my gethsemane… kinda

so, just real quick, i want to explain the name of my blog. originally i was calling it “paris on my mind” (like that song “georgia on my mind”), but i got the idea from the boyfriend that maybe he didn’t care for that name so much because it implied that paris is all i think about and all i plan to blog about. so, to keep the french motif but kind of give a shout-out to where i live, i re-named the blog “dans la 408.” literally this means “in the 408,” 408 being the area code here. anyway, just wanted to clear that up…

i’ve mentioned before that i grew up in the mormon religion. all through my childhood my family attended church q sunday– that’s devoting at least 3 hours to basically a group meeting, a meeting with just those of your age, and then the entire congregation meets together for sacrament meeting– that’s like mass for catholics. as a child you attend primary (that’s where all the kids meet in one large group for lessons and singing **i still remember primary songs i learned like 15-20 years ago** through age 12), then you move up to young women’s or young men’s **i can’t give details on young men’s since i never went *duh* and never really asked my male counterparts about it * i enjoyed church during my teens, besides the going to church on sunday part. i played basketball for the ward (neighborhoods are divided into wards and wards belong to larger, regional stakes–i attended cambrian park ward which was part of the san jose south stake) which i loved because i was on the school team from 7th thru 9th grades, but rode the bench pretty consistently. but at church i felt like a god. i am super competitive and took church athletics very seriously and had one arena where i was the best and could show off and score lots of points. i also played on the ward volleyball team which was fun, especially when my big sister ash and i played together because we were both better than the other girls and we both loved kicking ass. so in a lot of ways church was fun, and it kept me out of trouble, too. when some of my “gentile” friends started drinking and smoking pot in high school, i begged off.

but the absolute best part of being a girl in san jose south stake was camp ritchie. i loved going to camp ritchie. it was just a week-long summer camp for mormon girls and they had other camps all over the country, but from what i hear, none of them could hold a candle to camp ritchie. my camp is up in the sierras, on the side of a mountain with bear lake just a short hike away. we had cabins with wooden bunks and a few years i brought one of my best friends (non-mormon) with me. but otherwise it was me and shelby (aka bonkie… hahaha. i just remembered that stupid nickname, no idea where it came from). shelby and i had grown up in church together since we were like two or three and although her family switched wards after her mom re-married, we still got to go to school and camp together. camp had levels: 1st level for the girls going into 7th grade, 2nd level for the girls going into 8th grade, 3rd level for the girls going into 9th grade, 4th level for the girls going into 10th grade, 5th level for the girls going into 11th grade and finally 6th level for the oldest girls who would be going into the 12th grade. i missed my first year because they did it by age then and i’m young for my grade, so i couldn’t go with shelby and i was never going to go if they hadn’t changed the rules after that year because i would have always been a year behind my classmates. but they did change the rules and i got to go to camp as a 2nd level. 4th level was hard because you went on a 3-day hike through the mountains and missed most of camp, but it was still fun. we slept in sleeping bags and ate gross freeze dried food and i got a nasty sunburn on the tips of my ears, the only place i hadn’t covered with a bandana or sunblock. 5th level is fun because you are basically split into teams of two or three (it was me, shelby, and jennie) and assigned to a younger level to kind of mentor. we went with the 2nd levels which meant we did everything with them, including praying and reading scriptures q night with them in their cabin. shelby and i even got to pick the theme for when we were 6th levels: “the reason for the season.” our idea was that each level would represent a different religious holiday and each day during that week at camp we would celebrate that holiday– so 6th levels were christmas and we got to decorate the lodge with christmas decorations and sing christmas songs. it was silly, but fun, especially because shelby and i knew it had all been our idea. i bore my testimony for the last time at camp ritchie– it was the last time in my life that i would feel close to heavenly father or his son, jesus christ or the holy ghost.

those are the times i look back on as the only times i can remember feeling what the church calls the spirit, or the holy ghost. i could feel god and jesus and for those moments i knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they existed, that jesus had died for me, that he was my savior, my brother, and that heavenly father listened to my prayers. i never felt alone. i never let doubt or resignation fill my heart. i believed in everything– i believed in the book of mormon and i believed that joseph smith had been a prophet. i believed that the current prophet spoke with heavenly father and received revelations from him. i was a lamb.

i miss those feelings. the boyfriend sometimes asks why i still defend the church’s founding beliefs and it’s memories of that sureness, of that confidence, that makes me do it. i still feel the hole left in my heart where my faith used to be.

i stopped going to church during my senior year of high school. i had already lost grip on my faith and sitting through sacrament meeting didn’t help, in fact it made me feel worse. i couldn’t get that same glow at church that i got at girls’ camp, so i just said fuck it. and that’s basically where i am now. a recovering mormon.

but what prompted this whole diatribe is the fact that my parents have stopped attending church, too. ever since prop. 8 came on the scene my liberal democrat parents have begun to distance themselves from the church. i’m not sure about this, but i would argue that they haven’t stopped believing in the religion, it’s the organization they’re mad at. we don’t agree with mormon politics and when politics are brought into the chapel and members are encouraged to donate money to help pass laws like prop.8 to ban gay marriage, well, we’re not down with that. but the idea of my parents quitting the church that formed my childhood has left me reeling. it’s one thing for me to stop believing. it’s another thing when your ever-dependable parents stop, too. i’ve asked them if they plan on going back. they don’t know. they can’t sit through church knowing that they are the only ones who think the church is wrong to take a stance against gay marriage, to issue statements claiming that gay marriage would injure the sanctity of mormon marriages. i mean gay people aren’t lining up to get married in the temple for christ’s sweet sake– they just want the rights that come with being legally married. how in god’s name is that going to hurt my parents’ marriage? or my sisters’ marriages or my brothers’ or my friends’? how will allowing more people who love one another become a married couple affect straight couples? i wish someone could try to explain the reasoning behind that argument. seriously, i want to know why this is even a problem and why has the church, my church, turned against these children of god and told them they’re not good enough, that their feelings are wrong, are sinful. to me the sin lies with those who prevent others from being happy. the sinners are those casting judgements. they claim the bible forbids it? but the bible also forbids eating meat on friday. the bible says a lot of things that we aren’t supposed to interpret literally. the bible was meant to serve as a source of comfort, a source of guidance. however, you must also use your best judgment and the free will god gave us.

i may get some flack for this– i don’t give a shit. this is how i feel. this is what i believe in now. someday, when the mormon church wakes up and sees the hurt and heartache it’s caused the gay community, i may return to the fold. so now i wait. and so does my heart.