New to the forum.

[Lonely in SLC]

I have a story I would like to share.

It was January of 1996 I was 20 years old, and had been in Santiago, Chile for less than a week. I had arrived to serve a 2 year Mormon mission. The previous 2 months had been spent in a missionary training center learning the doctrine and spanish.

Missionaries pair of in twos to go out and spread the word. I was living in an apartment that housed a total of 6 missionaries. One early morning two sister missionaries knocked on the door looking for two of the Elders (Male Missionaries). As I looked out the window, my heart stoppd. One of the sister missionaries was Chilean, was slim, and had the most gorgeous eyes with the longest eyelashes. I immediately thought to myselfe, if all Chileans look like this, I am going to be in trouble.

The next thought was what am I thinking. I had never had a girlfriend much less kissed a girl up to this point of my life. We as missionaries are also taught to lock up our hearts and devote our efforts to the work for two years. But still, she was gorgeous.

A month later, on a Saturday morning, the sister missionaries asked my companion if we had keys to the chapel. The had some baptisms to perform, but did not have the keys to get into the building. We headed on over and opened up the building.

But we did not have keys to the baptismal font. This sister missionary began speaking to me and pointing at my shoes. I still did not understand a word of spanish, so I took my shoe off and gave it to her. Her eyes just rolled, and with a laugh began taking the shoelace out of my shoe. She then opened the door with the shoelace.

Six months later, I was to meet up with her again. We were both assigned to work in the same neighborhood of the city. By this point I could communicate quite clearly in Spanish. One day she asked if me and my companion wanted to hang out with some other missionaries on P-day.

P-day stands for preparation day. It is one day a week when a missionary has the day off to go shopping, do laundry, and relax. Many times missionaries that had become friends would meet at the local mall, go to a park, go site seeing, or playing cards.

For the next 2 months, I would meet up with about eight missionaries to hang out every Monday, including this sister missionary. We became great friends and had feelings for eachother. After 2 months I was assigned to a different area of the city to work, but continued seeing my friends on Mondays when possible. Looking back on it, I guess it was a form of group dating, even though it was just hanging out.

There was a party for Sister "C" on the last day of her mission before she was scheduled to go home. At one point, we were alone in the kitchen. I gathered the courage to tell her that I had strong feelings for her. She told me the same. I was in heaven. I took her hand in mind. I swear there was a physical electrical shock that went through both of us when this happened. It was a great feeling.

She finished her mission about 8 months before I did, and went home. I soon became very depressed not being able to see my best friend. What was worse, I was loosing focus on the reason why I was on a mission. As missionaries, the only form of communication was mail with family and friends. This included the sister missionary when she went home. We began writing to eachother for awhile.

This all changed. I had about 7 months left on my mission, and I was still depressed. I could only think of her. I knew what I had to do. I knelt down and asked God for the courage of what I was going to do, but also a blessing from him. I prayed to have the strength to break up with her so that I could once again focus on the mission. In return, I asked for the miracle of one day being together with her again in the future. I sent the letter asking her not to write to me anymore with tears in my eyes.

The rest of the mission went great, even though deep down inside I was still hurting. I arrived home December of 1997. The first day back, I pulled out a forgotten piece of paper that had her phone number. I called her. She was suprised that I called. Thus began the 2 year long distance courtship with my wife. It was tough, but I was in heaven, and eternally grateful to my God when we were married October of 1999.