MFEO - Part I

I was 15 years old and in the height of my jock-ness. My family had lived in our house since I was 5 and when a big subdivision went in blocking our view of the Lake we were maybe a little bit disgruntled. Serves me right as Scott's family happened to be one of the first families. It was easy to recognize that Scott was by far the cutest guy in the ward*. I therefore proceeded to "by chance" ride my horse in the field behind his house for oh, a few months. That is until I realized that all the other girls in the ward had a crush on him as well. So I moved on and started our sophomore year running, literally. I played basketball and ran track and Scott was playing the trumpet in the Marching Band and Jazz Band. Needless to say, the two groups didn't mix much. Of course we still had Sunday School, mutual and Youth Conferences together but neither of us ever remember talking to each other other than a friendly "hi" in the halls. This continued all the way through high school. Scott remembers coming to our house for Church activities and interviews with my Dad (our Bishop at the time). I remember Scott playing the National Anthem at one of our basketball games but that's about it.

A year after we graduated we met up again, at the post office of all places. But it remains the earliest memory for both of us of any kind of interaction between us. In fact the memory is quite clear considering how common place it seemed at the time. I was mailing a box to Washington D.C. where I was moving to for the semester. Scott was preparing to go on a mission to Venezuela. The upshot of the conversation was "I think your a great person and am sure you will do amazing things. Good luck with your life!" Little did we know . . .

*An LDS Ward is a congregation of about 250 people. The Bishop is the lay leader of that congregation.