I (Abby) have always seemed to have pretty good luck. From small things like getting A's on tests I didn't study for to bigger things like winning an iPad or a car, I just got lucky. But about two weeks before we got married we experienced a series of unfortunate events.

On Sunday, November 3rd Brett was walking me out to my car to say goodnight when we noticed a car speed away from his driveway, only to find that the passenger window of my car was broken into. To make things worse, I had left my purse in the car and it was gone. We quickly got my credit cards canceled and bank accounts frozen, but they were still able to use my card to buy gas. The police came and gathered information, but we didn't really hear much from them after that.

Here's a picture of the broken glass from my car window:

The next morning I was running around all day getting a new drivers license (I had to have ID to get our marriage license!), opening new bank accounts and I started to get sick. That yucky feeling when you can feel a cold coming on - the irritation in the back of your throat, headache kind of sick. It was frustrating but I knew a cold wasn't the worst thing in the world. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a terrible virus and I was in bed every night with a 103 degree fever for about a week. Keep in mind this is about 10 days away from the wedding - and with my parents being in Michigan and not flying in until a few days before, I was panicking a little bit.

One night as I was going to bed, I got a text from my bank saying my credit card was being declined at a hotel in Idaho. I was annoyed that those thieves were still trying to use my stuff, but I wasn't too worried about it because I knew it was canceled. Then I realized, "Hey- I know where they are!" I felt like I needed to do something about it, but part of me just really wanted to go to bed and just forget about the whole thing. But I really think I was prompted to follow through with it. I called the hotel in Boise telling them the situation and the girl at the front desk said, "Oh my gosh - I know who it is!" But for legal reasons, couldn't tell me really anything beyond that. So I called the Boise police and told them what was going on, but figured nothing would come of it. But sure enough, at about 2am an officer called me back and told me they had caught them! For brevity, I'll post the KSL link here instead of re-writing it all out, but it felt pretty good to know that these criminals were caught.

The next morning I was running on a high from all the happenings of the night before when I tried to buy something at IKEA for our new apartment, and my card kept getting declined! I was so frustrated because I knew I had several hundred dollars in there, so there shouldn't have been any problems. I got back into my car and checked my balance and I had a -$800 balance! I about fainted because I thought there was no way this could be fraudulent from my stolen cards because this was a new bank account I had opened up! Well, come to find out that after about 2 hours on the phone with the bank, they actually linked my old account to this new one, and the thieves managed to forge and cash a large check from my account. It was a mess! Here I am, days away from my wedding and I am completely broke. The bank verified that it was fraud and said they would credit the money back to my account, but it was going to take a week or so because they had to do an investigation.

At this point, I'm angry and frustrated and basically just exhausted. (I'm also still recovering from that virus). After work that day, I start to head up to Farmington to meet Brett to start moving our new furniture into our apartment, when BAM! I get rear-ended on my way to the freeway on-ramp. We both pull over and as I get out of my car, the other guy gets out of his car too and tells me to pull into the parking lot next to us. It was valid, seeing as we were on a busy street and I figured he pulled over so he wouldn't just speed away - but I was wrong. As soon as I pulled in he sped off. At this point I was crying (and screaming a little bit) but luckily I got his license plate number. I called the cops and gave them the plate numbers and got everything sorted out. At this point, I had three different police cases open in three different precincts - the Herriman Police, the Boise Police and the Midvale Police. Oh brother...

You'd think my bad luck would finish there, right? No quite. The night before the wedding Brett and I walked around downtown and ate dinner. I got back to my hotel and realized that I had left my wallet somewhere! We called around but no one said they had found it. I was so frustrated, but just had faith that everything would work out. The next morning Brett picked me up to head to the temple when a drunk driver pulled out behind us. The driver was swerving back and forth and eventually forced us off to the side of the road, but we were fine. At this point, Brett and I just kept saying to each other "We just have to get to the temple... we just have to get to the temple..." and we did. We had a beautiful wedding day and haven't had any bad luck since.

It's easy to see that I had some bad luck, but now looking back, it's even easier for me to see how incredibly blessed we were through everything. God was definitely looking over us - I overcame sickness, bank account problems were fixed and criminals were put away. But most importantly, I was married and sealed to my eternal companion and that makes me the luckiest girl in the world.