a story

My mission companion and I were knocking doors on an average suburban cul-de-sac when a guy pulled up next to us and yelled "Sisters! What are you doing in my neighborhood?" This guy had been baptized a few months earlier, and we sat on his porch for well over an hour as he gave us the play by play.

He had worked in marketing at some hotshot real estate firm in the South for a couple of years after college. After one of his employees yelled at him on the phone, he slammed the phone down, frustrated. He picked it back up, decided to go to law school, and called a 1-800 number to register for an LSAT prep course. That's when it started.

Months later, he was at a law school fair in the east, where law schools from all over the country set up tables and answer questions. The BYU table was deserted (he claims it looks like there were "tumbleweeds") and he felt sorry for the lonely man sitting at it, plus he'd had a buddy go to BYU a decade earlier, so he stopped at the table for quick pity-hello. (The dean sitting at the table later told him that he'd had a feeling when walked by. He felt like this man would come to the law school and join the church, but figured he should act natural about it, because talk about a quick way to freak someone out and let them know exactly why your table's deserted).

Anyway, this guy was well-qualified and could've gone anywhere, but quickly realized the J. Reub was three times cheaper than anywhere else and figured hey, nowhere else is actually three times better. So, he did it! And his first week there, he got turned away from the financial aid office for wearing too short-shorts (ha!) and felt like an alien when he washed his truck outside on a Sunday with his shirt off as church-goers gawked. People had warned him that in Provo, he would eat freakish amounts of ice cream and a friend even told him to tie a ribbon above his knee underneath his jeans in case any girls looked for his undies, because then they'd be more likely to date him.

So, during his three years at the law school, he was given 5+ copies of the Book of Mormon, met with a dozen sets of missionaries despite his consistant "thanks but no thanks" response, even met an apostle or two, had multiple leaders and even mission presidents sit him down and invite him to learn more, yet miraculously survived three years in Provo without joining the church...only to go home to NY and have a change of heart years later.

He compared his joining the church to barfing. Like when you know you're going to throw up, and you don't want to get up, and you think you can suppress it, but then you realize "Uh oh. I better run for the bathroom, it's coming up no matter what I do." The missionaries told him, "Our job is to help you find the toilet." Everything about his baptism was great, he told us, except the outfit they made him wear. Straight out of the 70s, way too snug, slightly off-white with some Dumbo-ear-sized lapels. Besides the outfit, it was the best day of his life.

As we sat on the porch that sunny-but-freezing day, he found out I would be applying to law schools shortly; naturally, he began recruiting in earnest. I was as anti-BYU as they come (remember? I went to high school at EFY) and laughed in his face, though I admit I was shocked and secretly impressed that he had such a great experience there as a non-member. He was normal, smart, fun, and funny--the opposite of everything I imagined about BYU Law students who only wore khakis and didn't laugh when someone said "bastard." When I told him I had way bigger plans and threw out some of the schools I was thinking about, he responded laughingly, "Do the math and get back to me." And it's true. I'd owe six figures right now if I had gone any of those places. The rest of my mission, he kept telling me perk after perk about the law school, put me in touch with some of the deans, never let up. The more I talked with him, the more I felt nudged toward the J. Reub but just kept kicking bc seriously, it's BYU.

But of course, he was right, I gave in, and you know what? I am happy. Looking back, he and his miraculous story were definitely an answer to my prayers for where-the-freak-should-I-go-to-school-guidance and he became a great buddy. This baby wouldn't be on her way if I'd gone anywhere else, that's for sure. Some of the funniest things he told me about law school:
"You won't find a job you like. You're a lawyer, not a Disney guide."

"Sure, you can be a purist and write your own outlines and it will be a good learning experience. And writing Microsoft Word software would be a good experience too, but useless when all you need to do is print a document."

"Briefing every case is like mowing a lawn with your hands, grabbing fistfuls of grass."

The year after he was baptized, and a year after we met him, he married one of his law school classmates in the temple. Two months ago they had a baby girl. Last month, I asked him to give a presentation at the law school about his conversion story, along with the dean who first recruited him. In that presentation, he said "You can sum my story up like this: Man unhappy, man joins church, man now happy."

I just found out that he died yesterday in a skiing accident.

Thank you for making me go to BYU and thank you for your example and thank you for your helluva story and thank you for your life. I'm glad you gave into that barf-baptism feeling and I'm glad I met you. We'll miss you, Jason.

give some thanks

Three years ago, I entered the MTC, and now I'm married, knocked up, and halfway through law school, so yes it's been a helluva few years. Since Thanksgiving's approaching, I'm going to take a few minutes to be a cheese, and it's my blog so I'll cheese if I want to, cheese if I want to, cheese if I want to (begin singing Leslie Gore's 1963 smash hit, It's My Party)...

I'm going to steal Marlin K. Jensen's statement from the PBS Mormons documentary because it captures my feelings exactly. Talking about his mission, he said:

"That was the moment, really, when my hope and my tender belief turned into something really solid, which has been the foundation for the rest of my life. It's what motivates me. It's what gets me up in the morning. It's what carries me in the duties that I do. It's what gives me joy and satisfaction from knowing that my way in life is the way I should be going. And it came about in that moment. So when people say, "How was your mission?," I say it was everything, because I've never been the same since that little moment."

I had 2 Thanksgivings on my mission, the first one in the MTC and the second one in a trailer park. The second one was the best ever; we had breakfast with a family of little kids where I watched the 5 year old pick up every single muffin in the bowl, smell it, lick it, and put it back. His sister's hands were red with koolaid or something, and she climbed up on the counter and patted the thawing turkey, then sucked her fingers, then started touching our faces. And you know what? We just laughed and hugged her and it wasn't gross, it was endearing. We served at the Joseph Smith Farm that afternoon, then for dinner, we went to a trailer park across town for some lumpy punch, meatballs and ham. Their dog pooped on some newspaper in the hallway and they just threw it away and laid some more newspaper down. One of the nicest, most down-home days of my life.

And I remember how overwhelmed I was three years ago, when I didn't know what I was getting into, and just sat in some stuffy classroom in the MTC, prayerful and hopeful but with no clue what was coming...and it ended up being 10,000 times better than I could have imagined, with crazy ups and downs and more joy than I knew was possible. And on top of all that, I later had the privilege of marrying a champion, which was even better than the happiest happy I'd felt before. So I remember those MTC-feelings of uncertainty about the future, and feeling inadequate and 12 years old on the inside, and I look down at my growing belly and feel the same uncertainty, the same inadequacy, the same "Wait, I'm actually 12, this is a mistake" but times a billion, because this is a little person we are responsible for. And sure, it's only the size of a large mango right now, but this kid is going to have a life that we're supposed to help with. And I don't know yet if it's a he-baby or a she-baby, but I look down and wonder who our baby will be, and what our baby will see, and if it'll ever know how much we love it, and I'm overwhelmed at how much I want our kid to feel what I felt on my mission, and I'm scared we'll mess him or her up very badly, and then I remember my mission, and Thankgiving, and what good care God has always taken of me, and I feel better.

nyrmtastic

This past week, the Australian wonder and I ventured into a world dear to us, a world full of wonder, intrigue and cat hair. The world of the mission.

Highlights: we stayed in an old lady's basement for $20 a night, stuck pins in a map representing our homes, visited 4 separate Wegman's stores, saw the sun NEVER (which is pretty standard for the world's cloudiest place), strolled down memory lane with some EFY tunes, got rage at times, reminisced about pagans and gross outs, hit up the sites, had a heart to heart with a champion missionary at the Smith farm, tried to get in a car that wasn't ours, heckled through our 343rd viewing of "The Restoration," strolled the pier on Lake Ontario, got up whenever we felt like it, did many a driveby, knocked a few unanswered doors and even tracked down one of our favorite Peruvians in her new store.

Great work, team.

Top Ten Things I was Tempted to Do Last Night When We Had the Sister Missionaries Over for Dinner

1. Insist on filling their plates myself with 2-3 times the portion they would choose for themselves; moments later, tell them they still look hungry and fill the plate once more.

2. Buy a cat and let it climb on the stove while we finish cooking.

3. Ask them when they go home.

4. Treat them like Spiritual Pez Dispensers and ask things like: "Tell me something spiritual about your mission," or "What's the hardest part so far?" or "How often do you get homesick?" or "Tell me something inspirational."

5. Offer to set them up with a brother/cousin/nephew/friend.

6. Request a specific spiritual message from them. "How about something from Lesson 5?"

7. Pour them coffee.

8. Yell, "Gotta go!" and smile sweetly, leaving them alone with husband just to see if they panic.

9. Pretend they were at the wrong house.

10. Say, "Wow, I guess the old saying 'sister missionaries are worth the weight' applies now, doesn't it?"

Ode to the Tahitian Machine

My trainer on the mish hailed from the exotic land of French Polynesia, only people could never remember where she was from and usually thought she said "Haiti" instead of "Tahiti." I've been thinking about her this week as she got hitched last Friday, turned the big 26 on Saturday, and is a measly 4700 miles away from here. Her wish: to marry a fellow Tahitian with a strong testimony who doesn't stress and speaks English. And it just came true! Wowza!

A few tidbits about my Tahitian:

1. In French, "salad" is said almost exactly the same as in English but with an emphasis on the "lad." She was scared she'd say it weird, so everytime someone said "Would you like salad or applesauce?" she'd say applesauce even though she hates it.

2. She enjoyed saying RESTORE-ation and thought it made more sense than REST-oration, since the gospel was, after all, REstored.

3. People often (I am not making this up) asked her if she lived in a tree.

4. She mixed up the difference between "would" and "will" and just thinks they are both future, so often said cute things like "I would go get that later..." and it killed me.

5. She has the longest hair I have ever seen on any human being.

6. She has an incredible powerhouse testimony and is one of the most gentle, peaceful souls around (must be the island living...)

6. She is one of my all-time favorite people on earth.

As an ode to the Tahitian Wonder, I therefore include a pseudo-poem I wrote on the mission about our six hilarious weeks together. Heart you, Sinj.

In Tahiti, We Don’t Stress

So we can crack each other up – you practice your English and I’ll practice my French and since you like the way it sounds when we say, “I’m in trouble” and “salad” you’ll say it over and over again, and when you figure out the word for traffic light you’ll say it all day.

And when the man shoveling his driveway stopped to talk to us and my hat was red and yours was black and we couldn’t feel our toes and after 20 minutes of talking and praying my brains out he said no thank you and I wanted to cry and you put your hand on my shoulder and said his heart was closed so we raced up the next abnormally steep driveway, me first since my boots were bigger so I could be like a snowplow.

That might’ve been when we met Nate who was in a Christian rock band and said he had a heart for Jesus and that the doctor told him he was 20 pounds underweight and he explained his sideburns to us and we talked about his dog named Oreo, an island called Raiatea and a man named Moroni he didn’t believe in but we wanted him to. His brother pretended he wasn’t listening but we knew he was and one day he’ll knock doors too I bet.

And balding Becky said she could never get baptized because her ear hurts when it gets wet and also she wanted to know how we could live on the sun because wouldn’t it be really hot, and she lived kind of by this family whose house I could never find in the dark and they knew about Mormons from a radio show. Pete the dad had a dream when his own dad died that actually boosted his faith for when the dog (that was bigger than their kids) died too. We laughed when they showed us their wedding pictures and even explained the refreshments there and for the first time I felt God’s love for someone else and you smiled and we brought them hot chocolate.

Which is understandable since we had tons, given to us by the same people who gave us matching pajamas, frozen meatloaf and many pep talks when it was cold and later we played dodgeball with Pat who is probably still waiting for an answer and if I hit him it meant he had to read which happened rarely but at least he went to seminary and we think he understood priesthood.

Or when that Indian family repeated our prayer and we ate no joke the best meal of our lives with a couple that had a cartoon hanging up of when they eloped and we watched the Avery kids beg their parents to please just try this church once so they could see what it was like – and all that snow!

You loved the snow and hated the cold but hey who doesn’t, so we ate one more cheeseburger and tried (unsuccessfully) one more random recipe, then I put on two skirts and three sweaters and you wrapped multiple scarves around your face and some angry man took our picture and we prayed for warmth and rang the doorbell.

serious blast from the past

Yikes. The hub and I just hit up the mission and OH. DEAR. I don't even know what to blog about it except to say that if you're wondering if the only thing better than the mish itself is hitting it up with your favorite, permanent hangout friend, the answer is yes. I highly recommend it.

Other things I recommend:

• Wegmans
• Sleeping from pre-takeoff to post-landing and therefore remaining unaware traveling ever took place
• Hearing that a woman you tried to teach for ages but kept striking out with is now the Relief Society secretary
• Watching the sunset from the Hill Cumorah until a fakeout-grumpy man kicks you off by telling you he's served 8 missions and is training to hike the Appalachians and that he saw 27 turkeys, some on top of trees.
• Shrieking with strangers bc you know the same mission champs.
• diving into Niagara Falls. Okay, not that one.

surreal

So, I had a strange/awesome/sad experience today.

Out of the blue, a girl who just got her mission call to wonderful NY got my email address off the mission website and had a few questions. Today we met for lunch. Looking at her, so excited and nervous and endearing, brought back a big fat flood of about-to-leave emotions.
I remember when my mission was still imaginary, when I wasn't sure if I'd go, when I found out where I was going, when the whole thing was an exciting but totally blank slate stretching before me. Before I knew how much it aches to watch someone feel it then still decide to close the door, and before I knew how it felt to almost explode from happiness, despite your nasty sweatpits and even though you've been wearing the same skirt for a month, you don't even notice because you just met someone that said they'd pray and you could tell they meant it. Anyway, I could tell from our hour-long lunch date that this girl was a fantastic, capable, dedicated person and ready for the adventure. Her not-so-into-church mom came too, and cried a lot, and it was just exhilarating to feel the just-about-to-be-a-missionary vibe and think about all that is ahead for her and her family.

Anyway, I left the law school around noon today (after a mind-numbing contracts exam...rage...rage...) and was supposed to meet them about 45 minutes away for lunch at 1. Randomly, it popped into my head to stop by the fam's and grab my old mission coat in case this girl needed it. But let's be honest, I love my mission coat in all its frumpy, puffy, pet-hair-ridden glory, and wasn't sure I was ready to part with it, and also wasn't sure I had time to stop to get it. Just as I was thinking that, my phone rang and she asked if we could meet at 1:30 bc they were running behind. A sign! Now that I had time, I decided to grab the coat, though I felt a) a little sad even thinking about parting with it and b) dumb for even wanting to bring it, since I hadn't even seen this girl and she could easily be five feet tall or six feet tall and my dumpy old coat may not even fit, IF she even wanted it. So, it turns out she doesn't have a big winter coat yet. She tried it on in the parking lot and it fit perfectly and she's taking it with her!

I still don't know how to describe it. I am trying to find the right words and keep striking out. I'm just not sure how to explain it. But something just hit me, seeing how sweet she was, and excited, and nervous, and charismatic, and curious about the future...just imagining what the next year and a half holds for her really got to me. And something about handing her my coat, and watching her put it on, and remembering when I found it on sale the day before I left, and the tag was already way cheaper than anything else I'd found, and then it magically rang up at the register as $40 less than the tag price. Just thinking about all the places I wore that coat, and all the times I'd have to air it out after being in a smokey house for an hour, or all the times I'd wipe mud off it after a rainy adventure, or standing outside Brian's house in the rain wringing it out, or the little kids that would try to hide under it bc it was so long and puffy. Or how glad I was that it was a little big, so that I could wear three skirts and three sweaters underneath it without feeling squished, and how goofy I felt when I first saw my reflection when I was wearing it, but how it got to feel like a second skin in the winter, and the worn-out spot where I'd clip my nametag, or buttoning it up tight the day that we tracted for four hours and our hair froze but we were miraculously still warm.

There was just something about remembering so vividly everything I did wearing that coat, and handing to her, and watching her zip it up. She held her arms out and laughed, and I could feel her excitement and it reminded me that my mission is really over and that hers is about to begin and it was sad and beautiful.

Things I love

Inspired by Ziz and Mitchell, a list:

Things I love
1. Andrew
2. cracking up with the fam
3. reading the paper
4. the grass smelling stuff we got as a gift to add to the laundry
5. sleeping in, or at least knowing I can wake up when I want, or at least not setting the damn alarm
6. reading a good novel in the sun
7. watching bad TV with someone who gets why it's funny (like IDENTITY!)
8. handwritten mail with my name on it
9. reading about Alma and Amulek and the Anti-Nephi Lehis
10. a round of ping pong where we just laugh and visit and don't keep score. Usually but not necessarily involved: Forever in Blue Jeans.
11. having people over
12. roadtrips without a schedule
13. a nice big fountain drink mixed however I want
14. receiving a text message when one of my buddies sees a ridiculous customized license plate (recent examples include, "SOINLUV" "LTHRBOY" "SHNIAFAN" and "BIGONJC")
15. playing catch with those wiffle ball things at the park
16. SPRING. Even if it just reminds me that other people get to go outside.
17. new shampoo
18. lunch dates, especially when they last an hour longer than we'd planned
19. a champion surprise (snow days, class cancelled, deciding to take a last-minute trip, finding $5 in an old coat pocket)
20. a good storm (as long as I'm by a window in a blanket)
21. making up clubs
22. old friends
23. new friends
24. babe-ing up for a hot date
25. ugly dancing dance parties
26. not being called on. But, IF called on, being prepared AND making sense when I get grilled for 20 minutes.
27. anything mischieveous (mongoosing, double-lining, non-mean practical jokes)
28. labeling voicemails to friends "urgent and confidential"
29. doing the windmill with anyone but especially Andrew since he is a great size for it (note: the windmill involves walking next to someone and then flipping their arm up so it is suddenly around you. Try it today!)
30. doing the turtle with anyone but especially Andrew (this is particularly effective after a prayer, when you are kneeling next to each other, and just roll over so your back is squishing the other person's back, and then you yell "I'm a turtle! I'm a turtle!" and wave your arms and legs. Try it today!)
31. when I do something awkward that I think is hilarious but that makes everyone else uncomfortable (i.e., every effing day at the law school)
32. studying hard for a test and then (gasp!) actually knowing (some of) the answers
33. teaching someone something and watching it click for them
34. freshly clipped nails
35. Raisinettes

That's Biblical

(Note: I am working on putting my mission pics together and that involves writing a rambly poem for each companion to go opposite a few favorite pics, so this is one of them for your viewing pleasure)

And we’ll walk nonchalantly down the driveway, acting natural til we get in the car and start shrieking about how even though he’s only 10 and he has some “big disagreements” Kyle finally finally finally heard an answer because he got 7th in the spelling bee and took it as a sign that maybe he should have second thoughts about not being baptized. And Julie was worried Devin might grow up and go to jail if he keeps lying so we sang songs about obedience and tried to act like we didn’t know he’d made up the story about his droopy finger.

Or how about standing soaked in the rain, me with a gimped foot that kind of felt like a monster bruise and you wearing 5 shirts and we both looked like drowned rats and the old woman shook her head at us through the screen door and said something but we couldn’t hear it so just kept talking til she walked away.

How about when the dog actually ate your hair then gnawed on my knuckles and I really thought they were going to start bleeding but we just kept teaching and even though Dan was smoking and later decided he was too cool, we told him he could learn to be a better dad and he told us once he prayed for nice weather at the lake with his grandma and it worked so no matter what that’s how he knew God was for real.

Or when we sat in the front row with our feet on the piano bench and so many treats it seemed like Halloween but instead it was actually January, which was the same month we walked around and everyone noticed and when we met all those depressed moms with kids that freaked us out and we shook on it that we’d never become them.

And even though we kept striking out and sometimes it felt like a drought but most of the time it felt like a treasure chest, Mert and Shannon promised they’d really show up this time. We’ll laugh at my word vomit and the grumpy man at Family Dollar and we’ll get rage about laundry and milk but really we won’t mean it and plus we make up code names for things important to us anyway so it’s fine.

And we’d make analogies about sports and war and Chuck E. Cheese then laugh about the time you asked Maggie if she’d heard the gospel's been restored, and we felt bad for laughing so hard in the prayer that we turned purple and couldn’t breathe, and we’d break up with Florence and the LaBombards and feel short-term sad but long-term happy.

Then you’d eat one more wheat thin and I’d eat 10 more cookies and we’d smile about 600 calories, your muddy coat and the miracle we knew was just around the corner.