The Broken Road, continued

Note: I don't have many pictures of this point in my life, so I'll break up the text of this post with random engagement pictures.
Of all the dating sites that cater to LDS matchseekers, I picked ldssingles.com at random and signed up. Little did I know that I had chosen the best of all the sites out there. LDSsingles.com has so many great features that made it easy for me to find the type of guys I was looking for. You can customize who can see you, and who you can see. For example, in the first few hours after I signed up I got messages from a 56 year old man and a 42 year old man! Quickly, I learned how to work the filters, and made it so only guys who were not widowed or divorced, who were between the ages of 21 and 35 could see me, and me them. Then I filled out my Compatibility Report. It asked me dozens of questions about myself: what kind of movies and music I liked; whether I was messy or neat; whether I was a morning person or night owl; how I envisioned the division of work once married (would housework be 50:50? what about yard work? and management of finances?); how many kids I wanted; how often I attended Church and the temple; what I thought about kissing, french kissing, petting, etc. before marriage; and on and on. Once you fill out the report, you can search for guys, and each one will come up with a percentage of how compatible they are with you, based on your reports. To read the actual answers the other person put, you simply click a button that says "Request to view Compatibility Report" and wait for them to say yea or nay. It is helpful to look through their answers before emailing them, because #1 you can look at the things you weren't compatible on, and decide how important those things are to you (a night owl? forget it!) and #2 it gives you something to talk about in your first email (I see you like country music . . .).
I started looking through the guys a little, and then told my mom that I had signed up.

"You DID?!"

"Yeah, we'll see what happens."

"Have you talked to anyone yet? Are you going out?"

"I don't know. I'm looking for local East Idaho guys, but there aren't a ton."

"Wait, wait, wait. Don't limit yourself to the local area! What if the guy for you is in Texas or New York?"

"MOM! I am NOT going to another state to meet some guy!" (Ohhhh, someone in heaven has an ironic sense of humor.)

"What's your password?"

"What? I'm not telling you that? Why do you want it?"

"I just wanted to look and see who's out there."

"You are crazy . . . fine, you can look. But don't contact anyone."
So I gave it to her. And she looked. And looked. And looked. And then she started clicking that "Request to view Compatibility Report" (RTVCR) button on all the guys she thought worthy of siring her grandchildren. Let's just say she and my sister were a little obsessed with the idea of getting me happily married as soon as possible so that someone else would have to deal with my hormones. (Can't blame them.) Pretty soon the "Granted request to view Compatibility Report" messages were flowing in. I looked over the profile and report of each guy carefully, and then decided who to start writing to. I went on a few dates with local guys, which always involved me planning everything. One thing they all seemed to have in common was that they had no date ideas. So after a few emails I would suggest going bowling or golfing or out for a sandwich, and ask if I could bring another couple along with me. (That way I had safety in numbers, and I also had two objective pairs of eyes to help me evaluate the guy post-date.) We would meet in a public place, and I always had my chaperons, so I knew everything would be okay. (Seriously, so many people FREAKED OUT when I told them I was dating someone I'd met online, as if everyone on the internet was Ted Bundy, and I was an idiot.) None of the dates were very spectacular, or repeated.

Before too long my mom was canvasing the site so thoroughly that I couldn't look for guys myself anymore, at risk of sending out a repeat RTVCR. She checked each guy out, even cross-referencing the Sex Offender Registries to make sure they were okay. We are talking hundreds of guys. (I think she didn't sell very many houses during this time. O-B-S-E-S-S-E-D.) On May 25th 2005 "enderen" (Nathan, a tribute to Ender's Game) gave "salamander" (me, a play on my first and last names Sandi-Vander) permission to view his CR. My first email:

Thanks for letting me view your compatability report.

I see that you went to Mexico! What part?
?Estabas en la frontera? Yo servi en Houston, TX,
!que es pais completamente diferente! At first I was the littlest, tiniest bit disappointed that I wasn't going foreign, but as soon as I got there I realized it WAS foreign! I have lots of borracho stories, but it was the best 18 months of my life. (Ha Ha! It's not a cliche, because I didn't say it's the best TWO YEARS of my life!) I was lucky enough to get a job speaking Spanish when I got back, so I'm able to keep up my Spanish. But if you heard me talk you would probably laugh--I have no specific accent, it's just a mish-mash of the Spanish I heard from Guatamaltecos, Honduranios, Mexicanos, Cubanos, Columbianos (boy, are THEY hard to understand!) etc. I also get to practice with my best friend who I met on my mission. We were companions for SIX MONTHS--can you believe it? We struggled together through everything from a roach invasion to opening up a Spanish branch in an English area. I was her maid of honor (see picture album).

Anyway, what great mission memories do you have? Do you still get to use your Spanish? What are you up to now?

The next day:

5/28/05 Yello

Yo servi en la Mision Monterrey Norte. Si estaba yo en la frontera con McAllen Texas, pero en el lado de Mexico por 6 1/2 meses. Well I can say so far apart from having the occasional girl friend it has been the best time of my life so far. I have a Mexican/American accent when I talk. I speak with people here all the time. A couple in my ward but mostly I get to practice with the people I work with the majority are from Latin America. Well I dated a Columbian for a while but we are just friends right now, I broke things off with her about five or six months ago. We are still friends and are going to hang out today. Anyway she is only hard to understand on the phone. The Mexicans that live here no matter where they are from are the easiest to understand. For the rest I have to ask them to repeat what they are saying sometimes just to be sure I am understanding what it is that they are trying to convey. Wow six months with one companion. I am pretty easy going but with some of my companions I would have had to request a transfer. Not for sure, of course would the president grant such a request. I understand the roach invasion. My Dad said the funniest letter he had was when I was transferred to my second area Reynosa, Tamualipas. (I think that is how it is spelled. I wrote to them saying Good news and bad news the good is that the roaches are a lot smaller, the bad is that they fly. He got a kick out of that I guess. I don't have too many drunk's stories, but I do have many others. Some are very funny, others are very spiritual, and some are sad. But that is life and I guess everyone has those stories.
I am working right now at Wing Enterprises. I am a general all around helper because I know how to almost every job there, and a sometime team lead/supervisor. Well it has been fun, thanks for mailing. I have to go run some errands right now so have a good day and talk/ write later. And yes I still do get to use my Spanish a lot. I am also headed for yet another semester of school in August.
signed Nate.

I'm not sure why he mentioned girl friends TWICE in the first few sentences. Perhaps he was just nervous? I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, and we emailed a few more times over the next two weeks, all of it just light conversation about our missions and our jobs. On 6/08 I wrote

I'm going to visit my sister this weekend in Logan, but I guess that's still a long ways from Springville. She wants me to come "scrapbook" with her, but the thought fills me with dread. I have WAY too many pictures--it's a lost cause!

and he replied

sounds like fun going to visit your sister in Logan. It is not too far from Springville. Scrapbooking sounds interesting. My mom said she was going to have a scrapbook for me when I got off the mission. When I got back she handed me a box ot letters and pictures and said sorry. I just laughed and said no worrys. It is only a lost cause if you give up before you ever start. Hey at least it is some quality time with your sister.
If you get bored email me. That is if your sister has internet access. Or if you if have long distance and are comfortable enough call me. Give me a call at 801-380-2037. Or pass on a number to reach yourself at and I could give you a call if you are comfortable recieving a call from me.

!Que Te cuidas y Sonrias Siempre!

I was surprised that he thought 2 hours was not a long way to drive to go on a date with someone he'd never met. And I found his rambling (you could email me, or you could call me, or I could call you) rather endearing. So I called my sister to see if she would be okay with me going on a date for part of my visit. Remember the obsession? Yeah, she was good with it. Within a few minutes we had a potential date activity completely planned, including food and activity. All that was left was to call him. It was a Wednesday, I recall.

"Do it, Sandi! Call him!"

"No! He just barely emailed me his number a few hours ago. It feels too forward!"

"Then give it to me and I'll call him." <<< obsessed

"NO! Fine, I'll do it."

I grabbed my cell and dialed his number. I got his voicemail, so I hung up. What was I going to say? "This is Sandi, from the dating website . . . "

Then my home phone rang, and it was one of my former Young Women's leaders trying to set me up with a guy that she worked with. (Was my single status all anyone thought about?) At the same time, Nathan called on my cell.

"I just got a call from this number?"

"Uh, hi, this is Sandi . . . from the dating website . . ." Smooth.

"Oh, wow! I didn't expect you to call me so fast!"

At that point I was mentally cursing my sister for talking me into calling him so soon. I felt desperate, or forward, or both! He couldn't talk long because he was playing Wallyball, but he called me the next night and we talked for 3 hours. Three. My mom kept coming down to my bedroom and staring at me wide-eyed while mouthing "you're still talking to him?" because at the time I was famous for my aversion to phones. She just couldn't believe I'd stay on that long. (On my mission it was standard practice for senior companions to make junior companions do all the phone calls. They said it was to help my Spanish, but I think they really hated it as much as I did; it's very difficult to understand another language when you can't see their mouths or body language. Also, when I got back from my mission I started an internship at a call center, where I had to talk to angry people on the phone all the time. Consequently, I hardly ever talked on the phone for more than a minute or two. Of course, I'm cured of that now!)

That night we arranged a double date with my sister and her husband, going hiking in one of the canyons around Logan. (More about that later.)

So I just have to finish up talking about LDSsingles by saying that it is AWESOME! I never, NEVER wanted to be in a long-distance relationship: I couldn't imagine that it could work.

But it did.
Oh, boy, did it!

I found Nathan after just a few months. (Okay, so my mom found Nathan. But I must point out, she also found several hundred other guys that I didn't marry.) Nathan had been on a few more months than I, in fact, he had signed up on my birthday in January. Oooo, coincidence?

One of the pluses of our long-distance relationship is that we have an email record of our courtship, like a digital box of love letters. I copied them off of LDSsingles before our memberships expired and saved them to my computer.

At our wedding reception we set up a picture mat for everyone to sign instead of a book. Around the edges I glued letters from 5 keyboards to spell

"GOD BLESS LDSSINGLES.COM"

To be continued . . . yes, again.