When I was 18, I was basically the only single girl my age in my stake. I stayed home and went to community college before transferring to BYU-Idaho, unlike all of my girlfriends who were up at one of the BYUs. I had some girlfriends a bit younger than me and one or two a few years older, but the guys from my stake were the only ones I had left when everyone else left for college. All the guys in my graduating class stayed home and did a semester or a year at the community college, so during that one year I got pretty close to several guys from my class. And when they all started leaving on missions, it was really hard. And once the age change hit, my girlfriends were off on their missions too, so I didn't have summer vacation partying with them to look forward to.
Things have changed since then (lol I'm old) because now some guys are leaving right after high school, and girls leaving at 19 made a HUGE difference in how many sister missionaries there are out there. Which I think is awesome, but also really hard for those left behind. It means you get less "post-mission" hang out time with them, and in some ways that's harder than having made more memories. And while those two years were really difficult in some ways, it's doable, especially now that the rules about emailing missionaries have changed. So here are my tips for surviving 18 months/2 years without your friend(s):
#1 MOST IMPORTANT TIP: Write. Them. Letters. Consistently.
Subtip A: The Internet.
The internet will (if it hasn't already) become your best friend. Make it a goal that Sunday nights are dedicated to emailing missionaries, and I promise you'll be blessed. I don't always hear back from everyone every week, but as long as I'm consistent in sending them something I hear back at least once a month. You guys have it a lot easier than I did when my guys and even most of my girlfriends were serving missions (lol my old person is showing again) since back then, unless you were serving somewhere foreign, you couldn't email anyone outside of your family. But you know what? I made it work.
Something that I will always be proud of is my diligence in writing my missionaries. At one point I was writing 14 of them, either an email (to my friends in Mexico and the Philippines) or handwritten (to my friends in New Jersey and Maryland) every freaking week. I even had 2 missionaries who I had never met in person, but were friends with my friends and had heard I was an awesomely consistent letter writer and wanted to be penpals. When my friends have gotten home from their missions and I've seen them for the first time, the first thing they do is tell me how grateful they are for the letters/emails I sent regularly. I promise I'm not trying to brag here; I'm trying to emphasize how important this contact with the "outside world" is to missionaries.
Sidenote: if you want to send a handwritten letter to someone out of the country, use this website! 99% of the places outside the U.S. are free. You type in your letter and they print and send it to your missionary. So it's not entirely "handwritten," it's more like an email hand-delivered to them, but for someone who's serving in a third world country that doesn't even have washing machines? That physical piece of paper is a HUGE deal. Do it on occasion and you'll be surprised by how excited they get about it.
Subtip B: Don't wait.
At first when I had friends serving, I'd write them a letter/email and wait to hear back before I sent another one. DON'T DO THAT. Missionaries get swamped and sometimes on P-Day they barely have time to email their families, let alone a friend. Write every week, email or handwritten, whether or not you've gotten anything back. Eventually they WILL get back to you.
Subtip C: You are important.
Have any of you read my weekly blog posts on my personal blog? If you have, you'll know that my life really isn't full of a million adventures and crazy stories that I share every week. My weeks are full of simple things, sometimes with an occasional humorous story or incident thrown in. Do not think that you have nothing to write about. I promise anything you can say to them will be welcomed! The mission field is amazing, but hearing those stories about how you went to the mall with your mom, or how your brother said something stupid, or even just that you had a pretty boring week but still wanted to write them will mean SO much. Getting things from back home can sometimes make missionaries homesick, yes, but it also can remind them of why they chose to enter the mission field in the first place. Your letters don't have to be 100% spiritual (though I usually like to put a quote from a prophet or talk about something I learned in scripture study), they can be like how you would talk to them when they were home, before they were "Elder" or "Sister". Tell them stories, make them laugh. Treat them how you would if they were sitting in jeans and a t-shirt next to you on the couch. Just be the friend you've always been.
TIP #2: Stay busy.
It would have been easy for me to lay in bed and refuse to get up when all my friends left. To cry and pout and mope around and be depressed because I was "alone." DON'T DO THAT! Find some new stuff to do, or get better/more passionate about the stuff you already do. It's ok to write a missionary once in a while and say "nothing exciting happened but hey I miss you and wanted to write you" but week after week they're gonna get sick of that. I do a lot of crafts and take a TON of photos, so I would write to my friends about the cool photo I took, or the scrapbooking technique I learned. Yeah the elders aren't really gonna care about scrapbooking techniques, but they'll care about YOU. They care that you're pursuing something you love and learning to use your talents!
So you're crazy good at Rock Band? Keep practicing! Love sewing? Sew them something! Or take a picture of something you made and send it to them. Missionaries love to hear about your "silly" everyday life adventures. It helps them feel closer to home, and can remind them of why they decided to serve in the first place: for the "regular" people living their lives, but without the gospel.
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