As we go through life there are certain moments in time that are defining moments of our selves. Places in the road of life that are critical to our outcome, molding our future. These moments are often unnoticed to us at the time. While we are walking our path we are unaware at the time how important a certain choice will be. It isn't until years later that we realize what that moment and time really meant to us. Its long after the moments have pasted that we can reflect and fully embrace how a certain time, with certain people, making certain choices was such a self discovery, one that helped us to grow into the person we are at present. One of these times for me was my time and the friends I made my Freshman year at Ricks College (now BYU=I) in Rexburg Idaho.Growing up in a large Southern City (Atlanta, Ga) I had never left the East Coast, never flown on an Airplane and NEVER been surrounded by more than a handful of LDS friends at one time. My testimony was FAR from my own, I was 18 and still riding on the testimony of my Mother. I left my home, the wonderful and energetic city of Atlanta, and all my friends, friends that I went to Elementary, Junior High and High School with, to fly across county by myself and live in a dorm full of girls I did not know, a religion I barely understood, and to a small town half the world had NEVER heard of!
As I walked into my new dorm for the first time (which by the way was at the very TOP of a hill, an elevation I had NEVER been, I was now out of breath and my nose was bleeding) I was greeted by one of my new roommates. Shortly there after I met the other two roommates and they could not have been any more strange, unknown and foreign to me if they had been from a different planet all together. And in alot of ways they were. Two of the roommates were from some small towns in Idaho where the population was the size of neighborhood back home and the other was from New Mexico. They all had grown up completely surrounded by the church and its members, they were the reason the term "Molly Mormon" was invented! Not to mention the fact that I was completely dumb founded as to why in the world it was snowing in October and why my nose hair felt so stiff and weird! I was completely miserable! I cried for an entire 2 months straight, planning my escape out of this alternate universe every night! Trying to figure out exactly where Idaho was actually at on the map, and how I was going to get home from there.
On a cold winter morning as I was walking to my first class with my head down as to not look anyone in the eye ( like I always walked!) wearing my wool socks with my Birkenstock sandals, it all changed for me. Someone reached out to me and with four simple words, my Ricks College experience changed and as a result of that experience my life changed. I meet some of the most amazing people my short time out West. I made friends that I would hold in the highest regard for the rest of my life. Some I chat with through email from time to time, some I read their blogs others I haven't spoke with since 1993 and a there are a few that I have tried to find for years with out any luck. Yet every single one of them hold a special place in my heart and are in my thoughts often. You don't have to spend a life time with a friend to have a friend for life, time is invalid compared to the impact someone can have on your soul. To all of these friends that may find my words, know that I love you and you are a special soul that touched my heart in ways you will never know.
