Obedience brings blessings. Obedience with exactness brings miracles.

I have that desire to write something again, which is frustrating as I am rather tired and was excited to try this thing called "go to sleep before 1 AM," but...alas...

I went on a date last week, and we met up with a group of his friends to see a movie, and he warned me beforehand that one of them would more than likely try to hit on me.

He did. 

And in his process of hitting on me, he asked me if I'd been raised LDS. I told him yes.

"Is that why you believe it?"

"That's part of it."

He then asked me what the other part was, and I felt that awkward emptiness that comes when testifying of truth without having your whole heart in it; for a second I felt like I was saying what I needed to say, not what I felt to say. 

I don’t feel like I failed or anything; he wasn’t sincerely asking anyway so it’s not as if anything I said would have brought a chorus of angels raining down upon him, but I couldn’t help but obtain a notion of my inadequacy.

So I’m fixing it.

And I’m fixing it in the way my stream of consciousness wants me to, which is like this:

At Christmas time I had a guy ask me out. Let me rephrase that. At Christmas time I had a guy chat with me on Facebook, give me his number, text me until later than I wanted (I worked at six at the bakery the following morning), and in a roundabout way ask me out.

To coax me to talk longer after I quickly vetoed a midnight phone call with someone I’d only seen once in person on a day when I was quite preoccupied by others in my proximity, he asked me a series of questions. One of which was something like “Tell me five essential things to know about you.”

I typed in my love of Mraz, my writing and theatre and…

What else could I say?

I really didn’t have anything.

And then a voice, a voice I wasn’t used to hearing and was starting to vaguely notice in the recesses of my dusty, encumbered mind, said “Tell him you’re a Mormon.”

So I did. I told him I belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that I was very devoted to my religion.

From that moment I had a rush of feelings shooting through me, each little buzz reiterating the fact that I needed to talk about religion with him. I needed to explain where I stood. Because though for so long I’d been limply abiding by my religious precepts, it’s something I could never blatantly forsake.

He asked me to ask him questions.

I did. And one of them was his religious affiliations.

He told me he’d been raised LDS and still believed the principles and “understood” it more than most, but he just had a problem with organized religion.

I’ve seen that problem manifested in an older brother who was an entirely different person—and I say that quite literally—in his days of distance from “organized religion” verses his time now spent actively trying to follow Christ’s plan. I’ve seen the difference in countenance between one who claims to appreciate the gospel and “knows” it’s true and one who embodies the doctrine they know so well. I’ve lived the difference between striving to fulfill God’s purpose for me on earth verses laying in bed acknowledging that God is good, but that I don’t need to do anything about it.

I was still clawing my way out of the pit I’d spent over a year digging.

I wasn’t falling in it again.

And all the feelings twittering in my arms like miniscule bees affirmed that if I went on a date with that boy I’d never get out of that relationship, and I wouldn’t be at all where I needed to.

Because I’d met someone who made me realize that forever isn’t as far away as I anticipated in the midst of my numb roaming of the world. He made me realize I didn’t have time to waste, because that righteous boy who could take me to the temple could turn up any instant, and what would be my course if I wasn’t ready for him? Where would I be? What eternity of good would I miss from one instant not acknowledging my Maker or Savior, ignoring and forsaking that I have the ability to breathe, the agency to lay in bed, because of one plan I chose to follow and abide by? Why should I be blessed with someone like that when I can’t even manage to mumble a prayer in an uneventful or calm moment?

He asked me if the religion thing threw me off the idea of a date.

And I thought of that someone who woke me up, whose mere personable spirit carried so firmly the light of Christ that I couldn’t be around him without the buzzing in my arms to do good. To constantly do good.

I talk about this a lot and I’ve probably told the equivalent of everyone but him that he gave me my conversion moment. His lack of shyness with the gospel pulled me to the realization that all the beautiful things I’ve ever had in my life came from a God who dearly loved me, and that by not taking a moment to put effort toward His cause I was wasting my time—wasting my life. And that’s why He took the words away.

I remembered a time I’d felt blessed, peculiar and chosen, and how I wasn’t that person anymore. I wasn’t that adolescent constantly abuzz with what she’d read in scripture the night before; I wasn’t that girl who hoped on Christ. I was that girl who went through the motions, followed routine, and had bouts of panicked faith in high-stress moments. Not even literally almost dying, locked in a freezer, brought me to realize my error. No heartache or blessing brought me to the knowledge of my God; nothing humbled me into seeing it is through Him all is possible.

Until this boy.

And it all hit me as I lay in bed texting the non-religious gent, and I knew I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to sound judgmental and prudish and “holier-than-thou” but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had to say no to him. I had take a stand for once in my life, had to remember a tear-stained aunt telling me not to date anyone I didn’t plan on marrying because she’d never intended on marrying a Catholic, but she dated him anyway and fell in love and now what? I had to remember the petite paragraph in my patriarchal blessing that talks about a husband and the church. I had to remember those statements of rearing children in Christ, of that celestial marriage and eternity I want and deserve. I had started working so hard for it, and I couldn’t compromise.

So I didn’t.

And I won’t.

I told the boy I was sorry, but I couldn’t. I was flattered, but I couldn’t. I did the difficult thing and said no.

And blessing started pouring through.

And more are coming. I have to keep remembering that. I often think of that story President Monson tells about himself as a young bishop being in a stake meeting of sorts with the distinct impression to visit a ward member in the hospital but he continued to push it aside, seeing it inappropriate to get up and leave. And by the time he ran into the hospital he was informed by a nurse that the patient had been asking for him just before he died.

President Monson says he vowed at that moment to never again hesitate with spiritual promptings.

I’m trying. I really am. And sometimes they’re not what you want to hear, and sometimes they’re so difficult that I literally feel nauseous. But it’s worth it, I think, to count myself on the Lord’s side. To know that I’m chalking up points that He’ll repay in the fullest of fashions. It’s worth it to know I’m in cahoots with someone on the inside—and not just that, but with the person running the show. He has the cheat codes. He has the answers. He has the words and He has the strength. And maybe I’m still shaky at saying no when I need to and instantaneously saying yes when He asks. Maybe I’m still selfish and ignorant and stubborn.

But I’m trying not to be. And I think that’s the point. And maybe I haven’t tried other religions. Maybe I’ve only sat in one Baptist church meeting, and only went for my public speaking class. Maybe I haven’t tested other sources.

But I haven’t needed to, and that’s what I should have told the guy at the movie theatre. I haven’t needed to compare, because I’ve felt the fullness with which this gospel, this religion, brings me to Christ. I’ve watched His love envelop and change the very appearance of a person. I’ve watched sharp edges grow soft and harsh lines become smooth. I’ve felt His hand and I’ve felt His absence.

I believe you can feel Christ’s spirit anywhere. I believe the Holy Ghost helps those who haven’t received it; but I feel that spirit most with the Mormons. I feel that spirit most with the Plan of Salvation and the temple and the Book of Mormon. I don’t doubt God exists in other religions, I just know He dwells in mine.

And I’m thankful every day for being raised LDS. I’m thankful every day for being fully converted. I’m thankful to that friend for living his testimony in so full a way that it inspired me to don mine as a more public garment. I’m grateful God listens and loves me, that Christ set selfishness aside and atoned for my sins, pains, heartbreaks and concerns. I’m grateful I have a Redeemer to lean on, a crucified hand to hold, and a knowledge that we are eternal. And a desire to act upon it.

And you know what? It’s a testimony, so I’m ending it like one.

And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Dirt's All The Same

I have a friend who once told me his secret to not judging others. It's an analogy and it goes like this:

Sin is like dirt. Dirt's all the same.

His point, which he elaborated, was that it doesn't matter what a person's done; there's no reason to judge them for their actions. The point is they're dirty. Everyone is dirty in some way.

And dirt's all the same.

I haven't been perfect in my life. I wish I could say I have, but I haven't. Who am I to expect that from someone else? Whether their dirt is the same as mine doesn't matter. The point is we've gotten dirty. We've both walked on a beach and gotten sand in our shoes. We've both spilled food on our shirts; maybe mine's grape juice while theirs is mustard. Neither one is better. Neither stain is preferred, because that's what they are: stains. They both need extra attention and care to be removed.

Dirt's all the same.

I've tried taking this into my heart and acknowledging it in moments where I'm tempted to lessen my view of someone based on my perception of their life, but it's never really stuck. I haven't gotten it to be the thing that pops effortlessly into mind to deter me from passing judgement.

Until the other day when I realized I'd been inwardly chanting something to remove judgmental tendencies, it just wasn't about dirt.

In my mission prep class we're moving into teaching The Plan of Salvation, or Plan of Happiness. My teacher gave an example of an object lesson a young girl in Guatemala (where he served his LDS mission) gave to a group of her peers. She had them write down:

Day-
Week-
Month-
Year-
Life-

And then asked them, next to each 'time,' to write one of the most important choices or decisions they had to make in that instance.

So, for example, maybe your biggest choice today so far has been what to have for breakfast. Last week maybe it was to go to that last-minute audition even though it seemed pretty pointless and when you got there you realized you were right. But the choice to go was important and had impact.

So everyone did it. And for fun, I'll ask you to do it. Right now. One of the most important choices. Write it.

(Please do not read ahead until you've completed the exercise. Thanks.)

When they were done, she said something to the effect of--paraphrased by my mission prep teacher and then scribbled by me in my notes--"I tricked all of you because life didn't start with birth. Life started in the pre-Earth life, and you made a choice to come to Earth. You chose Christ."

In fine, the most important choice you made in your life happened before you remember. You chose Christ. Her follow up point was that, in each instance listed above--day/week/month/year/life--do we continue to choose Christ? Does following Him continue to be our most important choice?

To clarify because I feel I should, in the pre-mortal existence (referred to above as pre-Earth life. We're fans of synonyms in this church), Heavenly Father presented a plan for us, as spirits, to come to Earth and gain a body and experience and live in mortality before returning to His presence. Satan pitched a plan that, in essence, left mankind without agency and gave all the glory and praise to Satan himself, rather than God. Christ stepped forward with the plan that every man may choose his own path, but He would come to Earth in His own time and be a sacrifice for the sake of mankind, that through Him they might repent of any sins or wrongs and return to God of their agency and free will, with His help. And the glory be to God forever.

Satan's plan was rejected and Satan rebelled. There were many that followed Satan's plan, and God cast them and Satan from His presence. Those that remained, those that chose Christ, were sent to Earth to gain a body and experience, and the opportunity to choose Christ again.

(Scripture references for my amateur and brief explanation of the war in Heaven and Satan's fall: 2 Nephi 2:14-27; Alma 42:2-9. And I'm sure there's more but I don't immediately know them. I'm in mission prep. I'm still learning these things.)

Basically, if you have a body, you chose Christ.

Take a moment to look at yourself.

Do you have a body?


When I find myself looking on someone who seems to have left the path, strayed from Christ's plan, I remind myself that they chose Christ once. They chose Christ first. That's the thing I've been chanting. That's my "dirt's all the same."

I have a botany professor who is insistent on his way of life being the right way, and thereby discredits any other source of knowledge or belief. He's yet another admitted liberal professor who strives so strongly for those of us simple-minded conservatives to awaken to the bonds with which we are bound (ie our traditional beliefs and lifestyles) and transfer to their free and easy and non-prejudice way of life that is vastly prejudiced to those not part of it. He tries to get us to understand indigenous people's view of nature and the divine by bashing the concept that some all-seeing God in Genesis "made it that way." To him, in order for me to understand or appreciate another religious belief system, I have to crumple mine up and light it ablaze and send the ashes over the Grand Canyon first. I've often had the impression in his class that a supernatural belief is permissible; unless it's mine. Unless it's an understanding that a Heavenly Father sent His Son to create the Earth and come to the Earth and die for the sins of mankind.

That belief is wrong. He makes no mistake in telling me.

There was an instant last week, as he taught and made some side reference to the fault of Christianity, that I had the distinct thought: "You chose Christ once. You elected to follow Christ once."

My cynical view of the man changed in that moment from indignation that he consistently trample on my religious affiliations as though I'm some mindless lemming, to a sort of warm understanding that he sees the world his way now, but in a time past he understood this supernatural belief he now fondly mocks. He chose to follow that God he discredits, and soon to come he will face Him again.

Not to disrepute my friend; I feel "dirt's all the same" to be very much an accurate perspective, and it correlates with this notion to follow Christ, but at least for me, acknowledging the good they chose once rather than the wrong we've both encountered leads love for them to form in my chest. I've started to see others as siblings and cohorts on the same tract of life, whether they see it or not. They chose Christ once. I chose Him at that same time. I've chosen Him again, and so could they. We are kindred spirits, we both chose Christ. We both have fallen into dirt. Judging them isn't leading them to an understanding of God and the Atonement and His love.

Dirt's all the same. And there's only one way to ever fully be clean.

Maybe the Best Hasn't Happened Yet

Let me teach you something:

Life doesn't turn out like you expect it to.

And regardless how many times you learn this lesson, the knowledge never seems to stick. You stroll away and continue to make expectations out of life, to personify your view of an ideal world onto the actions of others. You place a contingency on the fault of mankind.

Inevitably, things fall through.

Here's a story.


In ninth grade the local theatre became home to a budding improv comedy troupe: The Improvables. I was taking acting classes there at the time, and attended the shows as often as a junior high student lenient on her parents' inclination to drive her around at ten o'clock at night could. The group continued to play and I waxed on in age and entered high school.

My junior year going to The Improvables was a rad thing to do; a couple boys from musical were in the troupe, so a gaggle of us would go after football games to support. It became a regular thing for me and my best friend at the time to go see the shows weekly (they only performed Friday nights). Before long audience participation games began to creep up.

I volunteered.

Every time. To the extent that I recall Paco once telling me no, someone else needed to have a turn.

You see, I wanted to be an Improvable. I'd taken acting classes at the theatre for five years, and each "semester," if you will, started with a few weeks of improv games. It was invigorating and excellent and I loved it.

The Improvables did beginner workshops, but they were on Saturday mornings, and I was barely nine months into a job at a bakery that had said flat out from the beginning "You have to work every Saturday. You can't take them off for dances or things. Saturdays are a must."

So I could never workshop. So I could never be an Improvable.

The closest I would get was audience participation.


Sad story, right? Another dismissed dream and abandoned ambition. Another letdown, another aspect of my ideal life to lack.

You're right. It's horribly sad. To 16 year-old Erica. It's sad in the moment.

Because, as a junior in high school not cognitive enough to ask her super kind coworker/boss if she could come in a few hour late on Saturdays for a month, did I know management at the store would change? Did I know our numbers would dwindle and I would be the most experienced closer left? Did I know the separation between morning shift and closing shift on a Saturday would become more separate and distinct?

As a junior in high school did I know I'd be friends with Paco on facebook and get an invite to Improvables auditions? Did I know, though not making it in the troupe after auditions, that I'd become well acquainted with one of them who would invite me to linger with the Improvables after at Dee's? Did I know there'd be a beginner's workshop I was capable of attending for the first time?

Did I know in four years time I'd be accepted into the troupe? Did I know in four years I'd finally be an Improvable?

No. No I didn't.


And that's my point, reader. That's my point.

We see what's around us, we see where we're at immediately. I don't know where I'll be next year, I sure as heck don't know where I'll be in four years. I'd forgotten the Improvable dream. I'd been letdown, been upset, and moved on. I'd applied for colleges and wound up at the one I least wanted to go to and would most fully love with all my heart. I'd focused on performing well so I could get a bit of the spotlight senior year. I started decorating cakes at work.

The Improvables crossed back into my perceptions when I was ready for them. But I didn't know.


Life doesn't turn out like you expect it to. I expected to be an Improvable in high school. I expected to go to college in Virginia. I expected to be in the publishing process by my 20th birthday. Those things didn't happen. My life is awful.

To 16 year-old Erica.



My great expectations have fallen through. I've been shattered again for assuming too much of a person, and it's the same lesson I learned before. The same lesson I planned to pen in the novel I was going to have in print by now. I'm not in control here. I'm not the all-seeing eye. I don't have a magic coin that makes my wishes come true or a Brechtian ability to break the fourth-wall. I am subject to my story. And no, it's not going how I expected at all. It's not taking the turns I mapped out over the years. I'm not where I wanted to be.

I'm where I need to be.


You can live your life in bitterness, thinking of all the "if's" and "maybe's." You can focus on the failure to win his affections or your inability to get cast in a show outside of an educational setting. You can self-depreciate over your writer's block and lack of time management and hate every obstacle the wind has blown your way.

Or you can look at the musical you're directing, that 100% fell in your lap. You can look at the good fortune of having a college with proficiency in your major so close to home. You can smile that you met Jason Mraz and Daphne Willis performed a mini concert for you and... you're an Improvable.

It was four years more than you expected, but you're an Improvable.

What's coming next? Where am I going? How can I dare be discontent over the cracks my hopes are falling in when there is such a blessing coming down the turnpike? How can I muddle and murmur when tomorrow is an open slate, and the most skilled hand is waiting to fill it?

Live in the moment, that's the trick to happiness. The past is passed. What made me happy then won't make me happy to dwell upon now; I'm not there anymore. The view from here will never be the view from thirty feet back. A painting is different facing you than from 180 degrees. The future is as unwritten as my next breath; safety lies in patience. Happiness comes from the wait. When I idealize and fantasize tomorrow is when the pain builds up. Life doesn't turn out like you expect it to.

Stop expecting it to.

I may have said this here before but I feel it should be said again: Stop praying for what you expect. Pray to find what He expects for you.

He's writing the story. He knows your course. He knows you're 16 and can only see this moment, this hour of broken expectations and hopes, this instant of failed ideals. He knows what you'll be in four years, what you'll miss, what you'll crave, what you'll actually have. He knows what you'll need and He's planned when to give it to you.

I didn't know then. I could have never known then all of the blessings and miracles that would shatter through my stain glass sunlight and illuminate my life. So many things have happened in the last few months, so many dreams/hopes/wishes have been brought into reality in ways I never expected. And all I have expected has crumbled in contrition, dampening the levity of life.

Hope in Him. Pip, take these great expectations and set them aside. See the world for what it really is, see the beauty of your life in His eyes, in His plan.

So your blueprint wasn't fulfilled. That's not what He was hired to do. He's not working for you.

He's working with you, and giving in the moment. The moment won't be now. The moment might be in four years, but it's coming.

"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." -Matt 6:34-

Four years from now I'll look back at these failed expectations and they'll either be humorously pathetic or surprisingly fulfilled.

Who knows, maybe the best hasn't happened yet.