Let's Talk About Sister Alayna Jones

This is my BFF and me.

Today is a momentous day because TODAY is the day that she reports to the Missionary Training Center to begin her 18 month adventure as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Lima, Peru (if her Visa ever comes in).

(an artistic representation of our love and friendship) 

Hannah: Alayna, I think you should go home and study. 

Alayna: Why?

Hannah: Because you’re getting weird and putting lotion on people’s necks.
Alayna: No I lost my balance and caught myself on the pump!
Hannah: You’re so full of it.
Alayna: Full of what? 
Hannah & Summer: It.

Kamilla: With an S-H in front.

Alayna and I met last year in the dorms. She had a class with my roommate Hannah, and then ended up constantly chilling in our room. Sophomore year, we all moved into an apartment together. And that is when we became good friends.

(The Silkworm, Coldplay guitar lessons, creation of House Rules, Twinsies)

We bonded over boy drama. In the beginning we didn't have a lot of common interests or hobbies, but boys was definitely one. Cough. We had a 9:00am stats class together. We would both roll out of bed at 8:45am, brush our teeth and walk up to class together. Then I chilled with her family over Thanksgiving break in Arizona. Seriously, one of the nicest families in the world. On the roadtrip back to Utah we got in a pretty major car accident. That sucked. But, oddly enough without the car crash Alayna and I probably wouldn't have become as good of friends as we are now.

(roadtrip and car crash)

We did literally everything together this past semester. Ok, not literally. But pretty much. We were a package deal. But both of us are cute and fun, so it was like a bonus package deal, right? Chiropractor trips twice a week because of the car crash, dinner group Monday-Thursday, same committee in our ward, hanging out by ourselves when we had no other friends, watching Spongebob after class, etc. Heck, we even dated guys who were roommates.

(top to bottom, left to right - chiropractor, dinner group, date night, chiropractor carpool, date night, librarying, publicity council bonding, being loners on a Saturday night)

Alayna: Summer, if you were a boy, I would totally date you.

Summer: Oh my gosh really?? I would totally date you too Alayna!

Alayna: Really?? Awwwww!!

We already decided that we’re going to be friends forever. She’s tried to convince me to stay single for the next 18 months so that we can live together again when she gets back. We’ll see what happens. For real though, life forever with Alayna would be a blast.

(couch time, froyo date, the departure of the dinner group text)

This girl is incredible. She claims to not be a runner, but she trained for the St. George Marathon all summer only to kind of break her foot a couple months before it was supposed to happen. After having her boot off for only 3 weeks and not running for over a month, she ran the entire marathon. 

She is a born leader. She was chair of the Publicity Committee in our ward this past semester, and I was a council member so I got to work under her. Publicity Committee doesn’t have many responsibilities to be honest. We make the Sacrament Meeting program, any activity flyers, and in general tell people what’s going on in the ward. But she totally made Publicity wayyy more involved in the ward than I thought possible. She went above and beyond to magnify her calling. The motto she came up with for us was "Be Annoying". As far as announcements go and stuff. I think we succeeded. 

She’s been through some serous trials. She’s from Joplin, MO, the town that was leveled by a tornado a couple of year ago. She was in her car driving home from graduation when it hit. She was homeless for a while because of it, but when she talks about it she isn’t bitter and shows incredible strength. 

She was an Anatomy TA. For those of you who don’t know, anatomy at BYU is BRUTAL. It sounds like a fun and interesting class to me, but since it’s so intense I’ll probably never take it haha. But Alayna (and Hannah) love it and worked so hard that they were able to become TA’s and help a lot of other students – without getting paid. 

She’s an incredible friend. In the picture above of our “couch time” I was having one of the worst days ever. Seriously I was a mess, and Alayna had been out of town for the past couple days. But as soon as she came home she recognized immediately that I was having issues, sat down with me, and knew exactly what to say to make me feel like a million dollars again. As you can see, I even took a picture of that moment so that I would never forget it. I’m so lucky that I got to spend this year with her.

(our last Sunday)

If there’s one thing that I know about Alayna, it’s that she loves the gospel of Jesus Christ. She knows that it’s true and that it is a real source of eternal happiness. I’m so happy that she gets this chance to give a year and a half of her life to teach the people of Peru and bring them closer to Christ. She’s going to be the cutest, tallest, best sister missionary down there. Peru is so lucky! Go get 'em Sister Alayna (she doesn't have a middle name) Jones!!