Meeting my best friend

So my best friend Christy has also suggested, me writing about how we met.

I will write this down, as long as there is no judgements passed to either one of us. hahaha. It is a little bit of a crazy story, but anyways... here it goes. I'm also sorry if this is crazy long, which I have a feeling it will be! haha

So two years ago last July, my boyfriend at the time was leaving on a full time mission for our church. We had been dating for about 9 months at the time, so it was a big life changing thing, and we weren't really sure what was going to happen once he got back, or what we should do for the time that he was gone. So we decided that we would write eachother, and continue to be a support to eachother for the two years, and just stay as close of friends as we could.So basically I was technically, ''waiting for him'', which now I think is a really dumb term, but that is my opinion, haha. I was doing pretty good with keeping busy for the first few months that he was gone. I had graduated from high school, but I was working and of course keeping busy with dancing. I did though come into contact with a very addicting website called......MYSPACE.

I didn't really understand how myspace worked at all, but my sister helped me make an account and add my friends that I knew that had it at the time. One day, about two years ago January, I was feeling really sorry for myself. A lot of my friends from high school had moved away for university or college, and I had taken a year off. And friends from church were either on missions, or had moved away. I was really missing my missionary, and for some reason decided to type into the search engine on myspace, "lds missionaries''. Well low and behold a page came up called, ''I love my missionary". I decided to add this page to my friendlist, and didn't really think anything else of it. A few days later, I was accepted to the page and started to read comments from girls all over the United States, Australia, and other countries who were waiting for a missionary. I couldn't believe it! It was so exciting to see so many girls in the same position as me! There were different sections on the site that included package ideas to send missionaries, talks to read, uplifting scriptures, etc. It was just a very positive place to log into everyday. I was always uplifted, and felt a deep connection to the girls on this site. We all came from different backgrounds, and even different countries but we all just got eachother.

I became close with a few of the girls from the site, one girl in particular. She was a student at BYU- Utah, but was taking some time off to help her sister and husband out in Michigan with their new baby. She was originally from Washington though. We had a lot in common, just from talking online. Our missionaries left around the same time, we had similiar situations with our missionaries, and we basically had the same personality, haha. After a few MSN conversations, we decided to take the plunge and call eachother. We were both kind of sketched out because we had never met eachother, and yes... we met on myspace, but we clicked, and we made it a weekly thing to talk on the phone about letters we received, trials we were going through etc. Throughout the following months I also became close with a lot of the girls, we would always talk to eachother online about our missionaries, it was so great!

That summer, my family and I were planning a pretty big family vacation. We hadn't been on a vacation for about 9 years, and my parents definetely deserved it! We decided that we wanted to go to California, drive to Nevada to go to Las Vegas and then drive to Utah! My sister was going to be going to EFY with a sister of a past missionary that served in our ward, so everything worked out well. I was too old to attend EFY so my parents asked me if I wanted to stay in Utah for an extra week or something, and see if a friend of mine wanted to come with me. I didn't have any friends that were able to do so, but I totally wanted to stay in Utah for that week! So I had the bright idea of asking my good ol missionary gal pal when she was going to be back in Utah! She was going to be heading back to Utah a week before I was to get there, so she offered for me to stay with her, and we would just hang out for the week. We were both so excited, and the next day my parents booked my flight to come home a week later. It was going to be my first time going to Utah so I was super excited in the first place, but I was also excited to meet this new friend of mine.

Anyways, as time grew closer, my friend cancelled at the last minute due to a family emergency back in Washington! I really wasn't sure what I was going to do. The only people that I knew well enough in Utah were all returned missionaries, and I didn't really feel comfortable asking if I could stay with them for a week! haha. So I went to my trusted page of amazing, waiting girls. And I posted a post saying something like...''I know this is weird, but I was wondering if anyone had a place that I could stay for a week in the next couple of weeks.'' I wasn't very hopeful that anyone would take a stab at it, seeing as we had never met eachother. But, someone did! And boy was I ever grateful for that!

The creator of the site, Christy posted saying that she was going to be moving to Utah a week before I was to arrive there, and that she was living with her sister and her brother in law in their house, which just happened to have an extra available bedroom. She was orignally from Boston MA, and decided that it was the right time to take a big step and move completely! Her town was lacking church members, and she wanted to imerse herself in LDS culture. Christy and I hadn't really talked a lot on the site, but I always saw her posts about her and her missionary and knew that she was a nice person. She sent me a message with her phone number, so that we could talk and make sure that eachother weren't creepers. So I got up the guts and called her. We talked for only a few minutes, it was kind of awkward, but we discussed what needed to be discussed, and that was that. I left a few days later for California with my family, not knowing what to really expect when I was to arrive in Utah. Also, before I left the girls who were from Utah decided to plan what we called, a ''Girls night out'', or ''GNO''. We planned to all meet up at temple square in Salt Lake City, and then go to the Joseph Smith movie afterwards. There were about 20 girls that confirmed that they would go, which was unbelievable!

So I got to Utah. I called Christy before travelling to Provo to meet her, and her sister. My parents were trying to act cool, attempting to trust me in this really messed up situation. I will never forget first meeting her. I had no idea what to expect,and all we knew of eachother was from myspace. I totally recognized her though of course, from her pictures! haha. So we met, hugged... and my mom met her and met her sister. I said goodbye to my parents and sister, and said a little prayer that everything would be okay! It was kind of strange at first, we didn't really know what to say to eachother. I had brought some gifts for her and her sister from Canada, so we discussed what Canada was like, and how the church is in Canada. Then we got onto our missionaries, and of course talked about them for a while. But after a while, it seemed that we had known eachother for years. We were very comfortable with eachother, and it was very normal. AFter our first night, we both went to bed, feeling a whole heck of a lot better that we had met eachother... and Im sure she was happy that I wasn't a crazy axe murderer.

We did so much during the week. Everyday was so exciting!!!! We went to church bookstores, shopping, for drives around Provo. When it came to the day for our GNO, we were feeling very mixed emotions. We were incredibly excited to meet all the girls in person, but we were also scared that it was going to be terribly awkward! haha. We were meeting up with two of the girls from Provo, and drove to Salt Lake together. The girls were amazing! We had such a good time driving to Salt Lake, and they were feeling the same way about meeting everyone! haha. When we finally got to temple square, there were a bunch of girls standing infront of the reflection pool, and of course we recognized them all! Everyone was so nice! E veryone instantly clicked, it was incredible! So we all walked around temple square, and then we got some dinner, and then went to the Joseph Smith movie. People were staring at us as we were all together, and a few asked how we all knew eachother, and we just simply laughed not really knowing what to say! AFter the movie was finished, we decided to do a photoshoot! And luckily I had my camera! We took sooooooooooooooooooooooo many pictures! And the pictures look like we have been friends our whole lives! Needless to say it was one of the best nights of my life. I made so many new friends, and experienced a very spiritual experience with amazing girls! Christy and I stayed up for a majority of the night talking about it afterwards when we got home.

The next day was the second last day before I went home. A few of the girls from the website met up with Christy and I and we went bowling in Provo. It was so much fun! Then afterwards, we drove to the Provo temple and took pictures there. With the MTC right across the street from the temple, we took pictures infront of the sign, seeing as the MTC brought us all together, haha.

The next day, my last day... Christy and I decided that we wanted to do baptisms in the Salt Lake Temple! We both had not had the opportunity to go to that temple before, so we were both so excited. We were able to go and do baptisms with youth from a nearby ward, which was great! Christy and I were so excited, and were both crying watching eachother being baptised for someone on the other side of the veil. We were on such a spiritual high that we called the Provo temple on the way home to see if we could do baptisms then as well! We also got two of the girls from GNO to meet up with us and go with us! It was once again, one of the best days of my life. The spirit was so strong throughout the whole day, and I loved every second of it.

Going home was a very hard thing to do. I really wanted to stay longer, but I knew that I would be back to Utah soon enough. Christy and I shed our tears, and I got on the plane and flew back to Canada. We continued to talk almost everyday after that. I then planned another trip to Utah and went back the following February. This time I stayed for two weeks, and it was also amazing! I also met Christy's soon to be husband( who was not her missionary just PS).

There are so many memories that I have because of meeting Christy. She will always be such a large part of my life, because a lot of who I am today is because of joining that myspace page, and meeting all the wonderful, amazing girls on it! I didnt end up waiting the full two years for my missionary, but we are still good friends and that is all that counts for me.

I'm sorry that this was so long, but there were so many details leading up to meeting eachother, that I couldn't leave them out!

I love you Christy!!!!!! Piglet and Ratling are eternal!:)