Met on Mutual: Nathan & Paula

I’m Paula, from Rio (Brazil) and my husband is Nathan, he was born in Provo(UT). I came to USA as a tourist, with my flight tickets back to Brazil. After 5 months living here, I decided to request an extension to my tourist VISA to be able to stay here for a whole year. Nathan was living in SLC, after going to college at BYU-I.
We were using Mutual for a long time, and both of us were going on lots of dates, but with no success (thankfully! hahaha).

I always hated the American dating culture, it was really different for me, and sometimes I really didn’t know what to do or expect.

After feeling disappointed I stopped using the app, and then curious “things” started to appear for me. As messages in social media saying: “You just fail when you give up”, and feelings that I should try something again, counseling from friends, etc.
One day after about 2 weeks I started to think: what can I do different? And I told myself, “I’ll download the app one last time, but this time, I’m gonna pay for the premium features.” And that’s what I did.

I started scrolling through the app, in the part that shows who liked your profile, and there was my now awesome husband’s profile! He never appeared to me before, even though we were living in the same area! I took a while reading he’s profile, which I didn’t do a lot with other people to be honest. I think it was the only profile that I literally spent some time “studying.” And I said, “Of course, let’s try!”

The day we matched was surprisingly the day of his birthday, he sent a message to me the same night and I answered the next day (because I was feeling super skeptical with everything). We started chatting for a few days, he asked my phone number, and we went on our first date almost two weeks later. We had lots of things that could stopped us, like cultural differences, some little languages gaps, our personality differences, or the fact I was ready to go back to Brazil. But our love was growing and both of us always felt peace and that we’d be ok. He asked if I’d like to be officially his girlfriend one month and some days after our first date.

We had an awesome connection since the beginning. However, I started to feel kinda of homesick, with not a lot of friends here and I wanted to go to Brazil again, but I told him that I would do everything to make this work if he was willing to do that as well. He asked me not to go to Brazil that things would get better.

After almost 6 months of dating, he took me on a date, and proposed to me with a drone recording and bringing my engagement ring on it! We got engaged in March 15th, 2020. We started planning our reception and sealing for June, but then COVID shut down the world, and we had to reschedule our sealing about 4 or 5 times.

Then we were inspired to ask our Bishop and my husband’s dad what to do, and both of them told us we should get married civilly first and then have our sealing when it was possible. That’s what we did, and we couldn’t have chosen more wisely. On April 24th (that day I was supposed to get my endowments), we got civilly married in our backyard with some friends a family, just 13 people. My family couldn’t come from Brazil, but they streamed in through video and were extremely happy and grateful for our union.

While we were waiting to be able to be sealed we got to know each other and love each other more deeply and we got really prepared to be sealed in the house of the Lord!

On September 4th, 2020 – my husband’s bday and exactly one year after he sent me the first message on mutual, I got my endowments at Provo City Temple and prepared a surprise bday party for my husband. On October 30th, 2020, we finally had the blessing of being sealed for time and eternity at the Manti Temple (my 2nd favorite temple – 1st now haha) and have our reception.

It was and continues to be an awesome journey to share our lives together. We have been on many adventures already and are making remarkable memories. We’re so grateful for Heavenly Father preparing us and taking his time, and for Mutual that helped us to met each other.

I’m so thankful for my amazing husband, and for the blessing to have him in my live. And now, we have another great adventure! Our first baby is coming in August, to fill our lives with much more love and happiness.

I’d like to encourage everyone to keep trying and keep praying and trusting in God, He has the best for us, even in times when we feel there’s no way, He’s working to bring the best for us, things we can’t even imagine.

With Love, Paula & Nathan