Moroni 10:4
"And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. [Moroni 10:4]"
Practically seven years since I moved to Utah, and I decided it was time to try a few things. I have had some issues with the principal of the Honor Code at BYU, but I didn't do anything too horrible. Coffee in the mornings, sure, a beard now and then to throw people off. Badminton friends can attest to my occasional swearing (Russian friends can attest to my regular swearing ;) ). Since graduating, I *of course* intended to ignore the HC completely, but have been slipping into quiet judgement of people with Starbucks, and even had a nightmare about beards one night. Well, pirates. But they had beards.
Recently I decided to watch a couple typical mormon movies, Singles Ward and Charly. I KNOW, I can hardly believe it, but someone convinced me to, and maybe... well let me just review the better of the two first. Charly follows two people's interwoven lives. Sam is an obvious good mormon guy, who has been on a mission and is basically the ideal nice guy. Meh. Charly, on the other hand, is a rebellious woman from NYC (GASP) visiting Utah for a few days. Sam "has to" take her out on a date (dang, a beautiful not-lds woman), which leads to a second date and soon... he wants to get married. But she isn't mormon. She starts taking the missionary lessons and it isn't long before she has a complicated guilt trip about her past and hastily moves back to NYC to get away.
I'll give a little spoiler here: She ends up converting and they get married. Happy ending? Almost. She has a child, develops cancer, and well... things do not go well from there. Anyone who has seen this movie knows it is very emotional and has an element that I usually do not care for in a movie. But this time it made me think that I need to change something in my life. This time the spirituality aspect was more touching, more real.
Later that same night I pulled out my scriptures. They have been sitting on my shelf since Book of Mormon 121. I skimmed through the first couple books of Nephi, then really got into Alma. Compelling stuff. I had a lot of questions when I came across some things, especially Isaiah quotes. Now as I read the scripture I quoted at the top of this entry I realized I had only prayed once and I needed to try again. I gathered up my courage, but when I set my book back on the table something fell out of it. A missionary card? What the heck? There was a phone number on it, so instead of a long-distance call to Heaven, I settled for the MTC. I was nervous and dialed the number at least twice before not hanging up.
Finally I let the call go through. "This is Elder Quaid from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." And our conversation began. Well, it would have begun. Here is the weird part, and really why I wanted to share this story at all. "Have you ever called us before?"
"Oh, no, hah, absolutely not," I replied. I said my name, slowly, four times, and spelt it for the guy. He told me to "uhh hold on for a sec." But see, he didn't put the phone on hold, so I heard everything that happened.
"Obviously! We have had him in our records for years. The jell-o didn't work?" What the... "No, he hasn't responded to any of the representatives from BYU either. I don't know how we missed this... he has been living in... Orem."
LDS FRIENDS: Your church isn't a cult by any stretch of the imagination, but they are a little more pervasive than I thought. I still don't have issue with the honor code, or most of BYU, or anything of the sort. I thought I would pray about it, but after talking with that Elder on the phone. Wow. I was shocked, he finally got back on the phone and said sugary-sweetly, "Thanks for holding. If you would like we can ask some missionaries to come to your apartment tomorrow after you get off work. They will answer any questions you have."
So I hung up. I admit I've eaten jell-o, drank root beer, laughed at mormon jokes, gotten miffed at anti-mormon people, hummed along to the Carillon bell tower's version of "Come Come Ye Saints". To that list I can now add, I've seriously considered and wondered about this church. But that phone call put me off quite a lot. I've heard stories, but that was extreme. Why did I come to BYU? Maybe at some point I was curious, but the answer will forever remain: the cost. And I mean that literally.
Practically seven years since I moved to Utah, and I decided it was time to try a few things. I have had some issues with the principal of the Honor Code at BYU, but I didn't do anything too horrible. Coffee in the mornings, sure, a beard now and then to throw people off. Badminton friends can attest to my occasional swearing (Russian friends can attest to my regular swearing ;) ). Since graduating, I *of course* intended to ignore the HC completely, but have been slipping into quiet judgement of people with Starbucks, and even had a nightmare about beards one night. Well, pirates. But they had beards.
Recently I decided to watch a couple typical mormon movies, Singles Ward and Charly. I KNOW, I can hardly believe it, but someone convinced me to, and maybe... well let me just review the better of the two first. Charly follows two people's interwoven lives. Sam is an obvious good mormon guy, who has been on a mission and is basically the ideal nice guy. Meh. Charly, on the other hand, is a rebellious woman from NYC (GASP) visiting Utah for a few days. Sam "has to" take her out on a date (dang, a beautiful not-lds woman), which leads to a second date and soon... he wants to get married. But she isn't mormon. She starts taking the missionary lessons and it isn't long before she has a complicated guilt trip about her past and hastily moves back to NYC to get away.
I'll give a little spoiler here: She ends up converting and they get married. Happy ending? Almost. She has a child, develops cancer, and well... things do not go well from there. Anyone who has seen this movie knows it is very emotional and has an element that I usually do not care for in a movie. But this time it made me think that I need to change something in my life. This time the spirituality aspect was more touching, more real.
Later that same night I pulled out my scriptures. They have been sitting on my shelf since Book of Mormon 121. I skimmed through the first couple books of Nephi, then really got into Alma. Compelling stuff. I had a lot of questions when I came across some things, especially Isaiah quotes. Now as I read the scripture I quoted at the top of this entry I realized I had only prayed once and I needed to try again. I gathered up my courage, but when I set my book back on the table something fell out of it. A missionary card? What the heck? There was a phone number on it, so instead of a long-distance call to Heaven, I settled for the MTC. I was nervous and dialed the number at least twice before not hanging up.
Finally I let the call go through. "This is Elder Quaid from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." And our conversation began. Well, it would have begun. Here is the weird part, and really why I wanted to share this story at all. "Have you ever called us before?"
"Oh, no, hah, absolutely not," I replied. I said my name, slowly, four times, and spelt it for the guy. He told me to "uhh hold on for a sec." But see, he didn't put the phone on hold, so I heard everything that happened.
"Obviously! We have had him in our records for years. The jell-o didn't work?" What the... "No, he hasn't responded to any of the representatives from BYU either. I don't know how we missed this... he has been living in... Orem."
LDS FRIENDS: Your church isn't a cult by any stretch of the imagination, but they are a little more pervasive than I thought. I still don't have issue with the honor code, or most of BYU, or anything of the sort. I thought I would pray about it, but after talking with that Elder on the phone. Wow. I was shocked, he finally got back on the phone and said sugary-sweetly, "Thanks for holding. If you would like we can ask some missionaries to come to your apartment tomorrow after you get off work. They will answer any questions you have."
So I hung up. I admit I've eaten jell-o, drank root beer, laughed at mormon jokes, gotten miffed at anti-mormon people, hummed along to the Carillon bell tower's version of "Come Come Ye Saints". To that list I can now add, I've seriously considered and wondered about this church. But that phone call put me off quite a lot. I've heard stories, but that was extreme. Why did I come to BYU? Maybe at some point I was curious, but the answer will forever remain: the cost. And I mean that literally.