I love my Jessica Jon

I just got off the phone with my dear friend Jessica Jon Penovich Gibson. She lives in Florida. I miss her. I went out to visit her twice this past year. One of the times was right after (and I mean RIGHT after) a fairly traumatic experience, and visiting her was the best thing that could have happened to me at that time. She was in a very real way an angel sent by my Heavenly Father. But it wasn't just that one time that she has been an angel to me. Since I first met her our sophomore year of high school, she has been there for me time and time again.

One of the best summers I have had was the summer when she and I both decided to go on missions. We worked together on BYU Grounds Crew in the morning and then at the BYU Interlibrary Loan Copy Center (or the BYUILLCC, as we liked to call it) in the afternoon. Then we spent just about every evening together. We spent hours discussing just about everything, and commiserating about our boy drama (and both of us had plenty that summer). This is one of my favorite days from that summer when we were hit with torrential rains on our walk from the library to her car. It stopped once we got in the car, but it was too late by then.

We decided to go on missions about the same time, and turned our papers in the same week. I wanted to go to South America and she wanted to go to Spain (because her mom served there). She got her call and was called to Argentina, and I went to Spain. It was so much fun preparing together to serve missions. One week we went to the Salt Lake Temple and then spent the rest of the evening trying to find a sister who was either from Spain or Argentina on Temple Square. We finally found a Spaniard as we were about to give up.

Because of Spain visa issues, she ended up leaving almost two months before I did. However, I got to the MTC with just enough time to see her for a few days. When we saw each other in the cafeteria the night I got there, it was quite the scene. Everybody in our proximity was amazed at our display of excitement. Since we had done so much shopping together, we had a few of the same outfits. We planned to wear them on the same day so that we could take the famous map picture in matching outfits.

I loved getting letters from her throughout my mission, and it was so fun to compare experiences when we both returned. I also loved writing her letters, because I knew that she would appreciate my sense of humor, since she's one of the few that truly appreciates my quirkiness. She always makes me feel like I'm the funniest person in the world, even when I'm not.

She got engaged right after I got home, but she kept her promise to be my roommate and we lived together the semester before she got married. Even though we didn't see each other a lot that semester, she still made time for me. One of my favorite nights was when she was preparing to give a talk in church the next day. She was assigned to speak on music (which is perfect for her since creates so much beautiful music). We were up until 3:00 AM going through the hymn book and talking about our favorite lines from the hymns.

Hers was the second temple sealing that I was able to attend. I'm pretty sure I cried both tears of joy and sadness. Richard is a great guy, but I was just a little sad that she wasn't going to be my roommate anymore.

I'm glad that Richard has been unselfish enough to allow our friendship to flourish. The chats and visits that we have had since then have been so important to me. Jessica is one of the most loyal, thoughtful, kind, loving, beautiful people that I know. I wish everybody could have a little bit of Jessica Jon in their lives; it would make their existence so much brighter.