And our guy won!

I can’t even begin to explain how much grief I took this time around. I don’t come in contact with a single other democrat in my daily life, and the particular republicans I do come in contact with are just as single-mindedly certain about their political views as they are in their religious views, even frequently thinking that the two are nearly interchangable.

There are a million reasons why I’m thrilled to death with the outcome, but I think I’m going to let them all rest. I’ve borne more than my share of the vented spleens of the republicans I know who want to debate with the one democrat in the vacinity, I don’t think I’m going to compound the issue by rubbing my reasoning in their faces.

I’ll just hope extra hard my faith was well placed and pray for his safety every day.

This past weekend was our church’s bi-annual general conference, where we all watch a broadcast of the church leaders giving speeches. I always adore conference weekend. I love the peace and quiet of just sitting around the house with Bear, I love the meaty talks given, I love getting to listen to the prophet.

This conference was unusual in a few ways. We had to watch it up at my inlaws because we were celebrating family birthdays, and I really missed the quiet at our own house. I love my niece and nephews, but kids do complicate trying to sit still and listen.

I also had two talks that just felt written for me alone. I couldn’t have gotten the message any clearer if the speaker had stopped talking and said, “Ok, Reese, listen up because this part is for you.”

There was also one talk in particular that left me pretty steaming mad, but I’m not going to dwell on it because I’ve already said my peace in other places and I’m trying to get over it. I will just say that I was disappointed we only got two female speakers at conference, and that that was the message our president decided we needed to hear.

Anyhoo, moving on….

Here were my profound moments of revelation:

Saturday morning Elder Spencer J Condie gave a speech called Claim the Exceeding Great and Precious Promises. It was so beautiful, all about how God will not forget the promises he’s made to us if we fulfill our covenants. When he quoted “And God remembered Rachel,” I just sobbed. My life has been ridiculous. Seriously, ridiculous. This stuff does not all happen to one person unless they’re addicted to drama and make it happen themselves. I am not that person. This year, well I’m still afraid to jinx myself, but this might be the time when these promises are finally fulfilled. It’s just been so difficult to keep going, to not lose my faith or get mad at God, and I needed this talk to remind me what I’m striving for.

I also really benefited from Elder Eyring’s talk about journal keeping, O Remember, Remember. This one came on when all the kids were running around, everyone needed to be fed, people were coming in and out of the room needing to be caught up, the house was just filled with the noise and bustle of a large extended family, and I could only catch about every other sentence. From out of the fog of distraction came this one thought as clear as a bell, “I heard in my mind—not in my own voice—these words: ‘I’m not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down.’ “

I’ve very often felt that the past five years have been wasted. I have no additional education, no valuable career experience, no children. I have often asked God what that time was for. I think that was my answer.

Hands down, the highlight of my teenage years was going to EFY. EFY stands for Especially For Youth and it’s a week-long summer camp thing held for Mormon teens. There are dances and wacky games and cheers, but my favorite was the workshops. Teachers would come from all around the country and put on lectures on topics like Reading the Scriptures, Prayer, and of course, Dating.

I really cannot seem to find the descriptive power to relate the cheesy goodness of EFY. There are many out there who think they are too cool for school and laugh at all the occasionally clumsy efforts of people trying to help teenagers navigate through to adulthood while retaining the teachings of the gospel. But I have never been too cool for anything, so I revel in it. I have my bowls of naked macaroni noodles at the ready for the cheesy goodness to rain down.

Usually people who are as in love with EFY as I was go on to be counselors once they’re in college. But because my life seemed to take a sharp veer off the beaten path, I never had that opportunity. I did manage to work in the religion department at BYU, which is where many of the lecturers came from, and for a season I planned on becoming a Religious Educator. But then, of course, my life took another veer off course, this time crossing back over the beaten path and into a whole other territory altogether.

I have been content, though, because in every ward in every stake I’ve ever been in as an adult, I have ended up working with the youth. That is one of my callings in life. One I’ve been lucky enough to know about as I stagger around blindly fumbling for the others.

That’s what led me to the myspace fireside I put on last week. I’ve been in this current incarnation of Youth Leader for nearly two years now, and the YW President I serve with and I make a great team. I’m technically the Secretary, and some Presidents would want me to remember my place, but Tami has no ego whatsoever and lets me run free.

Apparently the church leadership in Salt Lake is very concerned about myspace, so they sent the word down the chain of command to make sure that we all addressed this issue. My stake president, who also happens to be the local chief of police, has been talking about it for months and months, which means my bishop has been talking about it for months, which means Tami just finally got sick of hearing the talk and said, “That’s it. We’re doing it on August 12th!” and then she asked me to get to work.

So I planned the whole thing. I met with a member of the bishopric, he told me he wanted soandso to speak, and then we wanted the Stake President to speak. As soon as we left the meeting I literally ran into the Stake President in the hallway and pounced to get it lined up. But once I got home I just didn’t feel right about the agenda. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I was scheduled to speak to the girls, the bishopric was going to speak to the boys, and soandso was going to speak to the parents. I kept feeling like I should speak to the parents. And this concerned me. Because while I love getting down to work and using my talents to build up the kingdom, I also have an ambitious streak in me that I absolutely detest. I can not stand the people who cosy up to the local leadership, hoping to get some big fancy calling. Or the people who never know when to keep their mouths shut and let someone else have a turn. I can’t stand them because I know I am one of them. And I hate myself for it.

The feeling prevailed though, and I hadn’t gotten a hold of soandso, so I sacked up and took her place.

I really think it was revelation I was listening to this time and not my own brassy ego, because it just worked.

I put together a powerpoint presentation to show the parents what their kids were up to on myspace, how it worked, why the kids liked it, and how to keep them safe. People were taking notes, they were tossing questions out, they were asking me to come to their homes and help them install software. We had such a huge turnout that we had to switch rooms and set up in the gym.

The Stake President came up to me afterward to thank me and said how surprised he was by the presentation. I have never been to a meeting with him where he outlined what he wanted, but apparently the presentation I gave was exactly what he had in mind. He said that the fireside must have really been directed by the Holy Spirit.

And then he said the words that struck fear in my heart and simultaneously inflated my ego: “I think we’re going to have to take this show on the road.”

So I will now be a public speaker/Religious educator. I will be visiting different wards in our stake, and possibly others, giving this same presentation. I am both thrilled and horrified. Thrilled because I think that public speaking is a lot of fun and I really enjoy teaching. Horrified because this is only going to fuel this dang ambitious side that just won’t shut up.

Tomorrow I’ll spend all morning and afternoon listening to a bunch of men and women, no one younger than 60, talking about spirituality. Then I’ll do it again on Sunday.

And I’m really looking forward to it.

I consider myself a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I go to church nearly every Sunday, I read my scriptures and pray daily, I devote my time to working with teenage girls. But I think I’m an exception among my peers because I’m in no way shape or form sheltered.

Mormons are notoriously square. Whenever South Park makes a Mormon joke, I have to laugh because they’re usually right. (Except that it costs money to get married in the temple. It doesn’t. And that’s really a blaspheme of the highest order and if you ever meet these guys in public you should watch out for stray bolts of lightening.) Same when I read Dooce. She doesn’t want the church in her life so she’s a little more dismissive than I am, but she’s usually pretty dead on about the eccentricities of the culture.

A lot of members try to remain pure by completely shutting themselves off from the world. I suppose it works in some ways. If you outlaw drinking in your county then you probably won’t be able to indulge in that temptation. But it also causes many many other problems. Like pride. And self-righteousness. And unfair judgment. And this makes me CRAZY.

As an educated woman, a feminist, and a democrat, I still have no problems practicing my faith. There is no cognitive dissonance for me, no gap between my two sets of beliefs that I go around ignoring. There are however, major problems within the culture of these wacky people. I’ve been around the block enough to know that we’re all just trying to get through this crazy old world and whatever helps you sleep at night is OK for now. I figure there are so many hateful and indignant people out there explaining what is a sin, that I’ll just be the person who loves. I don’t think there’s a gay person alive who isn’t aware that they are committing a sin in the eyes of many, so can’t we back off of that just a skosh? I think we’ve got the hate the sin part down, shouldn’t we work on loving the sinner? There’s a reason why so many people dismiss that as self-righteous, because most people don’t do it. I believe in Christ and I want to be His disciple. So I’ll let God do the judging and I’ll just be kind to people. It’s a radical concept, I know.