Hello! My name is Lara Bell and for one of my New Year’s resolutions, I decided to start my journal on a blog instead of filling up another notebook. I hope by writing what is going on in our lives and sharing it with our family and friends who want to keep up with us, we can feel closer even when we live far away. I want to introduce my family and a few other things to get started so here we go…
My husband, Chris, and I met through my friend who was his companion on a mission in South Korea. As he was often trying to end their emailing time early, my friend shared my email with him to keep him busy. I got a funny kidnapping email from Chris demanding a ridiculous amount of sour patch kids for the release of my friend. Though our emails started with this running gag and teasing, they grew into a good friendship after emailing every week for 10 months. Once he was home from his mission he contacted me to ask for my number and proceeds to tell me that we need to meet in person. He was living in Idaho and I was in Missouri at the time so I didn’t see how we were going to do that very easily. 
I did agree that we needed to meet after such a long time of emailing every single week, and a month later he flew to Missouri to meet me in September 2015. The night before his flight, we talked on the phone and agreed we didn’t like the games or immaturity that most dating is accompanied with and decided while we were together we would essentially act like a couple. Our time together was filled with many experiences that should have lasted many months but were all packed into 1 week because of my intense planning skills. We were able to see the major sights in St. Louis, take a day trip to Nauvoo, help me pull off an event for the institute social, and go camping with a young single adult stake. At the end of the week, we talked about how we felt about continuing our relationship long distance since he was starting school in Idaho and I was working in Missouri.
Obviously, we did continue to date over the distance and it went well because two months later when I went to visit him, we got engaged. I had a lot of help planning my wedding which was only two months later! We have now been married for a wonderful two years and our wedding was perfect for me and what I wanted because it was the happiest day of my life, up to that point at least. I was happiest next when we were blessed with a precious little girl in August 2017. When we decided to start trying for a child we were excited to start the new journey together even if we were a little anxious as to be expected with that much responsibility, but when she finally joined us we were over joyous with having her in our lives.
I could go on and on about how much we love our perfect angel, but since she is the center of my life and I’ll be focused on her enough later I’ll end it there. I look forward to sharing my time and anything else that might come up through this year with anyone who is wanting to know about the Bells.
