Sundance 2013: Day 1

Sundance, Day 1:

Because of the way Sundance is organized, nobody knows what has been selected until just a few weeks before the festival. By the time anyone realizes what’s going on, housing is already booked and there is a mad scramble to find a place to stay. Luckily, a friend from high school graciously invited us to stay with her and her family, even volunteering to drop us into town each day for various events. To start and end each day with this wonderful couple, their adorable son, and two enormous dogs is an incredibly grounding and relaxing counterpoint to the madness of the festival, and both Eddie and I find ourselves strangely emotional in our gratitude for this.

The night before the festival begins, Eddie takes me to his favorite restaurant in Park City, Chimayo. He has made the reservation weeks in advance, so we have a cozy little table next to the fireplace. We get to chatting with the waitress, who reveals that, like many businesses in Park City, Chimayo raises its prices during the festival, doubling their normal rates. We are relieved that our reservation was before the festival began. We finish our night with a final drink at the No Name Saloon, recommended by our hosts. The bar is a favorite of Park City locals, with great drink specials and a history dating back to 1903.

In the morning, our host Chris, an ex-Marine sniper, asks us if we’d like to go shooting with him at his gun club. Obviously, yes. What follows is an incredibly informative lesson on gun safety and proper shooting technique. With Chris’s patient teaching, we soon discover that I am, in fact, a naturally gifted marksman. Shockingly so. Shooting at paper targets is fun and I find the whole experience surprising similar to a tennis lesson.

We head downtown to the festival on a triumphant high with the realization of my newfound prowess with weaponry. I feel optimistic and ready to face the cold and line-standing, only to find that we don’t have to do any of that. In exchange for us picking up our friend’s pass for her, she allows us to use it until she arrives on Friday afternoon. This means we can buy tickets for films that are technically sold out, and it also means that we don’t have to get up at 5 AM to stand in line for anything. Not only does this mean that I actually get to attend the premiere of the movie that has brought us here in the first place; it means we actually get to see movies!  Many people come to Sundance and never see a single film, so this is hugely exciting. 

We run into Eddie’s client, a writer/director named Craig MacNeill, and his producer, Noah Greenberg. They showed a short film called HENLEY here last year, so they are now illustrious alumni. Their advice for first-timers: Drink lots of water. Use lots of hand sanitizer. And most importantly, don’t try to plan anything, because it’s impossible. Your best experiences at Sundance happen when you relax and roll with it. You run into someone on the street, your drinks run long, you suddenly get invited to a party. That’s when everything really happens. This is reinforced later in the evening when Eddie’s drinks with a producer he knows end up including me, a lawyer, and the producer’s writing partner. As we linger over drinks at Butcher’s, the producer tells us the story of last year’s Sundance, when he came to town looking for financing for a project, but could never get together with the potential financier. Finally, at the end of a party, the financier shows up at 4 AM, just a few short hours before the producer was set to fly home. Late night deals are made, the flight is cancelled, and the rest is history. “You just gotta roll with it,” he tells me, “Oh, and bring hand sanitizer."

Journey to Sundance 2013

Sundance, The Journey:

Sitting on the plane on the way to Sundance, I feel like I should be more excited, but Eddie has done a good job of managing expectations. He has referred to it as a “once in a lifetime” experience for me, because the prediction is that after I attend it once, I will never in my lifetime wish to return. From what I understand, it’s a lot of standing in freezing cold lines, digging through piles of coats to find yours, and getting sweaty from all the layers you are constantly wearing. Even LA on an off-day will be more glamorous.

We saw Tim Meadows in the security line and we figured he was heading to Sundance, but he’s not on our plane. I imagine celebrities are generally not big Southwest Airlines patrons, but who knows?

 I am a bit grumpy with Eddie. He should seriously not be allowed to plan any trips ever. How could he have planned his proposal to me so perfectly, but ignore any and all details when planning all subsequent trips? He is simply not trustworthy in these types of situations. Exhibit A: Eddie said he wanted to arrive early at the airport, so I planned accordingly, skipping breakfast with the intention of eating at the airport. Fast-forward to the 9:30 conference call he took before we left this morning, which meant we didn’t arrive at the terminal until just before 11, with an 11:55 departure time. My incredibly romantic Sundance brunch to begin our journey consisted of a McDonald’s chicken mcnugget value meal that I wolfed down hunched over in my seat in the few minutes before boarding. Do I regret this meal? Yes I do. Do I regret eating it so quickly? Yes in italics.

I should mention that Eddie hadn’t checked in for the flight beforehand. For some reason, he decided it wasn’t necessary, since Southwest doesn’t have assigned seating. Never mind the many gaping holes in the delicate web of this reasoning. In short, we checked in an hour before the flight, almost the last two people to board the plane. As a result, we are seated separately in two middle seats. Overhead compartments were all full, so our bags have been checked. Welcome to Sundance.

I’m seated between two photographers who are shooting the Chase photo booth at the festival. More of their fellow photographers are seated around them. Once I was seated, my seatmates eagerly continued their loud conversation across me, leaning forward and back to see each other around my head. I offered to trade seats with one so they wouldn’t have to talk across me, but they declined, explaining that one of them preferred window seats and the other preferred aisle. I, of course, cannot argue with this perfect logic, so I continue to be the centerpiece on a dining room table until one of them falls asleep.

Victorian Forfeits

Victorians love to play parlor games, and when one loses a game, one pays some sort of forfeit. These "hilarious" forfeits are the driving force behind the games, as is explained in the forward of the "Ninety and Five Forfeits" from the book Evening Amusements, which was given as a Christmas gift from Mrs. J.P. Haller in 1889.

The forward explains:

The most enjoyable pleasure of an evening's entertainment, or nearly so, is "Crying the Forfeits," as it usually concludes the holiday evening's gambols. The previous portion of the evening, as respects the games, being generally looked upon as a means for the collection of this description of mirth and glee, or bearing about the same relation to the forfeits that a preliminary drama does to a pantomime.

Here are some of my favorites from the list:

15. To act the part of a dumb servant. The descriptions says, "...the gentleman then asks her...questions...How do you wash?...All these questions must be answered by the lady by dumb motions, which of course cause great laughter."

19. To lay your whole length on the floor, and after calling all the company round you, to say quite loud, "Here I lay, the length of a looby, the breadth of a booby, and three parts of a loggerhead."

30. To perform the deaf man. "The person on whom this temporary infirmity is imposed must stand out in the middle of the room, and to all that is said must answer, three times following, 'I am deaf; I can't hear.' The fourth time, however, the answer must be, 'I can hear.'"

33. Hobson's choice. "The debtor is blindfolded and seated on a chair. The operating holding a cork burnt at one end, asks him which end he will have rubbed to his face...he must put his finger on the end he selects, and trust to his luck as to whether his face is blackened or not. This is a gentleman's forfeit only."

38. The perform the parrot.

39. To act the mute.

40. To enact the Grecian statue.

41. To act the death of the King of Morocco.

Value

I volunteered with a Hospice program shortly after graduating from college. I was connected with a family immediately after completing the training. My role was to help the oldest boy with his homework. He was nine. His younger brother was seven. Their little sister, the youngest in the family, was terminally ill.

I don't remember the name of the boy I tutored for over a year. I don't remember the parents' names, or the name of the younger boy either. I do remember the name of the little girl: Erin. When Erin was born, she was given only a few weeks to live. By the time I met her, she was almost four years old. Still the size of an infant, she could not see or hear or respond to most stimuli. She could not smile or stand on her own or roll over, and breathed only with the aid of equipment.

Erin's mother had gained over 100 pounds and developed diabetes as a result of the stress and of the sedentary lifestyle that caring for a terminally ill infant necessitates. With the type of equipment Erin needed, it was difficult to bring her places, and hiring a babysitter was out of the question. A Hospice nurse would come for several hours each day, and volunteers like me would arrive periodically to give the family a respite, too.

Shortly after Christmas, the older boy was showing me the family Christmas presents. "See," he said, showing me his new remote controlled car, "You can make it go around corners." As I praised his driving skills, I noticed a row of Barbies on one shelf, all in their original boxes.

"Whose are those?" I asked.

"Oh, those are Erin's. We give her presents every Christmas and birthday. Usually Barbies."

There is the family, carefully picking out Erin's Christmas Barbie. The trip to the toy store, the judicious examination of each sparkly dress before making the decision. The excitement on their faces as they slowly unwrap the package for Erin, holding it up to her half-closed eyes. "See? She's a ballerina. Like in Swan Lake! She's wearing little toe shoes."

One cold evening I arrived for my weekly visit, only to find that the mother had taken all three children out to have their pictures taken at Sears. Only the father was home. A tough, blue-collar guy, he hadn't said much the few times I had seen him. I knew that he was involved in the boys' sports, that he had worked at Safeway for years, and that he was good with his hands, having built a TV room addition onto the back of the house. We both apologized to one another for the miscommunication about the appointment. Then he invited me to have a seat in the shag-carpeted living room. Glass and china gleamed in the light from the Christmas tree that sat in the corner.

The sand-colored couch and the loveseat were set up in an L shape. We each sat, he on the smaller sofa, facing the sparkling tree. I could hear the TV in the background. "She wasn't always heavy, you know," he said suddenly. He walked across the room, picking up something from the shelf and handing it to me. He tapped a thin, blonde woman in the framed photo I was holding. The woman wore jeans and a white T-shirt. Her curly hair was pulled back into a ponytail, with puffy bangs brushing her forehead. She looked perky and fun. Someone who liked steamed crabs and beer, maybe, or going dancing with her girlfriends.

"It's been hard on us, her most of all. It's made her sad. Depressed, you know?" I murmured something and nodded, looking across the dim room. "She got real heavy," he continued. He sighed. "But you know, I still love her, as much as ever. She's still beautiful to me. It just makes me sad sometimes."

"Of course, of course," I said, uncertain of the polite response. My eyes roamed across the shelves to the other photos: a pretty blonde in a wedding dress, kissing her new husband's bristly moustache; two toddler boys holding Easter baskets; the family smiling in a formal portrait, the boys missing teeth, the mother holding a tiny, blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms.

"We heard about this home, once, a really great place, for kids like Erin. We decided it might be good for her. For us. We wouldn't worry so much." He looked down at his hands. "She has a real personality, you know. A strong will. We can tell when she's happy and when she's cranky. We know what she likes and doesn't like."

I laid the picture of the young blonde woman on the sofa beside me. My hands rested on my thighs.

Looking up, his eyes sought mine. "It's just that, when she was away, I couldn't stand it. I missed her. She's a part of our family. When she's not around I miss her."

When the Journey Began

I wrote this on October 1, 2008, but forgot to post it. Tomorrow I leave for my new life in LA. I had decided to move out there last summer, sight unseen. This is from my first trip out there to make sure that I was making the right decision.

I am sitting in the LAX airport, waiting to board my plane back to Boston. I feel certain about some things after coming here, which is why I came here. So there’s a sense of accomplishment. One is that LA is the right place for me. I know that I will be happy here; I can feel it. I had lunch with an old college acquaintance yesterday, and once we sat down, he looked at me and said, “You love LA, don’t you. I can tell. You look really happy.” It suits me.
At the moment, I am looking to my right, at three women, all with short white hair. Two out of three of them have strong Texas accents, and all three of them are talking on their cell phones. The one with the strongest accent is the loudest. She is probably about 80 years old, short and stout. LA is just a place where she is changing planes to someplace else. She keeps scrolling down her contacts list on her phone, and calls one person after another. Over her green polka-dot blouse, she is wearing a safari vest. She is excited to be back, excited to tell about her trip.
For my trip to LA, I booked a little villa in Los Feliz; it’s basically a beautiful apartment with a door code that is programmed to my visit. It was in a perfect neighborhood, exactly where I want to live. I walked to the grocery store every day, cooked myself meals in the kitchen, and did laundry, listened to music and drank cocktails on the patio. Had people over, figured out how to get places, found an acupuncturist and got my nails done. Made it my home.
I thought a lot about what this trip was going to be for me. I knew I was going to get a feel for LA, and to start making connections. I was going to go alone, and then I wasn’t, and ultimately I went without any kind of plan or agenda at all. I had a few loose ideas of people I was going to see at different points, but it was mostly open time. I had to keep reminding myself to use this as an actual vacation and an opportunity to rest. This was my first vacation since I separated, and just being in a new environment with time to myself each day, warm weather, and sunshine was enough to focus on. I didn’t need to add to my sense of duty, which is already heavy enough most of the time. I tend to think of myself as a failure if I spend a day doing nothing.
Somehow, an agenda slowly formed itself and I had all kinds of interesting experiences, connecting with people I didn’t know well, and walking away feeling like I have friends here. Feeling like I was meeting good, good people out here.
I think I was really surprised by how different it felt to be in this new city. The whole pace of things, the way people carry themselves, it feels very different from Boston. People are friendly, and nobody is ever in a hurry. No sense of urgency, even on the roads. Sometimes I found myself sitting in the car, clapping my hands and saying, “Ok, this is business, people. Come on. Let’s make it happen,” as though my unseen speech and motivational clapping would somehow unconsciously inspire the other drivers to pick up the pace.
One highlight of my trip was going to a small stand-up show that a friend, Steve, was hosting. It was in a dark little club called The Room, in Santa Monica. One of the comics took the stage, kind of an angry guy whose jokes really weren’t funny, because the level of bitterness was way too present. For example, if the punchline of a joke is, “I’m glad you were molested,” I’m not quite sure I’m totally on board with that. But this guy went up, and he started his whole bit with “I tend to be seen as pretty negative, but if you don’t like my act, you’re perfectly free to move to some totalitarian country where there isn’t free speech,” and then suddenly this woman calls out, “Yeah, like America!” And then starts shouting out things like “AmeriKKKa,” and stuff like that, and the comic tells her to shut up, although I can’t remember if he called her a cunt right away, or whether that came a bit later. So he got into it with her, and she wouldn’t stop, and then the guy who was with her got involved, after the comic said things like, “I don’t care if your dad gave you herpes, or whatever your problem is,” and called her a stupid bitch and whatnot, and then the two people were yelling things back, sort of dumb and drunk things. However, they were pointing out the irony of the comic railing on about free speech, but then telling them to shut up. At first, it seemed like a bit, or part of an act, because the lines seemed so contrived. So everyone was sort of sitting and awkwardly looking back and forth between the comic and the hecklers, and wondering what would happen next. Eventually, the comic explained that this was not, in fact, a bit, but it was actually happening. Everyone felt surprised and at a loss of what to do. Eventually Steve and another of the show’s hosts decided to ask the hecklers to leave, since they wouldn’t stop, and the comic was starting to threaten to get involved physically, which also would have been interesting, some kind of brawl, or knifing, maybe. But they got hustled out with some protests, and then the guy tried to shake hands in an “all is forgiven” gesture with the comic, but he refused.
I think the difficult part is that I have very carefully told myself that I don’t want to spend the next nine months feeling that I’m not present in the life I am living now. I don’t want to feel like I’m in some kind of waiting room, or purgatory, just waiting to make it out west. I didn’t think that traveling to LA would make me feel like that, because I am actually happy in Boston. But that is how I ended up feeling, like I couldn’t wait to move out here, and really felt like I didn’t want to come back to Boston. In my mind, I am trying to think of the next possible time I can return to California. It felt sad to leave. I did a lot of sighing.

Confessions of a Mormon Missionary, Part 4: The Return

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.

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.