Elder Lever.

I have a brother. Well, actually I have a lot of those. But this particular brother of whom I speak is the eldest of the five and he is going on a mission. Well, hopefully all of them are going to be going on a mission, but his mission is actually here upon us. And by that, I mean he leaves in ONE WEEK.
And to decode this message for you: Ryan is out. To Scotland/Ireland. To share the truth and help bring eternal life to these great people. He will be a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,  the Mormons, if you will. He's going to be amazing.

So, Ryan and I are two years apart in both age and school. But age has never really separated us. Maybe I'm just remember the good times, but honestly, I feel like we've been best friends for a solid 19 years - his entire life. Especially through high school. We are friends with each others friends. We hang out. We used to attack each other in the hallway of the high school. Basically, he is wonderful. This is us back in the day...

But lets get real, obviously there is no way that we've always gotten along.. true, we fight sometimes. Actually, he's probably the one of my brothers that I fight with the most, but in the end, we stop the madness and end up just laughing our heads off at some ridiculous bit of humor.
We have the same sense of humor. All of my brothers do. Apparently our humor is unique and most don't understand it, but we do and we have WAY too much fun laughing at our jokes. Ryan and I can just sit there going back and forth, beating the same jokes to death for hours. It never gets old.
We even look alike. Lets get real, anyone that has ever seen us thinks we're twins. We are the same person. Check this pic, we even laugh the same:

Ryan is the best. I don't know what I would do without him in my life. He listens to my ridiculous stories; rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but listens nonetheless. He has always been my shoulder to cry on, my bodyguard, my source of advice, my own personal comedian, my best friend. He is adventurous and kind and would never admit it, but is just adorably sensitive as our dad. Ryan has a testimony that is obvious through everything he does in his life. He is an example to me and inspires me to be a better person. I just love him with all of my heart.
I can't even put into words how much I'm going to miss this boy. But I also can't express how proud I am of him. He is going to touch so many lives. I can't wait to write to him all of the time about the craziness that is my life.
When I look at him, I still see this cheesy, adorable little kid:

But really though, he's like a man and I'm so excited to see him grow even more spiritually and emotionally these next two years. Not going to lie, it's going to be sad when Ryan leaves and I'm not going to know what to do with myself, but I wouldn't have him doing anything else with his life right now. Go get 'em tiger.

One more picture, just because I love this one: