I've thought a lot about friendships these past couple of years. Friends mean a lot more to me than they used to. For the first time in my life I have friends I rely on a lot, who also rely on me. There are as many kinds of friendships as there are of people, but there are two that I've really been thinking about.
The first is the kind of friendship that is relatively easy for me to make. I meet someone, find out we have a mutual love of good books or something else similar, and it takes off. I don't know why liking the same things makes it easier for me to trust people, but it does. A few of the good friends I've had in West Texas, one of whom is one of the best friends I've ever had, are of this kind.
The second kind of friendship is one I only realized the importance of recently, and I feel incredibly blessed to have found it. It's a friendship that sprouts from serving alongside someone, learning to trust and depend on them because you are working together through difficulties toward the same goal. A deep, mutual love grows from those experiences. I have three good friends that I probably wouldn't be nearly as close to if we hadn't served in the Relief Society presidency together. One in particular, who was my first counselor for the full two years, is probably the person in Lubbock that I trust the most. We didn't run with the same crowds when we first knew each other, and we don't have anything more in common than your two average girls (I'm not the kind of person who will BFF someone just because she likes to shop). There were a lot of things we didn't understand about each other. But those two years as Relief Society president were, for a number of reasons, the two most difficult years of my life, and she was the person I could most rely upon. She gave me so much support, guidance, ideas, and always did what she said she would do. Along the way we built a bank of memories with a few other people. Shared memories can be just as powerful, or even more so, in drawing people together as common interests can.
This didn't happen over night--in fact, I don't think I even realized how much this friend meant to me until after we'd been released from our callings. We've only gotten closer since then, and I know we'll be friends for life. Every time I think of how slowly but surely we became friends I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for a gift I may not have found otherwise. I will always treasure my time in Lubbock (not that I'm going anywhere soon) for how much it taught me about myself and understanding and loving others. Thinking about how much other people have enriched my life, it makes me wonder how much more I'm missing out on in the people I don't know as well.
The first is the kind of friendship that is relatively easy for me to make. I meet someone, find out we have a mutual love of good books or something else similar, and it takes off. I don't know why liking the same things makes it easier for me to trust people, but it does. A few of the good friends I've had in West Texas, one of whom is one of the best friends I've ever had, are of this kind.
The second kind of friendship is one I only realized the importance of recently, and I feel incredibly blessed to have found it. It's a friendship that sprouts from serving alongside someone, learning to trust and depend on them because you are working together through difficulties toward the same goal. A deep, mutual love grows from those experiences. I have three good friends that I probably wouldn't be nearly as close to if we hadn't served in the Relief Society presidency together. One in particular, who was my first counselor for the full two years, is probably the person in Lubbock that I trust the most. We didn't run with the same crowds when we first knew each other, and we don't have anything more in common than your two average girls (I'm not the kind of person who will BFF someone just because she likes to shop). There were a lot of things we didn't understand about each other. But those two years as Relief Society president were, for a number of reasons, the two most difficult years of my life, and she was the person I could most rely upon. She gave me so much support, guidance, ideas, and always did what she said she would do. Along the way we built a bank of memories with a few other people. Shared memories can be just as powerful, or even more so, in drawing people together as common interests can.
This didn't happen over night--in fact, I don't think I even realized how much this friend meant to me until after we'd been released from our callings. We've only gotten closer since then, and I know we'll be friends for life. Every time I think of how slowly but surely we became friends I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for a gift I may not have found otherwise. I will always treasure my time in Lubbock (not that I'm going anywhere soon) for how much it taught me about myself and understanding and loving others. Thinking about how much other people have enriched my life, it makes me wonder how much more I'm missing out on in the people I don't know as well.
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