defense was true. Thus our desire to learn more about the other was non-existent. He went home to Tennessee and I went home to California and that was that.
About a year later, on the 4th of July 2018, C was out visiting his extended family in Utah. And I happened to be in Utah for the summer working for a youth program as a counselor but had the week off. C and I this entire time were within a 5-mile radius of each other BUT never saw each other. At this time, I had posted a picture on social media about the 4th of July. C and I happened to be Facebook friends already and he saw my picture and thought I was cute. (hehe ;)). However, he never said any of this to me. Or messaged me or anything.
Fast forward to October 2018, C had moved out to Utah and began going to school. I was still here plugging along in my studies. I had previously been frustrated at my lack of dating possibilities and had been set up on several blind dates with one still looming. C, on the other hand, had been on a couple dates with girls who were a little interesting and seemed to have no other interests than discussing the mission they had served. Thus he had decided to give it one more shot and then wait for a while. (that is where I come into play). I had just gone on a blind date, which went relatively okay since my best friend and her boyfriend were there as well. (It still wasn't anything special though). That following Saturday, I woke up to a Facebook message from C Pinkham saying, "hey I know we served in the same mission, I think you are cute and we should go on a date sometime.. would you want to?" Now I can be a major dummy sometimes, and so I said to myself, you shouldn't respond, dating someone from the mission can get messy. So I didn't respond. Then my best friend called me to see how I felt about the guy that I had gone on the date with. I talked to her for a while and then randomly said, H should I respond to this guy from my mission who just asked me out? She proceeded to get mad at me and tell me that it was rude to read a message on Facebook (since they can see that you read it!!!!) and that I needed to respond. So I drafted up this message that it sounded fun and we totally should! Which lead to us exchanging numbers and then texts and then FaceTime call after FaceTime call.
Basically, it was a fairytale with a lot of dramatic twists and turns. And someday I'll tell you the story about how we started dating and how I almost ruined it and how he proposed. But for now, I will just leave you with this.
Our lives have been intertwined since before we were born and it was meant to be that we would find each other and man am I glad we did.
I love you C!
xoxo
Marin
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