I have been in love with a girl... for a year!?

Well, i meet this girl on a mission trip about a year ago and i am STILL in love with her. She is absolutely amazing and i cant stop thinking about her. All that she has told me is that we are friends (at least, that's all she will admit to) she said that she loves talking to me and laughs at a lot of jokes i say but i guess anyone would :) all i need is a way to tell her how much i like her but without being to upfront with it (if you know what i mean) it all so needs to be a way so that if she doesn't like me, we can still be friends. the last thing i want to do is make things worse, sound desperate, or not real. i need things to talk to her about because our conversations are short and have no point. I tried to tell her how much i really like her but it didn't turnout so well. i sent a text to her because i never get a chance to talk to her, and she didn't reply. i took this as if she wasn't interested and then lied to try and make things better by saying: 'my friend likes to mess with me so he sent you that message' or something like that. i don't know if that was the right thing to do or not but anyways, i still need a way to get closer to her without being to obvious, and she CAN NOT think we are 'just friends'... its kinda complicated i know but please help!