Every time I have recited to people my parent's story of how they met, I am met with a grave amount of skepticism. Could you really know someone for such a short period of time and then be happily married for going on 32+ years? Yes, you can. As we continue to be in this limbo where our house has no offers but also we cannot find a decent house in our price range in Utah, I need to constantly be reminded of stories like this where a great amount of faith is required in our Father's plan for us, we only need to be patient and wait for Him to reveal it to us. Their story is even more incredible to me because of my mom's part in it, where she came to the United States knowing very little English, and then in just over the first two years of marriage had 2 daughters. I mean I think back to how "difficult" my first two years of marriage were, with the growing pains and managing finances (but we had assistance), balancing full time school and part time work, but we had no kids and certainly no language/cultural barrier that my mom had to deal with. My dad certainly acted on faith to marry her, but the faith involved on my mom's part to sacrifice so much just blows me away.
So here it is, in my Dad's words:
Astrid was baptized on 4/29/78 in Coquimbo, Chile along with her sister, Cindy. They had met the missionaries by chance a few months earlier when they were at the post office. Cindy wanted to know why all of the Mormon boys had the same first name of "Elder". That led to missionary discussions in the Coquimbo church building, as the girls did not want to give their address to the elders.
After a few lessons, they missed a lesson with the missionaries because Cindy was sick. Without a phone to communicate, they were unable to tell the elders why they couldn't go to the lesson. The elders were worried about the absence of this pair of golden investigators and, after waiting for a while, said a prayer and set out on foot to find them (in a city of over 100,000 people). The Spirit led them several blocks from the church building, until they felt impressed to knock on a door. When asked if Cindy and Astrid lived there, the woman who answered the door said, "No. They live next door." Your mom was quite surprised by the appearance of the elders and was impressed that the Spirit had guided them to within one door of their home.
Stephen was baptized on 2/5/80 in Hamilton, Ohio. He had started receiving the discussions during the first semester of his freshman year at Miami University (October 1979) due to his completion of a religious preference card during freshman orientation the summer before. He had jokingly checked the box that said "Morman" (due to his previous good experiences with members of the Church), and the missionaries called him up (thinking that he was a member) and (upon finding out that was not the case) began the discussions. He was guided to the Church through interesting experiences trying out the Word of Wisdom and failing to get into a fraternity on campus.
Stephen and Astrid both felt a desire to serve a mission, and were both called to serve in the Chile Osorno Mission in mid-1982. Astrid entered the Santiago MTC in June, and Stephen entered the Provo MTC on 7/15/82. They met for the first time at a baptism in Temuco shortly after Stephen arrived in Chile. He was impressed with her beauty and she was impressed with his ability to speak the language.
They were located in the same general area (Temuco - the largest city in the mission, with two zones of missionaries), but Stephen was serving in the small satellite town of Nueva Imperial and rarely visited Temuco. His first transfer (in December 1982) was to the Cautin area of Temuco, in the same zone as Astrid. During a zone conference, Astrid gave a talk about fasting and prayer that so impressed Stephen that he decided that he would never marry anyone less spiritual than Astrid.
In January, Astrid was transferred to Puerto Montt, and (as was the custom among missionaries), asked for a photo from Stephen before she left. Stephen did not have any photos with him at that time, so he told her (with an air of mystery!) that he would see her again during their missions, and left it at that.
Stephen was soon transferred to be the branch president of Nueva Imperial, and served there for two months. Those few weeks were among the most successful of his mission. He organized the branch so that everyone had callings, visiting teaching routes were set up, fast offerings began to be collected, a seminary was started and over a dozen people were baptized. When he learned of his transfer to be a district leader in Rio Bueno, he was very disappointed. However, when he found that Astrid (Hermana Carrera) was also being transferred there, his attitude changed and he thought that this development might be very interesting.
When Stephen first saw Astrid at her pension (apartment within a family's home), she was walking down the stairs of the home from the second floor. He saw (in vision) that she was wearing a white wedding dress, although that was not what she was wearing. During their few weeks together in Rio Bueno, they spent a lot of time together and Stephen called Astrid every night to see that she had gotten home OK. Astrid had remarkable teaching success in Rio Bueno, sometimes teaching over 30 lessons a week.
There was clearly an unspoken attraction between the two, which worried Stephen. One day during an interview, Stephen asked Astrid if she had any feelings for her district leader. She responded with a question of her own, asking if I asked that same question to all of the sisters that he interviewed. He responded that he had never asked that question of anyone, and hoped to never have to ask it again. Soon thereafter, Astrid was transferred to the mission office to serve as one of the two female assistants to the mission president. Stephen gave her the news of that transfer (making sure that there was a desk between them) at the missionary office of the branch meetinghouse, and gave her a picture of him before she left.
Soon thereafter, Stephen accompanied his companion to the mission office in Osorno, and saw Astrid there. She told him that her companion suspected that they had feelings for each other. This worried Stephen, so he (breaking mission rules) wrote a short letter to Astrid, stating that he didn't care what her companion thought (or even what the mission president thought). If anything were to happen between us, that would take place after our missions (which still had about eight months to go), and that they should concentrate on the Lord's work during that time.
Stephen gave the letter to his companion to deliver to Astrid, but he instead gave the letter to the mission president, who called Stephen in for an interview. His first question was why he didn't care what the mission president thought! He also expressed concern about this relationship, and chastised Stephen for sending the letter. Stephen went back to Rio Bueno that day sorely repentant and newly committed to keeping his heart closed during the rest of his mission.
About two months later, Stephen was called as a zone leader in Osorno, which meant that he oversaw Astrid and her companion. During the few months that they were together in Osorno, Stephen rarely spoke with Astrid. They would shake hands at zone functions, but he would hardly look at her and would let his companion speak during zone leader interviews. When she would call on the phone, he would have his companion speak to her. Astrid thought that he no longer had feelings for her, so she concentrated on her mission work and had great success. A few months later she was transferred to Coyhaique in southern Chile.
Stephen remained in Osorno until the end of his mission in December 1983. There he found great success, leading a zone that set a mission record for baptisms in the final month of his mission. As he was reviewing plans for his group of missionaries to return home, he was pleasantly surprised to find that Astrid was going to be returning home on the same 12 hour train ride to Santiago, which would allow them some time to talk. However, Astrid asked for a mission extension (which meant that she served her mission longer than Stephen did!), so the return plans were changed and Stephen flew back to Santiago and the USA without seeing her.
Upon his arrival in the USA, he immediately felt like he's made a mistake by leaving in Chile the most wonderful woman that he'd ever met. ("What have I done!") He wrote Astrid (who was still serving her mission) a formal letter, expressing his admiration for her efforts as a missionary and encouraging her to complete a successful mission. He then returned to Miami University to complete his education and begin to look for a wife, but was unable to find anyone with qualities that were remotely close to those that Astrid possessed. Once her mission ended, he wrote her a ten page letter, expressing his feelings and a desire to return to Chile later that year to spend some time with her. He waited for her reply...and waited and waited and waited.
While he was waiting (for quite a few months), he began dating a lovely young woman who lived in Cincinnati. When Astrid's return letter finally arrived (expressing her feelings and looking forward to his return to Chile later in the year), Stephen was unsure of how to respond. He decided to reply with an open mind and the "mail romance" began. In August 1984, Stephen flew to Chile (ostensibly to spend some time with his former missionary companions and to visit Osorno) and was met at the airport by Astrid. He ended up spending more time with her than with anyone else (by far!), starting with a prayer and an unexpected (by Astrid) kiss and a walk that evening. A few days later, he pondered their relationship during his train ride to Osorno as he wrote in his journal that evening (8/20/84). He prayed for enlightenment and felt impressed to ask Astrid to marry him. There were so many potential obstacles to their relationship, so he felt confident that if it were not to be the Lord's will, He would put something in the way to prevent their marriage.
Upon his return to Santiago, Stephen and Astrid went to Viña del Mar to visit with the family of Ingrid (Astrid's sister) for a few days. The first evening (8/23/84, which was quite chilly, as August is winter in Chile), he took Astrid for a walk on the beach of the Pacific Ocean. As they walked, he told her that he had always hoped that he would one day find a woman towards whom he would feel the perfect love which casts out all fear (as expressed in 1 Peter 4:18). He further stated that he did not at that time feel such "perfect love" towards Astrid, then paused and told her that he felt confident that he would one day be able to feel such perfect love towards her more than towards any other woman in the world, and asked her to marry him. This was not a hard question to answer for Astrid, as it had been revealed to her in the temple several months earlier that she would be Stephen's wife. She just needed to give him time to arrive at that same conclusion.
They returned to Santiago the next day, got wedding reception pictures and then Stephen flew back to the USA. They would write and phone often during the next few months. Stephen's final semester at Miami was a busy one, as he studied for and took the CPA exam, interviewed for and got a job working at Arthur Andersen in Pittsburgh and graduated from college on 12/21/84.
On 12/29/84 Stephen arrived back in Chile, and on 12/31/84 Astrid and Stephen were married in a civil ceremony in Santiago, Chile. Although married in the eyes of the world, they did not consider this marriage to be a valid one. They continued to live apart until the day of their temple sealing ceremony in the Santiago Temple on 1/8/85 (which they recognize as their wedding anniversary).
Following a brief and wonderful honeymoon in Viña del Mar, Chile, they left Chile on 1/11/84 on a flight to Florida, where they stayed with Stephen's maternal grandparents (Alfred and Edna Edwards) for a few days in Holiday before flying to Pittsburgh on 1/15/85 to begin their new lives together. They lived with Stephen's parents at their home for the first 18 months of our marriage before moving to their first apartment in Ben Avon, PA (335 Breading Avenue).
