The first time I had ever met Payton was at YA (our young adults group). To this day I don't fully remember our first interaction other than the fact remembering her sister Callie say, "Hey Daniel! Come meet my sister Payton!". The first two thoughts that popped in my head were first, "Wait, Callie has a sister?!" and second, "She looks nothing like her!".

Honestly that was it for us for a while, I didn't think anything of that day until I opened up my phone a few weeks later to a DM on Instagram from her. She had slid up on my story commenting about one of the songs I had reshared. And of course it wasn't anything more than just talking about a song so I replied as you would and said, "Wanna listen to some together??". Yes I know, I'm smooth. Needless to say we later hung out here and there going on drives listening to worship music and just talking.

The funny thing is, is that one of the conversations was about our love-life/realtionships we had been in and I remember her saying, "Yeah, I'm definitely not ready for a relationship.", and in my head I was like "DANG IT!" but obviously said, "Oh yeah me too!".

Later on, Payton had asked me to go to an Eric Church concert with her. I was very reluctant about going because I didn't know how that would be. Would it be a date? Would people think we are dating? After a while of questioning weather to go or not and even making up a story about possibly having a "family thing", which I obviously didn't, but thankfully I went.

So we went to the concert and not gonna lie, it wasn't great. And I'm so glad we left because we were able to talk and truly get to know each other.

Fast forward to April 8th, 2022 after months of talking and getting to know each other I asked Payton to be my girlfriend in the Mascoutah DMV parking lot.

From that day on, Payton has shown me how I should be loved and she has supported me in everything I do. I have prayed for this day for a long time and I can't wait to be her husband. I cannot wait to serve her and live out our dreams together.