And then I went to Malawi for the summer.
I came back to school in August and on the very first day of our Food Processing and Commodities class, I saw him again and recognized him instantly.
We said hi. It was cute.
The class had a five hour field trip every week, and we had a number of vans that would transport us to and from BYU and whatever food processing facility we were assigned to that week. Dr. Jefferies was going to assign one van as the "early van." This particular van was for those who had class right after the field trip. I was signed up for a class at four so I raised my hand when Dr. Jefferies asked who needed to be back on campus early as she was assigning vans.
Mark raised his hand too.
I was secretly kind of thrilled. He told me later that he'd raised his hand after he'd seen me raise my hand so that we'd get assigned to the same van for the field trips. WIN.
We started talking on these super long field trips. We went to get Slab Pizza a couple times. This one time, Mark convinced me to dress up like a pirate and go to Krispy Kreme with him and a few other people for national talk like a pirate day. We each got a dozen free doughnuts. I got a haircut once and he told me I looked really good. Sometimes, we'd study together after class.
One day, after one of our field trips, we were walking out of the Eyring, and he said, "Say...wanna go rock climbing with me sometime?"
We went rock climbing over general conference weekend in Provo Canyon. Saturday afternoon session. We listened to conference over the radio, and it was the best conference session of my life. On the way back, we decided to explore a cave we'd seen on the way up to the wall. Inside that cave, we had the most amazing conversation, and I'm pretty sure I was thinking something along the lines of "This guy is an incredible human being." We had so many of the perspectives on life, the same curiosity about the world, the same drive to excel, the same desire to experience everything life had to offer. The same fascination with science, the same love and appreciation for history, culture, and the arts. I'd never met anybody like him.
Then Mark looked at his watch, and realized he was going to be late for priesthood session, so he dropped me off. I walked into my apartment and talked about him to all my roommates and realized that (OH MY GOSH) I might actually kind of like like him.
We went rock climbing for our second date--this time in American Fork Canyon. After we'd finished climbing, Mark asked if I wanted to go stargazing on top of the rock wall. It was kind of chilly, but he said he had a blanket and I wasn't ready for the night to be over and he was looking at me with this slightly crooked smile and
Of course I said yes.
Of course we held hands and cuddled.
The next weekend, we walked to downtown Provo because I wanted to see some art exhibit. We never found it. But he did kiss me.
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