It all began in Kansas City. Well, right outside Kansas City at a train station in a little town called Lee's Summit. Its singular claim to fame? An Amtrak station that's NOT in Kansas City.

In the spring of 2018, Josh was in his junior year at Saint Louis University and was searching for a mission trip to attend during his spring break. Josh had managed to tag a ride along with the Truman State's Lutheran Student Fellowship (LSF) on their annual spring break trip. Danielle was curious who this random guest who would be joining their trip was. The LSF group gathered at a church in Lee’s Summit to rest for the night before making the drive to Denver, Colorado. The group began playing games while waiting for their guest to arrive. Josh, without a car, hopped on a train to meet them in Lee’s Summit. The group leader and Danielle decided to forgo the current volleyball game and pick Josh up from the Amtrak station, and here our story begins.

The group arrived in Colorado after a long travel day. The group was staying at a local Lutheran church and settled in by playing a game of hide and seek in the dark. As the game began to dissipate, Danielle and Josh found themselves exploring the offices of the church. They found themselves in the pastor's office exploring the plethora of books in his library. They found themselves bonding over reading the 7th edition of the Handbook of Denominations. They got a real kick out of discovering obscure Christian denominations. Reading about the Duck River Baptist denomination was simply thrilling.

Fast forward a year, Josh managed to get invited back on LSF's annual spring break trip (I guess at least some people must have liked him). This year it was to the great state of Texas. There they participated in serving multiple sites such as a women's shelter where they painted a purple wall together. Danielle helped by holding the ladder because Josh often made questionable choices :) . So romantic, right? Anyhow, the actual sweetest part of the trip came through affirmations. Affirmations was a spring break tradition in which you draw names of two other participants and at the end of the week talk about positive things they saw in them throughout the week. Josh had drawn Danielle's name and to this day keeps the note with her name on it with him in the back of his phone case .

They made it back to Missouri and Danielle made the first move. They started talking soon after they arrived home. At the beginning of April Josh took his life into his own hands and flew Cape Air to Kirksville to visit and make it official. Well, her brother beat him to it and introduced them as a couple the first night of his arrival while visiting the local bar.

The following day they made it official and ended the day with a fun photo scavenger hunt with LSF. They were assigned to the same team and dominated the game. Along the way they were required to capture a picture of two team members pretending to get engaged (LSF did not know Josh was going to join them). Those two members just happened to be Danielle and Josh. Which led to this photo...

And they continued dating long-distance through the spring. They both graduated with their bachelors. Josh was off to find a job and Danielle began teaching summer school as part of her master's program. Long distance wasn't ideal, but they made it work with weekend trips and many phone calls exchanged.

Fall came around and Danielle came home to STL for student teaching and both were excited to finally be in the same city for an extended amount of time. Unfortunately, it was only temporary as Danielle had to return to Truman for her last semester of grad school.

March came around and the world fell apart... Thanks COVID. Danielle moved home and although things were looking dreary, they were back in STL together. Months passed, Danielle graduated and began looking for jobs and found one. As the weeks passed, Danielle began dropping hints (Lets be real, Danielle was dropping hints since LAST Thanksgiving). It was previously discussed that they planned to get engaged sometime in the fall, but when? No one knew.

Josh searched and searched for the perfect ring and began planning. He was just stubborn enough to not get the ring she picked out (What fun is that?). He made plans and as expected, Danielle ruined them. She threw a wrench in the plan by inviting him on a last-minute trip to visit her grandparents. Yet, he was still able to make it work. He enlisted the help of one of her best friends and threw a plan together.

October 10th arrived, and they drove back from visiting her grandparents. Danielle was just a little bit grumpy... She made plans with her best friend to grab Ted Drewes before she leaves town. They planned to meet up at Francis Park. As she walked to find her friend, she ran into Josh. He pulled her to a remote spot, got down on one knee, he asked, and she said “Yes!”