After her mission, she returned to her family in Salt Lake, and ultimately decided to leave Utah and settle in Washington, DC.
After I returned home from my mission, I moved back into my parents' house and started in on my senior year of college. I stayed very involved with the Church, and went to the Temple there quite frequently. Through the Church I became good friends with a young man who had also been a missionary. One Sunday we were in the Celestial Room, which is a room that is symbolic of Heaven, and this man asked me to marry him. It was completely unexpected. The Celestial Room is supposed to be the most special, serene place on Earth, but upon his proposal, I felt nothing but ambiguity, uncertainty, and fear. I just did not feel comfortable. My brain works more slowly than my emotions, and I was so surprised, I think I must have said yes. I spent half an hour after the ceremony getting dressed, wondering, "What am I going to do?" And I felt in my heart that what I needed to tell him was that I wasn't ready, and I needed more time.
When I went back out, he was waiting for me, and he pulled out a ring, and I sort of lost my grip on reality for a minute. I saw the beautiful diamond and I saw his sweet eyes and I just couldn't say no. And so I said yes. I had been all prepared to say, "Let's wait on this, let's think about it," but when he pulled out the ring I thought, "Well, jeez, being engaged sounds like fun. Let's do it!" Because I thought, "Oh, this is happy, this is what I've wanted!" I mean it was hard in Utah to have your younger brother get married before you do. I can't say that I hadn't been jealous, because that's what you grew up wanting, your own husband and your own family. And here was my opportunity to achieve that.
Even though I had accepted the proposal, it was not free of doubts. I think it took about two months before I was able to break it off. I don't think I would have known for certain that it was wrong had I not said yes. I think sometimes you have to make a decision and go with it. I think, had I said no, I would have been left wondering. Looking back, I was glad that I made the commitment for that short period of time.
It was around this time that I really felt drawn to return to the East Coast. It took about a year until the timing was right, but I really felt that I needed to be there. I believed in my heart that I was capable of doing things and I believed in my heart that there was something wonderful out there waiting for me. I think I also felt like I needed to be further away from my family, in some ways. I am still, to this day, treated as a child with limitations by my parents. I grew up in a household that it was best to play it safe and not try for things. If there was a chance you could fail, then don't even try at all, because the hurt you would feel if you didn't make it would be worse than if you hadn't tried. And so I grew up with a lot of inhibitions.
Moving back to DC and living on my own for the first time, I mean really on my own without the rules and structure of a mission, it was like a whole new world opened up. To try and promote myself, to go out and get jobs at places that my name wasn't known by anyone, and to apply for promotions and things like that, it really took a lot of courage and a lot of guts, because I hadn't had the experience or help in doing those sorts of things. And so I can't help but feel a little bit pleased with myself and those opportunities, even though not all of them worked out. But some of them did, and it was wonderful.
I think I grew up with a tendency, because my hand was always held, to expect to be taken care of. When there wasn't anyone to do it anymore, it was a different feeling, and I think I kept wanting that hand-holding for a while. I remember one hideous snowstorm morning in Washington where I'd spend the night at the house of a girlfriend from work. I needed to get to work, but she didn't need to be in until a few hours after I did. She lived out in the middle of Virginia, and I remember that I had to take a bus to get to the metro to get into town, and I had no idea where I was going. It was a complete blizzard, and half of the city was shut down, yet I did it. It took me literally two-and-a-half hours of tramping through the snow and waiting at the bus stop and at the metro. I remember feeling like, "I did it!" I was happy to be able to tough it out and make it happen. And I just loved the little things like that, whether it was personal or work-related, because I had never had those kinds of experiences, where I was in control and really had to depend on myself like that.
It was hard, initially. Everything had been removed from me: my piano students, my job, my friends from school, my family. I was essentially alone and learning to provide for myself in a very expensive city, finding a place to live, really finding a place in my world. I felt really alone and discouraged, but even though I felt scared, I wasn't about to quit. I may be emotional and have my quirks, but underneath it I really feel that I have a decent amount of strength there that really helped me make it though the hard times. In addition, of course, to my faith in the Lord and being able to turn to Him.
I got to know the Church on another level, living in Washington. It was amazing to be in a congregation in Washington, DC, because it really was so much more diverse. It was very eclectic, and it was technically a singles ward, so there were all these people , mostly between 25 and 45, many with advanced degrees, who had just incredible intellect and things to offer. It was inspiring and invigorating, and, even though I wasn't perfectly living the gospel standards at that time in my life, I don't think I had ever felt more loved and more cared for by people of the Church. Coming from the head-planted-in-the-sand state, where you're judged and criticized for any possible misstep, I was really amazed. And as that happened and as I developed more friendships, my confidence grew, and I just really felt like it became my second home with my new friends and my new life. I felt like it was possible for me to be the person that I tried to be, growing up and on my mission, and with the same expectations, but in a completely different environment, and without having to change who I am. I sort of felt like I had really come home.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Confessions of a Mormon Missionary, Part 3: The Mission
Newly finished with her training, she heads out on an 18-month mission.
Once I arrived on my mission, I was on a completely different schedule. You had to be up at 6:00 AM, and, of course, with some companions, they insisted on being up at 5:30! You'd have an hour of personal study, an hour of companion study. You had to be out the door, dressed, at 9:00 AM, on the streets proselytizing, teaching, working, whatever. And you would have one hour for lunch. Depending on the companion, you could come home, stay an hour. Otherwise, depending on the companion, you packed a lunch and you included your driving time to the park! And then you were right back at it. It was really rigid. The days were long, but at the same time, they went by really fast. You were always busy. I don't think I've ever worked as hard. You were grateful for bedtime. I didn't have insomnia on my mission at all.
The rules and the structure made it really easy to focus. Sometimes I would just get worn out and overwhelmed by it all, but it was impossible to lose focus. As a missionary, you were expected to baptize new members into the Church every month. There were minimum numbers of discussions that you were to teach, and so many hours spent tracting and so many hours spent studying, alone and with your companion. There were a certain number of scriptures to memorize. There was quota after quota. That was a struggle, because I just couldn't get into that. Every once in a while, I would think, "I just can't do this anymore," but only if I was feeling really down and depressed. You're in such a different state of mind. All you do is eat, sleep, drink, preach religion, and it's such a change of lifestyle.
Living the missionary lifestyle was a huge adjustment for me. I'm a little bit stubborn, and even though I was technically a "good girl," I still was a little bit of a nonconformist and liked to do things my own way and very much did not like being told what to do. It just so happened that my mission president was basically the strictest, most controlling man. He ran his mission field like a drill sergeant would, like an army. There were very rigid expectations and structures. There are standard mission rules world-wide, but in addition to that, mission presidents are able to add anything else that they feel is necessary. And not to be able to listen to music, classical music, that was my life...not to be able to listen to music was very hard. I'm very much a "spirit of the law" type of person, where the president was very much the "letter of the law." We clashed a lot.
There was one instance where my mother's boss was in Washington, DC, visiting with his daughter, and he wanted to come and visit me at the Visitors' Center. I had permission for that, that was no problem. Well, it worked out that he wasn't able to make it up there. He got in a time crunch and he called me and asked if I could come into DC with my companion and meet him, and he'd take us out to dinner. I couldn't go without permission, but the president was in meetings all day when I called, and so his assistant answered. Although I did have permission to see my mom's boss, I didn't have permission to go into DC, and if you went outside of your assigned area at all, which sometimes was quite small, you had to get permission from whomever above you. So I told the assistant that I had permission to see this guy and then I told him where I was going, as thought I had already been given permission. My companion and I drove to the metro, hopped into town, met him in Union Square, and had a wonderful time and a wonderful visit.
I was so afraid of getting into trouble, even though I had told the assistant where we were going. I didn't know exactly what the communication was, or how it was going to get back to the president. I was feeling so guilty that I basically blew it myself. The same assistant called me for another reason, and I assumed it was to chew me out because he had found out. He quickly realized something was up, and it just made me feel horrible. The president called me the next day and called me a liar and said, "I don't even know why you're out on a mission," just completely scolded me. I was devastated, absolutely heartbroken. He said, "Well, I hope you can go out and baptize some people!" Oh, it was so bad. That took weeks, maybe even months to get over, because I worked hard and really, for the most part, did what I was supposed to and enjoyed it very much. It's hard enough being in that environment and having to give up everything and having to be so perfect and to accomplish so much, and yet have an incident like that tear you down. We eventually made up and I ended up having a good relationship with the president, but it was not without struggles the whole way through. It was not easy.
THere were so many hundreds and hundreds of rules that it was just impossible to follow them all. So that was where being a "spirit of the law" kind of person really helped me. I remember the first few months of my mission, around Christmastime, my parents sent me and Andy Williams Christmas tape, which was my absolute favorite. We were forbidden to listen to music except on our preparation day. It was not my preparation day and I was just dying to listen to it. At that time my companion and I were living with a really sweet lady and I said something like, "Well, if you were to put this on and to turn it on, and if we were in the room, there's nothing I could really do about it!" So she put in the tape and I was just so happy.
Another time I had a companion that I just adored, and we were being transferred from one another and we were both really upset about it. We were supposed to be in our apartment and in bed by 9:30, but we just couldn't go to sleep. We were so upset and it was just a beautiful warm spring night, and so we just went out on a midnight walk. We just went for a walk in the middle of the night. We had a wonderful time.
You are with your companion, this same person, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and oh, that was an experience. I'd never lived away from home. I'd never had college roommates or anything, and I was not quite prepared for that. Sometimes it was utter hell. I had three companions, all in the first half of my mission, that were horribly self-righteous and mean, critical and demeaning. They were the "letter of the law" type. My first companion wasn't so much that type, but she was just really tryping hard to be strict and obedient and set a good example because she was training me, and I was her last companion before she went home. The second one was like a drill sergeant, just a bitch. We clashed from the beginning and that was a horrible month. She would call the president and complain about me, and twice she dragged me up to his office. Looking back, I want to forget a lot of it. It was really hard. I prayed for transfers.
On companion I had was completely anorexic, and she would say how she loved being thin. This was at a point on my mission when I was at my heaviest, and she monitored everything I ate. She had all these mind tricks and mind games, and for someone like me, who doesn't think quickly on her feet, and is more emotional than rational, that was a really, really difficult time. I just really felt abandoned and forsaken by the Lord during that time. I felt like, "How can God even really be there if this is going on?" I just felt really disconnected from it. In a way, I was doubting, because I felt that the Lord wasn't helping me as much as He should.
After that time, I remember reading the Gospel Essentials Manual, which is what new members of the Church use in their Sunday school lessons. And I remember reading through the first lesson, and it was nothing more than that God lives and He loves us and He created this beautiful world. We're all brothers and sisters. And I just had this incredible sweet feeling of peace that He does, in fact, exist. And everything was OK>
I had other sources of help and support, too. After the incident with my mission president, when he called me a liar, he made me go to counseling, and it turned out great. And working in the Visitors' Center was helpful, too, because, if you didn't like your companion, you still could have affiliation with other friends, people who also worked in the Visitors' Center. That helped a lot, it was a break. It was hardest when you were out in the field 50 miles away from anyone. But there were always people that I felt drawn to or close to in the ward that were helpful and were nice. There were always people to connect with.
I really felt much closer to God as a result of my mission. It also ended up being an opportunity to really live the gospel and the Mormon lifestyle, which, it sounds silly, I didn't really think about when I decided to go on a mission. That wasn't my intent for going. My intent was that this was an opportunity to serve the Lord and to help people. I didn't go thinking, "This is really going to give me an incredible spiritual foundation," though that's what happened. It's weird, because when you grow up in a Mormon society, there's so much that you don't learn, that you take for granted. And much of what you're missing is really basic, the essence of the gospel. It really did give me a strong spiritual base, and I also felt much more confident in myself after I returned home to Salt Lake. And my mission is certainly what planted the seed for me to want to come back and settle on the East Coast.
Once I arrived on my mission, I was on a completely different schedule. You had to be up at 6:00 AM, and, of course, with some companions, they insisted on being up at 5:30! You'd have an hour of personal study, an hour of companion study. You had to be out the door, dressed, at 9:00 AM, on the streets proselytizing, teaching, working, whatever. And you would have one hour for lunch. Depending on the companion, you could come home, stay an hour. Otherwise, depending on the companion, you packed a lunch and you included your driving time to the park! And then you were right back at it. It was really rigid. The days were long, but at the same time, they went by really fast. You were always busy. I don't think I've ever worked as hard. You were grateful for bedtime. I didn't have insomnia on my mission at all.
The rules and the structure made it really easy to focus. Sometimes I would just get worn out and overwhelmed by it all, but it was impossible to lose focus. As a missionary, you were expected to baptize new members into the Church every month. There were minimum numbers of discussions that you were to teach, and so many hours spent tracting and so many hours spent studying, alone and with your companion. There were a certain number of scriptures to memorize. There was quota after quota. That was a struggle, because I just couldn't get into that. Every once in a while, I would think, "I just can't do this anymore," but only if I was feeling really down and depressed. You're in such a different state of mind. All you do is eat, sleep, drink, preach religion, and it's such a change of lifestyle.
Living the missionary lifestyle was a huge adjustment for me. I'm a little bit stubborn, and even though I was technically a "good girl," I still was a little bit of a nonconformist and liked to do things my own way and very much did not like being told what to do. It just so happened that my mission president was basically the strictest, most controlling man. He ran his mission field like a drill sergeant would, like an army. There were very rigid expectations and structures. There are standard mission rules world-wide, but in addition to that, mission presidents are able to add anything else that they feel is necessary. And not to be able to listen to music, classical music, that was my life...not to be able to listen to music was very hard. I'm very much a "spirit of the law" type of person, where the president was very much the "letter of the law." We clashed a lot.
There was one instance where my mother's boss was in Washington, DC, visiting with his daughter, and he wanted to come and visit me at the Visitors' Center. I had permission for that, that was no problem. Well, it worked out that he wasn't able to make it up there. He got in a time crunch and he called me and asked if I could come into DC with my companion and meet him, and he'd take us out to dinner. I couldn't go without permission, but the president was in meetings all day when I called, and so his assistant answered. Although I did have permission to see my mom's boss, I didn't have permission to go into DC, and if you went outside of your assigned area at all, which sometimes was quite small, you had to get permission from whomever above you. So I told the assistant that I had permission to see this guy and then I told him where I was going, as thought I had already been given permission. My companion and I drove to the metro, hopped into town, met him in Union Square, and had a wonderful time and a wonderful visit.
I was so afraid of getting into trouble, even though I had told the assistant where we were going. I didn't know exactly what the communication was, or how it was going to get back to the president. I was feeling so guilty that I basically blew it myself. The same assistant called me for another reason, and I assumed it was to chew me out because he had found out. He quickly realized something was up, and it just made me feel horrible. The president called me the next day and called me a liar and said, "I don't even know why you're out on a mission," just completely scolded me. I was devastated, absolutely heartbroken. He said, "Well, I hope you can go out and baptize some people!" Oh, it was so bad. That took weeks, maybe even months to get over, because I worked hard and really, for the most part, did what I was supposed to and enjoyed it very much. It's hard enough being in that environment and having to give up everything and having to be so perfect and to accomplish so much, and yet have an incident like that tear you down. We eventually made up and I ended up having a good relationship with the president, but it was not without struggles the whole way through. It was not easy.
THere were so many hundreds and hundreds of rules that it was just impossible to follow them all. So that was where being a "spirit of the law" kind of person really helped me. I remember the first few months of my mission, around Christmastime, my parents sent me and Andy Williams Christmas tape, which was my absolute favorite. We were forbidden to listen to music except on our preparation day. It was not my preparation day and I was just dying to listen to it. At that time my companion and I were living with a really sweet lady and I said something like, "Well, if you were to put this on and to turn it on, and if we were in the room, there's nothing I could really do about it!" So she put in the tape and I was just so happy.
Another time I had a companion that I just adored, and we were being transferred from one another and we were both really upset about it. We were supposed to be in our apartment and in bed by 9:30, but we just couldn't go to sleep. We were so upset and it was just a beautiful warm spring night, and so we just went out on a midnight walk. We just went for a walk in the middle of the night. We had a wonderful time.
You are with your companion, this same person, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and oh, that was an experience. I'd never lived away from home. I'd never had college roommates or anything, and I was not quite prepared for that. Sometimes it was utter hell. I had three companions, all in the first half of my mission, that were horribly self-righteous and mean, critical and demeaning. They were the "letter of the law" type. My first companion wasn't so much that type, but she was just really tryping hard to be strict and obedient and set a good example because she was training me, and I was her last companion before she went home. The second one was like a drill sergeant, just a bitch. We clashed from the beginning and that was a horrible month. She would call the president and complain about me, and twice she dragged me up to his office. Looking back, I want to forget a lot of it. It was really hard. I prayed for transfers.
On companion I had was completely anorexic, and she would say how she loved being thin. This was at a point on my mission when I was at my heaviest, and she monitored everything I ate. She had all these mind tricks and mind games, and for someone like me, who doesn't think quickly on her feet, and is more emotional than rational, that was a really, really difficult time. I just really felt abandoned and forsaken by the Lord during that time. I felt like, "How can God even really be there if this is going on?" I just felt really disconnected from it. In a way, I was doubting, because I felt that the Lord wasn't helping me as much as He should.
After that time, I remember reading the Gospel Essentials Manual, which is what new members of the Church use in their Sunday school lessons. And I remember reading through the first lesson, and it was nothing more than that God lives and He loves us and He created this beautiful world. We're all brothers and sisters. And I just had this incredible sweet feeling of peace that He does, in fact, exist. And everything was OK>
I had other sources of help and support, too. After the incident with my mission president, when he called me a liar, he made me go to counseling, and it turned out great. And working in the Visitors' Center was helpful, too, because, if you didn't like your companion, you still could have affiliation with other friends, people who also worked in the Visitors' Center. That helped a lot, it was a break. It was hardest when you were out in the field 50 miles away from anyone. But there were always people that I felt drawn to or close to in the ward that were helpful and were nice. There were always people to connect with.
I really felt much closer to God as a result of my mission. It also ended up being an opportunity to really live the gospel and the Mormon lifestyle, which, it sounds silly, I didn't really think about when I decided to go on a mission. That wasn't my intent for going. My intent was that this was an opportunity to serve the Lord and to help people. I didn't go thinking, "This is really going to give me an incredible spiritual foundation," though that's what happened. It's weird, because when you grow up in a Mormon society, there's so much that you don't learn, that you take for granted. And much of what you're missing is really basic, the essence of the gospel. It really did give me a strong spiritual base, and I also felt much more confident in myself after I returned home to Salt Lake. And my mission is certainly what planted the seed for me to want to come back and settle on the East Coast.
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