I remember at 16

The summer I turned 16 we went to the east coast – Baltimore and the harbor, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Hershey 😀 , Gettysburg. I got to stand in the Atlantic Ocean. We sang the songs from 1776 on a tour of Independence Hall and walked the fields of Gettysburg.

We spent morning till night for a week doing everything possible in D.C. and still needing a few more weeks to see everything we wanted to see. We stayed at a bed and breakfast row house and we’d eat breakfast in the morning and maybe we’d remember to eat something for lunch, but not always. And then we’d come home at ten or eleven at night and think we should probably get something for dinner. I tried the same tactic at Disneyland with Brett last year and he wasn’t too thrilled with the idea.

In March of my 16th year I took a trip that would affect my life in so many ways even still today. With the young women from my ward we drove the three hours (it’s really a four hour trip but everyone says three) to the Mormon colonies in Mexico.

I saw the beautiful valley of Colonia Juárez and didn’t realize at the time how often I would be back there. I went back on my 21st birthday to attend the new temple that was built on the hill above the high school. I went back after my mission and did my student teaching. I went back a few years later to chaperone and witness my best friend’s wedding in that temple. That is a very special valley for me.

We explored the area and learned about the history there. But the main purpose of our trip was to get together with the young women from one of the wards there and throw a party for a group of disabled children. We played with them at a park and broke a piñata and ate cake. I spent the day with a little boy wearing a red sweat suit and one of the young women from Mexico. In the group photo that’s her with the left arrow and me with the right arrow.

Less than a year later BYU randomly put her and me together in the same Heritage apartment as roommates. We didn’t make the connection until around Christmas though. It was her wedding I went to in that valley. And she was at mine in a whole different valley.