My version
I never thought that I would be one of those girls who sends a missionary off and waits for them… mainly because I never thought that I would have a boyfriend. But Heavenly Father definitely played a huge role in this one. As I grew up, the gospel was always in my life but somewhat on the back burner. I went to church & occasionally went to mutual and other activities but it wasn’t most important to me. But looking back, I wasn’t happy. I would go to school, come home and sleep for hours because being awake made me sad, made me want to be someone else and I didn’t know how to change and I didn’t know what to do. I had great friends and family, I played fastpitch softball which took up a lot of my life, but there was just something missing and I felt like my heart was aching for something that I didn’t know existed and I didn’t know what I needed or where I needed to be.
2 months before my senior year of high school I was visiting my best-friend Hannah in Utah and I got a call from my mom saying that we’re moving to Boise Idaho. I felt comfort in those words. People always ask me “was that the hardest thing ? Moving your senior year of high school” my response was “no” It was the best thing that happened to me. I met a lot of great people and most importantly, I met an amazing guy. A guy who turned my world around, made me see who I wanted to be and how to get there. A guy who treated me like I was a princess, like I was the most amazing girl in the world. I was getting these feelings that I had never felt before. Our relationship definitely had its troubles but we made it. Our senior prom was where our relationship got serious and we were understanding our feelings and how much we cared for one another. Grant is my best friend and my saving grace.
We dated (officially) for about 7 months before he left on his mission. We talked about marriage and dating after the mission. I told myself that if it’s meant to be, it’ll work out. As Grant was focusing on serving others and building a relationship with Heavenly Father, I tried to do the same before I left on my mission. Our stake president told us its like a triangle, grant and I are at the 2 bottom corners and Jesus Christ is at the top. So as long as we made it closer to him, we would make it closer to each other with Christ in the center of our relationship.
I’m not going to lie, going on a mission definitely made it easier for me to keep my mind off Grant being gone. But the months that I was home, I made the best of them. I worked, spent time with my family, and I also spent time with his family. I was able to gain relationships with his family without Grant. A mission was definitely hard but also life changing. You experience so many different emotions and you have so many highs but also a lot of lows. I’ve learned that everyone’s mission is so different and everyone has different experiences and hardships and different things that they need to learn so my mission was quite different than Grants but I think we both learned a lot of things we needed to that would help prepare us for marriage and life ahead.
Being away from Grant was a hard 2 years but my feelings never changed, they only grew stronger. We talked multiple times about what was going to happen when we are both home together and we both wanted the same thing; to be together but we also had to tell each other that we can’t force it, that if it’s right, it will work out. Which was something so hard to even think about. 2 years is a long time and things change, people change, desires change, and the thought of us not working out scared me but I knew that I needed to trust in God’s plan and hope to follow it.
Grant came home a month after I did and that day was the happiest day of my life. When I saw Grant at the airport, all my happiness came back. I realized that Grant is who makes me, me. He makes me be my best self and pushes me to be even better and of course we were still the same people who fell in love with each other but our testimonies were strengthen which helped strengthen our relationship.
My dad always told me that “the person you marry should push you and make you want to be better” and I found that. I’ve always been an independent person and I like to do things on my own and for myself but Grant is such a great provider and supporter and has helped me learn that it’s okay to ask for help or to accept help. He pushes me to be a better person each day and encourages me to be a hard worker and to be true to who I am.
So why did I wait? Because the love that Grant and I share, pushes us to be the best people that we can be, pushes us to strengthen our relationship with our Heavenly Father and pushes us to strengthen our testimony of Jesus Christ.
So yes, sometimes waiting for a missionary works out 🙂
Grants version
In highschool I never really had a desire to participate in anything church related. I grew up LDS and always went to church but never really did much more than that. I was influenced by church leaders to participate and become involved in different activities and roles within the church. I was never the kid that hungout with other LDS kids. I always had a lot of friends and the large majority weren’t Mormon at all. Many Mormons outside of that see it as a bad thing because they often believe that by being around Non-Mormons, they will be influenced badly and make “bad” choices. Long story short, I really wasn’t like “everyone else”. My time in high school were some of the best years of my life. I frequently ponder about the memories and its pretty nostalgic. Nobody knows how to say goodbye, it seems so easy until you try. The years that I had spent hanging out with my friends, girls, and sports were all important to me. The only time I was really truly happy was when I could laugh and socialize. Ironically, I like to be alone.
Because I grew up in the LDS church, going on a mission was basically expected and there is a LOT of pressure to serve a mission. Especially if you are a guy. I didn’t even start caring about church until I was a Junior. I realized that if I was going to be a missionary then I better prepare myself for it. Over junior and senior year I tried to be a good person and find myself ready to go on the mission. Apparently when you are the oldest one at church and you have a large influence over things, kids younger than you see it as something to follow. Getting ready for my mission made another kid at my church think that if I could do it, he could do it. (not sure how I feel about that statement) I think it goes back to basically being an outcast in the “Mormon kids’ group” due to my social circle in high school. Funny thing is though is that I wasn’t a bad kid. That is just the judgement of people raised in an incorrect culture. Its sad really.
Senior year of high school was interesting. I had dated a lot of people in high school and a lot of the time I just tried to date the best-looking girls to have on my arm as a statement. While that worked out, I never found real feeling in those relationships. I was playing varsity lacrosse and focusing on school as much as I could so that I could have a good shot at getting admitted to the colleges I was interested in at the time. I still dated girls and was looking to have a more serious girlfriend but also knew that I probably shouldn’t have a girlfriend when I left on my mission because it would be impossible to focus, and I would likely get dumped while I was gone anyway. In fact, I told myself that no matter what, I wouldn’t have a girlfriend when I left. This year one of my best friends was dating a girl that we had gone to school with for years and I knew who she was but hadn’t ever actually “hung-out” or even talked to her. By default, we would end up hanging out from time to time just because she and my friend were dating. In the first few months of school, a girl moved to Idaho from Washington that was actually her cousin. Again, by default I met her too. At the time I wasn’t interested in dating anyone because I had a current girlfriend. Another one of my best friends found interest in the new girl and pursued that. They dated for months. Meanwhile I was thinking that maybe I liked that new girl when she had moved here but since my best friend was going to date her that I should just let it go, so I did. This didn’t really work because I found myself being angry and jealous. After a lot of back and forth drama, she reached out to me on Christmas eve and we started texting. Over the next couple months, we developed a pretty close friendship and that’s all it was at first. Over time I found that I felt very differently about this girl. Ultimately, I felt like I loved her truly and let her know. The girl was Hannah.
We ended up dating for the rest of the school year, into the summer and all the way up until I left on my mission. The reason I had a girlfriend despite my vow not to have one when I left, was the fact that over that duration, I had developed feelings that were very strong and that felt like nothing I had felt before. I felt right.
 I left for my mission in November of 2014 and I can say that it was probably the hardest thing that I have ever done. I never really wanted to leave home because I loved my life and I was comfortable. I wanted to be successful and just continue on with school and get it done. Looking back, a lot of my reason that I had even stayed on that path towards a mission in high school was because of the friends I had. If I didn’t have friends with those goals, I don’t know if I would have gone.
I ended up serving my whole mission in California (24 months) speaking English. I met some amazing people and developed great friendships over those two years, but it was the hardest thing that I have ever had to do. Meanwhile, Hannah was getting ready to serve a mission and that made me feel a little better that she wouldn’t be dating anyone for the time she was gone. In the back of my mind I was still upset that we weren’t home together. 2 years is a really long time to be apart from someone that you have such strong feelings for. The only communication we were even able to have during that time was email every Tuesday. Yep, 1 day a week for like an hour. I really changed while I was gone on my mission. I would say that it changed me so seriously that I didn’t even recognize myself when I got back home. Being away from home really affected me in a negative way… After being so free and having my friends and comforts, to being in the completely unknown and without any normal comforts. Tied with having to leave a serious girlfriend behind, it all really weighed heavy on me.
Hannah and I had talked about marriage before the mission and would see where things went when we both got home. We continued to date and eventually got married the following August of 2017. I knew she was the one before we went on our missions so it was an easy choice for me. The emotional aspect of being away for so long definitely weighed a toll on me. I love her and she is very independent. She works hard for what she wants and has.
We have been really blessed and have a great family. Things are only looking up from here.
Riley Family 