Our Story

If you had told us that a girl from McKinney, Texas — where everything is bigger — and a guy from the North Shore of O‘ahu — where island life moves at its own pace — would end up together, we probably would’ve laughed. Our hometowns are nearly 3,800 miles apart, separated by oceans, island roads, and big Texas highways — and our lives couldn’t have looked more different.

By the summer of 2025, Jenna was already living through the hardest year of her life, navigating ongoing family medical challenges and carrying a weight that had been building long before that moment. When she traveled to Utah for her grandmother’s funeral, she was holding grief while trying to stay steady in a season that felt heavy on every side. At the same time, TJ was living in Utah — working grueling long hours — and somehow, in the middle of all of that, we connected through mutual “friends” (which is really just the LDS dating app, Mutual).

The conversation started there. It wasn’t planned or convenient — it was simply easy, which felt rare in a season where nothing else was. Even so, meeting in person didn’t happen right away due to conflicting travel schedules.

Instead, there were weeks of conversations and dozens (okay, hundreds) of FaceTime hours. Then, later that summer, TJ finally came to Arizona to meet Jenna in person — traveling to Phoenix for a concert and stepping straight into the middle of the Arizona summer heat, where 115 degrees somehow passes as “normal”. He braved it all to visit Jenna in her current hometown of Gilbert, AZ, and from that weekend on, it was clear this was something worth choosing.

Looking back, it would’ve been easy to assume our differences — and the distance — would get in the way.

From Texas highways with 85-mph speed limits to North Shore roads where the pace slows the moment you wave at someone you know, our worlds couldn’t have been more different. Jenna brings big Texas energy — moving fast, loving big, convinced that brisket is a food group and that Texas really does do everything better. TJ brings North Shore grounding and Samoan culture, where the pace is steadier, presence matters, and family comes before everything else — always. Instead of pulling us apart, those differences balanced us in the best way.

Most importantly, we realized we were aligned where it mattered most — our love for our Savior, Jesus Christ, and the life goals we were both working toward.

Over the next several months, we continued long distance between Arizona and Utah, building our relationship the honest way — with intention, effort, and more flights than we care to count. And when TJ introduced Jenna to his whole world — Trey and Brynley — everything clicked. The bond was immediate, natural, and made the whole story feel even more complete.

With Trey and Brynley’s enthusiastic permission, TJ continued pursuing Jenna and somehow pulled off the biggest surprise by asking her to marry him (Jenna is still genuinely impressed by how surprised she was). After the most thoughtful and heartfelt proposal, Jenna said a very confident “HECK YES!”

We didn’t find each other in an easy season — we found each other in a real one, and chose to build something lasting anyway. And after waiting what we both say felt like a lifetime, there was no hesitation in choosing to be sealed for time and all eternity in the House of the Lord.

On March 21, 2026, we will be sealed in Jenna’s dream temple — which also happens to be TJ’s hometown temple — the Laie Hawai‘i Temple.

And we can’t wait to start forever together — as an instant family with Trey and Brynley Wesley.