His Side of the Story

by guest blogger Michael Wesley Olson

Kathryn has done her customary brilliant and thorough job in telling our story. The only thing I can add are the feelings that were going through my mind at the time. I never once thought that I would be blessed enough to find a girl as genuine or as beautiful as Kathryn Harmon. Since returning home from the mission I served in Japan, I had seen many different girls, and none of them seemed to have IT, you know. I began to think that I’d have to compromise my values if I wanted to marry. I never dreamed I could be lucky enough to marry someone with both brains and beauty, someone I could really connect with. The girl of my dreams. My best friend. And this is how it all started…

I began preparing to study abroad at the BYU Jerusalem Center. I had my heart set on visiting the Holy Land for a summer semester. Little did I know that the Lord had other plans for me. He carefully led me into a different path. Several factors combined to hedge up the way and I began to realize that I was not going to make it to Jerusalem. I still had the itch to study abroad though, and after a few talks with Heavenly Father I walked into the U’s Study Abroad Office and began looking at the England pamphlets. One thing led to another and I found myself in an information meeting for the London program. I looked around the room and to my dismay I didn’t recognize anyone. But that was okay because I was feeling adventurous. After all, I had just signed up to fly to a foreign country.

Then my eyes landed on a face I had seen before. Hark! It was the cute girl from my Shakespeare class. She’d caught my eye a few times in class and I had wanted to talk to her, but alas I am a terrible conversation starter and could never come up with a good enough excuse to begin a conversation with her casually. “Um, hey,” *clears throat, “do you like… things…” Gah! *buries face in hands; these scenarios would always play themselves out in my head during class. But now was my chance. It was my time to shine! Our instructors had said that we should form travel groups to make traveling easier. I had my conversation starter.

“Hey,” I said to Kathryn as my palms began to sweat, “d’you want to form a Shakespeare travel group?” I was nervous and my words must have slurred together I concluded, especially since a confused look had overtaken Kathryn’s face. I tried to clarify by explaining that because we were in the same Shakespeare class we should form a travel group together.

In my 24 years of experience whenever I had found the courage to talk to beautiful woman it had always ended the same way, rejection. So I suppose it wasn’t much of a surprise when she said that she couldn’t form a travel group with me because she had other travel plans already. She’d be staying in England the whole summer to do a program in Cambridge as well. So I went on my way and prepared for an unforgettable trip to London.

We talked a few times after that in our Shakespeare class, which made me glad I had at least broken the ice in our earlier meeting. But again, nothing much came of it. She was a beautiful girl who was out of my league and I was just an aspiring radio talk show host with a fan base of six.

But in London she really began to impress me. My roommate and I began making plans to go to church. I was sad because it looked like we were the only two planning on going. On our way out of the collage we were living in we ran into a few more that were going to the LDS church as well. So we went together. We got to the church as sacrament meeting was starting and we sat in the back. It wasn’t until after the meeting was over that I saw her. I saw a couple of familiar faces in a sea of unfamiliarness. It was her! Kathryn! The girl I had always thought was cute but never really ever thought I had a chance with.

I was very impressed when I saw her at church. If there’s one thing you know about a girl that goes through the effort of making sure she knows where and when church is in a foreign land it’s that she has a good relationship with Heavenly Father. That, or she was tired of her singles ward back home and wanted to meet a hunky Englishman. But seriously the fact that she would chose to go where the spirit is rather than take Sunday off while she was abroad told me a lot about her. This was a girl worth getting to know.

I spent the next few weeks getting to know Kathryn as we traveled to Bath, walked around Stratford-upon-Avon, saw Shakespeare’s plays and took in the beauty of the English country. I gradually began to notice that I had a little crush on Kathryn. “This is no good,” I thought. I had come on this study abroad for an adventure and to strengthen my love of literature and Shakespeare. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me that I would meet a girl and fall head over heals for her. I had become disenchanted with dating recently when it became apparent that I was going to need to compromise myself in someway. It seemed to me that every cute girl I talked to seemed to think it was okay to bend a moral rule here or there; questionable forms of entertainment or less than modest clothing. That is why I was so surprised to meet a girl like Kathryn. I was beginning to think that girls like Kathryn didn’t exist. She is beautiful without trying to be, and she’s modest about it in every sense of the word. She wears nice clothes that show she respects herself and her body.

It wasn’t until the incident at the National Theatre in London that I knew I loved Kathryn, at least in a small way. Our travel group had taken a tour of the theatre and then a bunch of us stayed after to watch one of the shows. The group chose a show they thought would be good. It started okay, but things got uncomfortable quickly. I felt uncomfortable. I looked down the row of faces in our group and saw Kathryn on the end. She looked uncomfortable as well. That was the last scene before intermission. I suggested that we could leave and get ice cream. Kathryn looked relieved, and we left. The group left with us but as we left the theatre and walked along the Thames River I knew that I had found a choice daughter of God and that I would do anything to protect her physically and spiritually.

After we were both home and started dating my love for this beautiful girl grew more and more. Then, two months in, she surprised me by telling me she was getting a feeling that she needed to serve a mission. This hit me hard because I was falling deeply in love with this girl and the thought of not having her in my life was more than I could bear. I prayed for the strength to do the Lord’s will. I didn’t want to come between her and fulfilling a calling from Heavenly Father.

Several months went by, as did many hard conversations with Heavenly Father. She didn’t think it would be fair to ask me to wait for her, nor did I feel it appropriate to do so. The decision was reached that we would continue to date and see where we were emotionally in 18 months.

My love for this girl continued to grow as she prepared herself to serve the Lord. Then she met with the bishop and stake president and gradually felt more and more like she wouldn’t go. She told me and needless to say I felt guilty of unintentionally manipulating her into staying. She assured me that she felt that it was a prompting from the Lord. I’ve always trusted her to do the right thing when it comes to spiritual promptings.

I’ve never felt more love for Kathryn than the night we babysat my nephews—in particular when we were putting Joseph and Nathan to bed. She sang them songs from the primary songbook, and a spirit entered that room in a way that I’ve never felt before. I can’t imagine raising a family without Kathryn, nor would I even want to try.

Well, I think Kathryn covered anything I may have skipped. In summary: Yes I did have a crush on her all through our study abroad in London and yes the hug I gave Kathryn just before flying back to America was a little awkward, but that was only because I get self-conscious around pretty girls I have a crush on (Kathryn's sidenote: I think he was also giving me space because though I liked him, he knew my heart was still somewhat engaged elsewhere). And now looking forward to the future I am so lucky to get to spend the rest of my life and eternity with the girl I had a crush on, my best friend. I can talk to her about anything and everything. We go biking together, we play games together and we go on picnics together. I don’t know what I did to deserve the blessing of her in my life but I’m certainly not going to waste it. We will serve together, go on missions together and raise a family together (and a pretty darn cute family too, thanks to Kathryn’s chromosomes).

I love you Kathryn, and I can’t wait for Oct 6, and every day after that.

Kathryn's footnote: See why I'm marrying him?