My Engagement Story

Fatih is very spontaneous. One day he showed up at "Pools on the Park" the fitness club I worked at (actually he worked out everyday, so this was normal) He told me he wanted to take me to the countryside after I got off work. So, when he came to pick me up he was dressed very smart in a suit and I was just in my work pants and collared shirt. He didn't want to go all the way back to my flat (which was just a 15 minute drive) so he took me to a clothes shop and had me pick out a dress and some shoes to wear. Also he picked out some shoes that matched better with his suit. (Turkish people (from Istanbul at least) are pretty meticulous about fashion, actually most things) So after all that, we got on the road, and we ran into the biggest traffic jam ever. It took us four hours to get somewhere it usually takes two. By the time we got to York, the castle he wanted to take me to was closed for the day for cleaning. He was very dissappointed, but we decided to go to an Italian restaurant instead and come back two days later to the castle when it would be open and we could spend all day because I wasn't working. So we came back two days later and spent the day discovering the city of York, we walked on top of the walls of the city (kind of like a tiny version of the Great Wall of China). Then finally he took me to the castle and we climbed to the very top. Where he said to me, "Even if it was 1000 years ago and I was the King and you were a farmer girl or if you were the Queen and I was your Knight, I would still be in this place asking you the same question, Will you marry me?" of course I said yes and we got some rings from the souveniour shop (one actually had a knight on it) which we still have today, and we wore them the rest of the day. After this I had the daunting task of telling my family, because I hadn't even told them I was dating someone yet. Needless to say, they were completely shocked, especially since he was not a member and was from Turkey which is in the middle east, although the side he lives in is the European side, where they are very modern. His family originally came from Germany and Russia. My family didn't have a clue how it was going to work out, but I had a strong feeling that a very specific prayer where I asked Heavenly Father to find me a man a couple months back was being answered. Every single thing that I listed in my prayer was a quality that he had. Also he had very sincerely started taking the discussions. Watching him as he learned the gospel was a wonderful experience, seeing the mighty change in his heart. He truly became like a child in the gospel, he was so excited about everything. He wanted to follow Jesus so closely that he insisted on being baptised in a river. So, in August 2004, he was baptised in a river by a waterfall in Ayr, Scotland. It was not a coincidence that when we finally came back to the U.S. in 2005, I was getting set apart for a calling from Bishop Johnson, who didn't know a thing about me or my husband, and he gave me a blessing with my whole family there where he said these words, "Heavenly Father wants you to know that your husband is a good man who was sent to you by him" I already knew, but it was a powerful confirmation of the spiritual promptings I had already received where I kept flashing back to my prayer and realizing every detail of it was answered. Also it was good for my family to hear it.