The Last Love Day - My Friends

Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer.

I kind of got off of the blogging train for a few days last week. But I am going to finish out my week of love with some love for my friends. My parents always had good friends when I was growing up - close friends that came over all of the time to swim, play games and eat with us. I think they all started out in the same ward at church and just continued to get together when each moved out of the area. I grew up calling most of my parent's friends Aunt and Uncle - when I see them now I still call them "Uncle Fred" or "Uncle John" - they all have done so much for my mom since my dad died. They are true friends and maybe that tought me how important it is to have true friends.

"Friendship is a sacred possession. As air, water and sunshine are to flowers, trees and verdure... so smiles, sympathy and love of friends are to the daily life of man. "

- President David O. McKay, April 1940 General Conference

I grew up with a great group of friends. There were six of us who all lived in the same little neighborhood - there were three girls and three boys. We started kindergarten together and graduated high school together. We didn't always hang out together but we went to church together and have kept tabs on each other since. John was my next door neighbor, our parents were great friends and we have remained friends, he is a good man. Donny (I think he just goes by Don now) and I went to a dance together, he has several kids now and is doing well. Scott was killed in a plane crash when we were all 18. That was traumatic to have someone our own age die. Julie and April and I have kept in touch, they both married boys that they dated in high school.

"True friendship isn't measured by time but by times shared."

- Kelly Eileen Hake

My oldest, dearest friend is Susie S. We leaned on each other so much during the high school/college years. We went on trips together, shopped for wedding dresses together and have since been pregnant together a few times. In our married years we have very rarely lived in the same state but when we are together it is as if we haven't been apart. By some crazy coincidence we almost always have the same church calling at the same time. We've been primary presidents together, young women's presidents together - we are always serving in the same organization at the same time. My kids call her Aunt Susie and they call her mom - Grandma.

"The most beautiful discovery that true friends can make is that they can grow separately without growing apart."

- Elizabeth Foley

I love having old friends and I love making new ones. In the last six years, since we have lived in this area, I have been privileged to become friends with a group of amazing women. It took us a little while to weed out some and fully embrace others but it is a group to be reckoned with! We don't all live in the same area anymore - one moved to Utah, another lives in Texas but we still make an effort to be together when we can. These are my true blues.

"Happiness is time spent with friends and looking forward to sharing time with them again."

- Lee Wilkinson

I love my blogging friends and my movie friends and my weight loss support friends. I love my book club friends, my game night friends and my Sunday, sit by me in Relief Society friends. I love our dinners out friends, our "sons on the same sports team" friends, our camping/riding friends and our neighbor friends. What a blessing to have such great friends.

What greater gift dost thou bestow

What greater goodness can we know

Then Christlike friends whose gentle ways

Strengthen our faith, enrich our days.

- Hymns no. 293