Angela and I started dating in December of 2000 when she came to Utah to study English.  Her first student visa was only valid for one year, so in October of 2001, she went back home to Ecuador.  I went to visit during Thanksgiving of that year and asked her Father for permission to marry her.  Shortly thereafter, we were engaged and living on different continents.  I deferred school for the following winter and was able to visit again in February of 2002.  After conferring with immigration officials, we decided to get married in Ecuador so that her family could be present.  INS told us that we would have to wait at the most 3 months after the wedding before Angela could enter the country again.  So on May 17, 2002 we were sealed together in the Ecuador Guayaquil Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It was a wonderful day that gave us the strength to make it through the coming months of separation.  To make a long and rather painful story short, she received her K-3 visa 15 months later in August 2003. 

It was good timing because she had been accepted to Brigham Young University (BYU) and started school that September.  She studied hard and was able to graduate with me (even though I started a few years earlier).  It seems to be one of those "grass is greener" things, but it was such a blessing to attend BYU.  Provo life was a lot of fun and we do miss our friends there. 

Being together has been absolutely wonderful and it continues to get better.  It is such a blessing to be able to share my life with my best friend.  I shudder to think what everything would be like without her.

Our Ecuadorian and American Families