To Be Or Not To Be

I was about five minutes behind.

There are pros and cons to working at the bakery on a General Conference weekend.

Pro: I work with a slew of nice LDS ladies and we have our own radio in the room, so we listen to Conference.

Con: I'm at work. And work isn't like an office job where I just sit and wait for people to walk in the door or something. We're constantly in motion. So Conference tends to turn into white noise if you're not standing right next to the radio.

I'd gone to the freezer.

And naturally, I had picked the most opportune moment to take the now three minute trek to the freezer, for in the course of my crossing the bakery in one direction I had missed the most influential announcement of my generation: the missionary age change.

One moment I was walking to the freezer, life was normal. The next I was on the return trip, suddenly catching chunks of conversation buried in the bakery bustle about 18 year old missionaries.

I didn't understand.

And I wouldn't understand for at least another hour; I was the only one listening who'd missed it.

I was facing the microwave when I'd learned of a surety that all the facts I'd constructed about missionaries had been shifted and skewed and that this was the way they would be. This was modern revelation. Girls could go at nineteen.

I'd been nineteen for nearly a year.

I looked at the microwave. "I could go on a mission."


But you see, I hadn't spent the year writing a novel or reading John Donne poetry or anything and everything I'd expected to do with my nineteenth year. I'd spent the year slipping down a muddy hillside I'd made the mistake of locating my senior year in high school. I'd spent the year convincing myself my testimony was "good enough" and in the past I'd been "spiritual enough" and of the Lord I was "loved enough" that whatever temptations I faltered under wouldn't really matter, because I was still very righteous. I was still of the Tribe of Israel. I was still elected of God.

It was in that moment, facing the microwave, that I had to realize I wasn't that girl anymore. I wasn't that Molly Mormon from 9th grade who ate up seminary and the gospel and was going to do everything possible to get to the Celestial Kingdom with flying colors and "Exceeds Expectations" stamped on her report card. I wasn't that girl who studied the scriptures and prayed and acknowledged or received spiritual guidance and promptings.

That girl would have been like the many thousands that day that cried and jumped and squealed and submitted their papers. That girl would have gone on a mission.

I wasn't that girl.


I'd spent a year investing in makeup to paint my image in what I remembered a diligent Mormon looked like. I donned the knock-off apparel of someone who at first glance might look like a dedicated member. I spent a year trying to look like I was trying instead of actually trying.

It wasn't until the microwave that I fully acknowledged it. It wasn't until the age change, and the realization that I was nowhere near submitting papers, and that 21 was suddenly just over a year away, that I wouldn't be worthy to submit them by the "old" sister missionary age, let alone the new.

And things started to change. It took a few more nudges, and one excruciating act of courage and discomfort that--sorry--I'm not going to post on the internet, for me to start to come back.


Perhaps the trouble was that I'd never considered a mission. Girls aren't "required" to serve. I'm lazy. I always have been. Each time missionary work was brought up in every church related anything, it was always prefaced with "girls aren't required to serve," so I'd dismiss it. I bundle up the mission notion and toss it in the corner with the laundry I keep forgetting to fold, dust off my hands and say "When I'm 21 I'll decide."

That's great for an eight-year-old. And a twelve-year-old. And a seventeen-year-old, but suddenly you're twenty, and suddenly everyone a year younger than you is signing off of Facebook and signing in to the ranks of God's army and you're....staring at a microwave.

I'd always thought it would be easy. I'd obviously continue in righteousness, so worthiness wouldn't be a question when I reached that crucial point of 21, but there was something else that stopped past-Erica from daydreaming about skirts and tracting.

Marriage.

I was going to be in a relationship, nearing or in the process of getting married, because it's not hard to find a soulmate in the movies, it's not hard to court and wed with Barbie dolls. It's not hard to locate love in Disney.

I wouldn't have to go, because I'd have a man to keep me here.

Spoiler alert: there's not a man. So far there's never been a man. Just a series of daydreams in dreamclouds above my head that are popped before they can progress.

So far I'm everything past-Erica didn't want to be. So far I'm nega-past-Erica. And, along with waking up to the realization that life isn't as cookie cutter as you can make it with Barbie dolls, I had to acknowledge that I don't have an excuse not to go. I could honestly serve. There's nothing keeping me here.

I took a mission prep class as an Institute class this semester. It seemed like neutral territory; either way I'd emerge a Mormon more comfortable with sharing the gospel, whether I did that with a nametag for 18 months or as an average Jane for forever. I kept waiting for this ah-ha moment, this bolt of lightning, this angels chorus, this earthquake of a revelation that YOU ARE TO SERVE A MISSION.

Spoiler alert: there's not been a revelation.

At least...not like that.


Part of the conditions of my excruciating act of courage and discomfort was that I turned to the Lord in tear-streaked prayer and received no answer. I pleaded and read the scriptures and waited for His hand, but He didn't lend it. He left it to me to decide. He left it to me to be brave or continue on in my solitary laziness. He let me choose which path.

I feel He's doing it again. There's been no revelation, no realization that I need to go. I want to go. I'd like to go. It makes sense to go. But it makes sense to stay. It makes sense to continue as I have been, to remain secure in my finances, to graduate on track.

But mission prep is doing what I was afraid it would; it's talking me into going.

I just...I feel excellent all the time. Good things are happening to me, and in the past four months I've become closer and more lenient on the Lord than I ever was in 9th grade or any heightened spiritual point of my mortality. He is with me. He loves me. And I love having that feeling, that spirit, I love carrying this gift of God and siphoning it off to others in word and deed. I love giving what He gives me. I love the feeling of testifying, the strength of His doctrine. And I could spend 18 months sharing it. I could run away to wherever and whomever He needs me to be and lose myself in Him.

I don't know. I'm not deciding any time soon. 21 has been too long stuck in my head for me to go against it. I've got some months ahead of me. A lot can change. For now I'm sticking with the answer He gave me facing the microwave, the sliver of truth I was ready enough to receive when the thousands of girls became sisters:

Live like you're going to go. Live like you're preparing for a mission.

That may be all I need, or all I need for now. It may be up to me and if I decide to make that sacrifice; He won't screw me over for straying from my course for His work.

I don't know. And maybe I won't know for a while. But I'm putting Him on my horizons and letting Him worry about all the little things. I'm living my religion, loving my religion, and working again for heaven.

To be, or not to be.

That is the question.

Eyes Wide Open

Yesterday wasn't a good day.

I mean, ultimately it wasn't actually half bad, but from the get-go it was...a little rough.

Perhaps it was the three and a half hours of sleep, or other conditions beyond my control, but I couldn't shake this horrible feeling of being lost. I had symptoms of it prior to that day, as you can see in the previous blog post. I was hating life again. I was hating where I am and what I'm doing, which I knew was ridiculous because so many excellent things are happening right now. I'm directing an elementary school musical. I'm assistant stage manager for a musical on campus. I'm finally able to participate in improv workshops, something I've been yearning to do since my junior year in high school. I'm acting like myself on a daily basis in public locations.

I was aware feeling the way I felt was stupid, but I couldn't shake it. I couldn't get rid of that all-consuming sorrow and despondency. I prayed like forty times in four hours. And I felt incrementally better each time, but there was still a constant under current of "things suck."

And then I went to mission prep.

I don't know if I'm going on a mission, let me say so up front. A couple months back I started taking life seriously again, and putting my faith in my Lord and His gospel on a higher pedestal than everything else. I've never planned on going on a mission. I always blew it off with the confidence that I'd just decide when I was 21, because by that point I'd so obviously be in a committed relationship/married/nearly married and therefore not be expected to go. So I wouldn't go.

So I never considered going.

Even when they changed the age, it wasn't like I knew immediately that's what I needed to do. I thought about it a lot, what this would mean for me, suddenly aware that 21, though no longer the limit, was not as far away as I imagined as a thirteen year-old in Young Womens. My answer upon hearing the announcement and pondering, there at work standing by the microwave, was to live my life as if I were to go on one, something I hadn't been doing prior to that moment, and something I honestly didn't actually put into effect until about a month later.

I've been a little embarrassed to talk about it, because when you say you haven't been living the gospel fully in a predominately Mormon society, the judgment most often passed--and you realize this because you've been guilty of doing it yourself--is that obviously they've done something drastic like break the Word of Wisdom or let someone into their bed; of which I did neither. But, we were looking in Joseph Smith History in Sunday School, and read this verse, and...how can I be embarrassed now?

JSH 1: 28 "...I frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which, I am sorry to say, led me into divers temptations, offensive in the sight of God. In making this confession, no one need suppose me guilty of any great or malignant sins. A disposition to commit such was never in my nature. But I was guilt of levity, and sometimes associated with jovial company, etc., not consistent with that character which ought to be maintained by one who was called of God as I had been. But this will not seem very strange to any one who recollects my youth, and is acquainted with my native cheery temperament."

Why I never even knew this existed I could not tell you.

Actually, false. I didn't know because I didn't need it until now.

To return to where we were before the digression, once I started fully doing my part with regards to faith, testimony, the gospel, I started to turn to Him for everything; something I should have been doing instead of taking a year hiatus. I realized I'm at this point in my life where everything can either go right or go wrong. I'm an adult. If I had chosen or if it had been right for me I could be living on my own right now. There are peers my age not going to school, working full time to build a life. There are girls on my Facebook page who are home tending to children. I can't afford another year of figuring things out for myself--I figured out nothing in that year but a system for laziness.

So I ask Him everything.

And with regards to every big decision, my answer is the same:

Wait.

I took a mission prep class because I didn't know what I'm waiting for. I still don't. But I saw no harm in preparing for a mission that I may or may not go on, because if I don't end up going, at least by taking the class I followed the prompting given that day in October, and worked toward living as though I were going to go.

I'd been waiting all day for mission prep, because I felt so sluggishly bogged and despondent and the small nudges of comfort from my inward praying for peace wasn't enough.

I struggled for a moment, sitting in mission prep, my mind still insisting on sinking into the tar pit of my heart and giving up, when the fog cleared, just a little.

I remembered a moment from Friday night, out with the Improvables at Dee's. I'd been talking to my BFF Charlotte (who I honestly hardly know but she's super nice and awesome, and I can see us becoming some form of BFF's some day), and I immediately felt better. Everything that was bothering me, all the cannons that were sinking my ship, ceased. I realized that though this one fragment of my life is less than desirable, so much more of it is amazing. And the thing for me to do now is focus on the amazing parts, and let the other sort itself out with time.

Then these three girls put in a video they'd made. From what I gleaned they are three best friends, all headed on their missions. They'd compiled footage of each of them opening their mission calls, so that each would read the same line and progress down the letter.

I watched them each uncover where they were going. Dominican Republic, New York, Wisconsin, and that old thought drifted in through my new found peace.

I wonder where He'd send me.

I started idealizing Virginia because Jason Mraz was from there, but the more I looked into it the more I realized it truly was a place I'd like to see. But that's the thing: I've never seen it. Virginia became a place in my mind, a metaphor for a happy place, an area of solace. Comfort. But I realized one day everything I've allowed Virginia to be is everything a mission would be.

I've daydreamed heading out there and finding myself, coming across the right people, becoming a fulfilled person. Experiencing joy. I'd take care of myself, because I'd be on my own. I'd gain experience I lack sitting here on my bed in my parents' house. I'd grow.

I don't remember when, but it occurred to me a mission would be that long-imagined month or more staycation in Virginia. But a mission would be less risky. A mission would have more stability than a college student deciding to embark on an adult life across the country, where no one could help her if she needed it.

Why not? I thought, crying for the third time that morning, but for an entirely different reason than heartache.

Why not a mission?

I'm not saying I'm going. I'm not saying I've decided.

I'm saying I've decided to actually think about it. To finally set myself down and determine, prayerfully, what I'm meant to do with my mortal sojourn, instead of waving a hand and saying "future Erica will have to decide."

I'm checking unknown, for now. I'm not expecting an answer now; I don't think He'd give it. He knows how much of a one-track mind I have. The time will come. Someday the waiting will be over. But for now I'm waiting productively.

For now I'm waiting in Him.

Newness Ahead

If you'd asked me last year where I'd be today and what I'd write about in a cliche end-of-the-year blog post, I would have looked around, grabbed my wrist, and showed you my Jason Mraz used guitar string bracelet.

That, basically, would have been it.

I would have never dreamed of being able to report all the things I've experienced this year, nor would I have imagined they would all, in hindsight, be steps back to living my testimony.

Yes, it's going to be one of those posts.

With the end of 2011 I had fallen into the pattern of not trying with regards to faith. I refer to it now as my hiatus, which I believe is a very human thing to experience. Luckily enough for me, my hiatus consisted of slacking off/neglecting basic things like prayer and scripture study, as opposed to dabbling with drugs or whatnot.

In January I bought my Jason Mraz used guitar string bracelet, which I wear erry day, with the exception of work/swimming because if I expose it to water it will rust.

Shortly thereafter I was involved in a devised theatre project, which served as a realization that I'm not as theatrically creative as I would initially like. It also served to illustrate the fact that I evidently can't be myself and just talk. Ever.

In March I met FUN.

I listened to them all through senior year, so that was a super nice thing. (and a warm up for what would later come, for it would be about a month later that I would find I had the ability to meet Jason Mraz.)

My mother and I went to California for two days with my grandma because the hotel was totally cheap. I walked on the beach and watched the ocean and wanted to stay. I didn't want to go back. I wanted to dwell on the California coast and listen to Jason Mraz's California music and live in contentment for once. 

Upon my return, my place of employment moved locations, which brought with it a new set of jolly coworkers and a crappy new uniform and iron-fisted corporate reign. 

At some point after this move, I was locked in the grocery freezer. For twenty minutes.

Looking back, my year has gone like this: Erica's really focused on the worldly things. Erica really wants to be rad with regards to the world. Lord lets Erica meet FUN. because what's more rad and worldly than that? Erica continues to trounce about in said worldly manner. Lord lets Erica be one of twenty to get meet-and-greet tickets for her favorite musician. Erica still trounces worldily. Erica gets locked in a freezer.

There is nothing more devastating than standing there, shrugging and thinking "I'll pray, He'll let me out, life is swell," and slowly having to realize He has no reason to let you out of the freezer. He has no reason to answer you in your time of need because you ignored Him in your prosperity. 

The blood started to slow in my veins and I began to want to sit and wait, to give up and rest because I was so tired. But the Lord is a merciful being, for though He didn't allow me the ease of freeing myself from the freezer, He continued to prompt me to kick the door and make noise, even though I desperately wanted to stop, and He prompted someone to come back to that secluded part of the store at that moment, even though she didn't really need to. 

I had to look at myself, metaphorically, over the next few weeks, and remember that haunting thing that kept nagging me in the freezer: that if I wasn't worthy for Him to immediately rescue me from behind a locked door, I am in no way worthy for Him to rescue me from hell.

I continued to trounce in my worldly way.

In September I met Jason Mraz, which you can read about if you haven't here. The thing is, though, I walked away from this experience the same. Nothing changed. I returned to Utah and I was still living with my parents, I was still going to Weber, I was still working for minimum wage, I was still unpublished, I was still not musically talented, I was still subpar and unhappy.That's what set in the most: I was unhappy.

The greatest thing of my entire life had just happened--I had experienced the one thing I'd dreamed about for years, the one thing only a handful of people get to experience in their lives. My greatest dream/wish/ambition had come to pass, and I was unhappy.

The idea began to dawn on me that I'd gone to the concert seeking lasting happiness. I'd gone ready to return an enlightened, exuberant person. 

I'd sought living water from a worldly well.

You see, I was searching for answers all summer. I was searching for ways to not be what I'd been during that devised theatre project; I wanted to be myself 100% of the time. I wanted to be outgoing and funny and normal. But I didn't seek the Lord.

I found answers with Jason's music, living in the moment, your home being inside of you...everything on his album answered my concerns and gave me hope--I thought that perhaps that was the Lord's way of answering me, though I wasn't being humble enough to seek answers from Him. He put the answers where I would find them: in Jason Mraz's songs. 

But other than having a poetic way to describe what I needed out of life, I had nothing. I still remained in my unhappiness, and the memory of meeting my idol somehow weakened me rather than provide strength.

In October they changed the missionary age.

I stood at work by the microwave thinking it over, having been out of the room when President Monson said over the radio the news. I started thinking.

I've never felt I needed to serve a mission. That's never been a thing I've planned on. I always figured I'd decide when the time came, primarily expecting that I'd be in a steady relationship and therefore wouldn't be expected to go because I was just going to get married shortly and begin to craft a place to rear healthy righteous babies. 

That's always been the plan.

It dawned on me that age 21 wouldn't be the time to decide to serve a mission or not. Preparation beforehand would be needed. I realized, there by the microwave, that if I began preparing to serve a mission right then, I'd only barely be ready by the time I was 21. 

If anything, the mission age change made me realize I wasn't worthy of mission, and wasn't going to be any time soon.

I trounced on in my worldly pace.

In November I auditioned for the Improvables, something I'd been wanting to do since high school but timing was never right. I almost didn't go. I was preparing to leave and head over to the theatre and I really about turned around and went up to my room to get in my sweatpants. 

But I remembered how mad I'd been at myself for not trying for Drama Sterling Scholar, when only one person ended up applying last minute, so I went to the audition, deciding it wouldn't hurt if they didn't want me.

The Lord made one more effort to get me. He tried one more thing to bring me back to His orbit. He allowed me to cross paths with someone who changed me, almost instantaneously.

They always say we have a light about us, that Christ shines through in our faces, as members of the church. They use the Christ in your countenance metaphor, and I never really got it. I never saw the difference, until I met this person. There suddenly was no way to keep me from delving into the gospel, no way to talk me out of reestablishing my relationship with the Lord. I was struck immediately by an overwhelming desire to do good, to be good, to be of the Lord again and walk the way I should have been walking all along. Everything that had happened to me in the past year lumped together and confirmed the thing I had finally grasped: I need this gospel. I need the Lord and His Spirit and my Savior. I need to dwell in His house and abide by His precepts, and life will be a happier, more successful place for me.

I began writing on a daily basis, and writing things of actual merit. I was offered the position of director at an elementary school for their spring play. I was able to help with technical aspects of the Institute Christmas show, getting some know-how before assistant stage managering next semester. I found a botany class on campus. I registered for an Institute mission prep course. I kissed a man. 

Whatever the end all is, whatever I'm headed toward, I'm confident and comfortable with it. It took me a year, but my Heavenly Father is ever patient. He knew I'd come around, and He didn't give up on me. 

2012 wasn't the end of the world. It was the end of my being of the world, and a revived resolution to never again stray from His course or His light.