"As strong as our faith is, with all the mixed messages attacking it, it can also become very fragile."

--Bishop Richard C. Edgely.

On Saturday, I road-tripped down to Portland with the lovely Erin. We were there for less than a day but were able to squeeze in eating Lebanese food, buying terrible movies at Deseret Book and being with the equally lovely Cassie as she went through the Temple for the first time.* It was, of course, unspeakably lovely, albeit a trifle whirlwind. But that's how I like to roll.

Erin and I were discussing some of the frustrations of life in a singles ward during the loooooong drive back, seeing as it was so rainy one could not drive at an acceptable speed. Whilst we were talking, ELC said something that stuck with me.

She said, "Some people come to church for external reasons."

The conversation went on from there, but I kept thinking about that sentence the next day during Sacrament Meeting.

I am not sure if everyone goes through this process like I do, but I have to talk myself out of leaving the Church on a fairly regular basis. It almost became a joke between me and some of my friends at BYU. "Hey, Wills, what are you doing later? Well, after you have dinner at your grandma's, would you mind talking me out of leaving the Church? Thanks, I appreciate it. Bye."

I have written before about my many intellectual struggles with the Church, which have only been made worse by my serving a mission (hilarious). Conversely, the more I struggle, the more I realize that if I leave the Church, it would all be for nothing. Well, not for nothing, but if I really wanted to leave, I would have done it already, right?

The fact is, I don't want to. And hopefully, because I don't want to, I never will.

Here's where the external vs. internal binary helped me out so much.

So, lots of people my age go to church for social reasons, to make their family happy, to find people to date, to have local support system, to have someone to go to for help when you move, etc. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but it does kind of miss the point of worshipping Jesus Christ and serving others and all that idealistic Bible business. Those would be external motivators to be involved with the Church. They aren't bad, just motivated by things other than your own thoughts and feelings.

Internal motivators, on the other hand, would be introspective things like a love of God, a desire to improve, etc. Obviously, hypocrisy plays a role here as well, because some people go to Church with the goal of seeming pious when in fact they do whatever they want when no one's watching. That's more obnoxious than the kids who come to Church looking for friendly times. Thus, it is possible to have a seemingly internal motivator actually be an external one. But generally, I hope you get what I'm saying.

Here's the thing. I have NO external motivation to go to Church. I'm not crazy about most of the people there, bless their hearts. I would have a perfectly viable (and less arbitrary) social circle if I hung out with people I actually had things in common with besides belonging to the same church. My family doesn't care one bit whether or not I'm Mormon, in fact many of them would probably be delighted if I cut loose with them once in a while instead of being a Mormon stick-in-the-mud.**

In fact, most of the reasons I have for wanting to leave the Church are external ones. Get it? It's not like I don't believe in God or struggle with the possibility that the Church isn't true. When I want to leave the Church, it's because I feel so fed-up with some embarrassing policy or some obnoxious people that I feel like saying I GIVE UP. Jesus shouldn't have to put up with this crap and neither should I.

But the trouble is, He does. The trouble is, it's still true.

My reasons for leaving are external, but the things that keep me from doing so are all internal. I believe in God. I love the Book of Mormon. I love the Temple. These people are crazy, but most of them mean well. Abandoning my internal motivations for external reasons is just as immoral as doing things for external reasons when no internal motivation exists.***

Additionally, the things that I love the most about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are some of the most internally focused. Take family history work. If the doctrine about eternal families isn't true, do I gain anything from doing it? Nope. Don't make any friends or meet any hotties at the Fam. Hist. Library, I can promise you that.

Ditto with the temple. If this is all a gigantic hoax, no one has been hurt by the things we've done in the Temple. But no one has really been helped, either. Either these things mean nothing, or they mean EVERYTHING. Those are the things that I feel the strongest attraction to.

Here's to doing things because they're right, and not because anybody cares except God, assuming He exists.

I feel that He does.

I'm not giving up yet.

*Erin was actually going through the temple with a separate friend at a different time. But saying it up there would have messed up the narrative.

**Except then who would be the Designated Driver?

***Which isn't ALWAYS immoral. But that's a post for another day.

My Favorite People, Day 5: Vilja

Sorry for the blogging hiatus, once again. I have learned that trying to blog every day for a month makes me extremely grumpy. Lesson learned: Never again! Don't worry, I will finish the next two promised series for my adoring fans (?), just not in the timely manner I promised.

Ahem. Let me just start out by saying that true friends dress up like X-Men for Halloween.

Me, Jordan, Vilja. Please ignore that this is an unattractive photo

of me and focus on V's "Rogue Face."

Also, true friends let you post pictures like these on the internet:

Vilja, age toddler.

Vilja, age adult.

Vilja and I were floormates in the dorms freshman year, and by the hand of God (no, seriously) were in the MTC together for 11 weeks in the summer of 2006. This girl pretty much saved my life with her humor, cool head, listening skills, soccer playing, and Jordan's care packages. Vilja shares my love of comic books and the English language and even let me be a "special guest" in her freshman English class. Hanging with her is always a good time.

Also, she has a face anybody could love.

My Favorite People, Day 4: Ashley

Once upon a time I was a Mormon missionary in a country called Hungary.

(This is for all you nay-sayers who accuse me of making up all those mission stories

in order to sound like a more credible Sunday School teacher.)

Being a Mormon missionary is difficult for lots of reasons, but one of the really lame, migraine-inducing, massive-weight-gain-causing (Oh yeah, THAT caused it) nightmares about being a Mormon missionary is that:

1. You do not get to choose you live with and yet

2. You have to stay with that person ALL THE TIME.

Imagine how terrifying and frustrating that could be. Double the terror and frustration you just envisioned. There you have it.

Anyway, I remember taking my first companion (AKA my "trainer") to the train station on the day she was scheduled to return to the U.S. She loved being a missionary and was NOT excited about going home, so it kind of felt like taking a dog to the pound to be euthanized. I was very curious and also excited about what kind of companion was going to replace my trainer with me in Pécs. I knew her name--Sister Pollock--but that was it.

We served together for three glorious months and did not get sick of each other one bit.

I think it was because we were both converts? And because we were both silly. And because we both liked people more than meeting goals set by someone who didn't know anything about our city. We worked out butts off and had tons of fun. That's a magical combination when one is a Mormon missionary.

We visited lots of inactives, made a lot of chocolate rum balls (calm down, they were liquor-free), and listened to lots and lots of Disney music on P-day. It was with Sister Pollock that I learned that missions can be fun! Sometimes.

When I got home, Ashley had been home for a while, and helped me re-adjust to civilian life and such via constant texting. A mutual friend still refers to us as "siamese twins joined at the cell phone."

I like her because she is well-travelled.

Now she has a daughter who "accidentally" calls me all the time. But we all know it's no accident.

This child was thisclose to being named after me, if only my name were easier to pronounce.

Remember that story in the Bible when Jesus was like "Guys, guys, don't eat that corn. We don't want anyone to get the wrong idea."

Photo by Carl De Keyzer, copyright 1990, Magnum Photos, from Slate.com

On March 21st of this year, I wrote the following in my journal during a particularly unsettling Sacrament Meeting. The girl who spoke about obedience and prophets, bless her heart, almost certainly has no idea how close I came to leaving the Church because of my thought process that stemmed from her talk.

"The line between thinking for yourself and becoming your own prophet is a confusing one. 'We are false prophets to ourselves.' Wait, what? I wish I had no brain. I wish I didn't have to think about everything so much."

I can't blame this girl entirely, I don't even know her name. But ever since that day, my downward spiral into serious doubt and the personal crisis of faith I experienced in the foyer outside Multipurpose Room One, I have been struggling.

Sometimes I wish I had not served a mission for this very reason. Don't get me wrong, it was the greatest, most important experience of my life. But by the same token, I think I would be simpler, more credulous, and therefore happier if I had not gone. It would be easier for me to believe without questioning. Ignorance is bliss etc.

Before my mission, I was happy to obey rules for their own sake: not always, but more often than not. I recall one time when I wore a pair of athletic shorts to the grocery store because I didn't feel like getting dressed. Wearing shorts above the knee is against the stringent BYU Honor Code, of course, and it technically applies on campus or off--you know, all of the time. I was talking to a friend on the phone while I was walking home that night, and laughingly mentioned that I was "breaking the Honor Code" because of my outfit. Rather than laughing with me as I expected, she responded with horror. "How could you do something like that? You promised you wouldn't."

That sentence, "You promised you wouldn't," is a fairly apt summary of almost the entire Honor Code at BYU. We were asked to kick boys out after midnight and not dye our hair unusual colors not because those things were against the Commandments or even inherently wrong, but because we had been asked not to. Before I was a missionary, that actually worked for me. If someone said to me, "Hey! That's against the Honor Code," I would blanch with embarrassment. It was that easy. Even though I knew in my heart that most of the rules were arbitrary and silly, I still obeyed them.

Lots of people argue that BYU standards or standards like unto them are helpful because they keep you so far from sinning that it never even becomes an issue. Like, if breaking the Law of Chastity is a tree, the Honor Code is a fence around the said tree. I would argue that it's an electric fence and plenty of people who aren't even meaning to get near that tree are regularly and consistently burned by it. Anyway.

When I was a missionary, my distaste for rules took on horrifying new proportions. I was a good missionary, for the record. I worked hard and loved the people and helped my companions. But the idea of "Perfect Obedience" was never my priority. Lots of missionaries would run down the sidewalk in order to make it back to their apartments by 9PM. I walked. I sometimes wore t-shirts with my skirts instead of the requisite blouses. One time, I kissed a 90 year-old man on the cheek. So you see, I may have lived on the edge by mission standards, but I was still a good person. Obeying the rules to the point that I managed to, even, was exhausting. And don't worry, as a former Catholic, I beat myself up real bad about any indiscretions, real or imagined.

My last few transfers in the country I was fed up. I was exhausted and was starting to feel that maybe I (or rather, my lack of obedience) wasn't the real problem here. I started looking at the rules and listening to what other missionaries said about obedience and I couldn't help thinking to myself, "That can't be right." There was a woman in my last area who was only a few years older than me, and she had three young children that I am positive she neglected most of the time. Her youngest son was six months old. I should note here that one of the highly emphasized rules for missionaries is that we are not supposed to hold babies or children. Anyway, one Sunday in my last transfer, I went out into the hallway during Sunday School and heard what sounded like a baby crying. Upon further investigation, I saw that this idiot woman had left her son in his stroller outside the building. In the snow. The baby was screaming his head off, and the other missionaries and I were the only ones in the hallway.

I said to one of the Elders, "Eff this" (or something to that effect) and brought the baby inside. I held him for the rest of the hour. And I'd do it again. So would Jesus, I can assure you.

Probably someone I don't know will comment on this entry and argue, "Well, WHAT IF something horrible had happened because you held that baby? The purpose of these rules is to keep bad things from happening, ever." My response to that is, just like with good things, if God wants a bad thing to happen or not happen, it is going to happen either way. I have spent many years trying to avoid becoming a sign-seeker, trying not to see God as a hallway monitor with a big sheet of paper on which he marks my pluses and minuses. I stubbed my toe? Must be because my prayers this morning were insufficient. That light turned green really fast! That is because I pay my tithing. God doesn't work that way. He is much cooler than that.

Part of me still wonders if maybe I have insufficient faith and that's why I have such a hard time being perfectly obedient. But I don't think so. Rather, I think the real problem here is that sometimes God says, "Thou Shalt Not Kill," and sometimes He says, "Take That Guy By The Hair And With His Own Sword Cut Off His Head." Sometimes the right thing to do is to tell the absolute truth and obey all orders without questioning, and sometimes the right thing to do is disobey the direct orders of a king and then lie to him about it (Thanks, James). I'm not saying that God is the problem here, for the record. But I am saying that trying to apply the same rule to every different situation in existence is oversimplifying. It doesn't work.

Here is my real problem. I can get away with holding the occasional baby or wearing a tank top to the beach (before I was endowed, obviously) but what about the big stuff? I'm still, for all intents and purposes, in favor of Gay Marriage, despite what has been said about it. I've prayed and studied and all that jazz but I still don't have a testimony of Thomas S. Monson, mostly because of Prop. 8, unfortunately. I don't think he's NOT a prophet, but I wouldn't follow him into the wilderness for 40 years, either.

I worry about talking about this with anyone because I feel the reaction would go one of two ways:

1. Horror that I have let my salvation be jeopardized so badly/concern that I am beset by sin so badly as to be beyond repair.

2. Shock that I have stayed in the Church this long and that maybe I should just abandon ship.

Fact: I am not leaving the Church anytime soon. I like it. I believe in God and I enjoy being religious. Also, I really really love going to the Temple and my understanding is that once you leave the Church you can't go to the Temple anymore. Also fact: I am unsure as to what to do next. People are going to tell me to pray. I do that. Study. I do that too. No, no, STUDY SOME MORE. Which seems to be the only thing left.

In that journal entry I mentioned earlier, I started very reasonably and methodically laying out what my life would be like if I did leave the Church. I would get my nose pierced, for one. And ... that was pretty much it. Even if I didn't belong to any organized religion, I would still believe in God. I believed in God before I was Mormon so it makes no sense to stop now. Additionally, I am pretty solid about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon being true, so even if I weren't participating actively in the Mormon Church, I would still believe in everything. It's the details of the doctrine that leave me floundering, not the doctrine itself. Ergo, it makes no sense whatsoever for me to stop being Mormon just because I have a few hang-ups about some very specific issues.

Even though I am solid about not leaving the Church now or ever, I am completely baffled re: what to do next. Luckily for me, I went to a Fireside last night and one of the speakers struck me as someone who might be a kindred spirit. She was a feminist doula who talked about sexuality and the Priesthood and all these cool things, and I decided I wanted her to be my friend. I talked to her very briefly and got her email address, so hopefully our conversations can shed some light on how one manages to be a thinking member of the Church without losing one's mind.

If that doesn't work, I suppose I will try something else.

On Flirting.

I'm temping in an office today. It's boring. No, scratch that, because saying it's boring only reflects badly on me--implying that I'm the kind of person who gets bored. There just ... isn't much to do. How's that? I look forward to the mail coming once a day so I can spend twenty minutes sorting it. I love it when the phone rings even if the caller has the wrong number. Or is a telemarketer. Yesterday I took a survey about office supplies over the phone. I think I have made my point.

Fact: working as a front desk secretary is essentially being a professional flirt. Think about it. I am the smiling face who greets the Fed Ex Guy and other delivery workers/couriers. I soothingly and chirpily connect callers to the department they seek. I charmingly welcome potential job applicants (all male so far). And I make small talk with my temporary co-workers, one of whom walks by the front desk much more than he needs to, it seems. I smile, I laugh, I wink, I tease. I can maybe kind of understand how office romances come to be. Not that I would ever consider participating in an extramarital affair, mind you. But I can see how, after weeks and weeks of sitting at a desk with nothing to do but flirt with people, "things" can happen.

In the white handbook that lays out the rules and regulations for Mormon missionaries, one of the bullet points emphasizes (paraphrased) "do not participate in flirtations with the opposite sex." In my second city when I was a Mormon missionary, when my companion and I were dutifully reading from the book as part of our morning studies, she paused at that bullet point and looked at me pointedly.

C: "Do not participate in flirtations with the opposite sex." ... or the same sex, right, Sister Koler?

Me: (jolted out of my exhausted reverie) Huh? Sorry, what?

C: You know what I mean.

Me: ... I'm afraid I don't.

C: You're a flirt! Not just with boys, with everyone! You flirt with kids, old ladies, our investigators' parents...

Me: Oh. (pause) I guess that's just how I am.

She was right, of course. Even as a straitlaced Mormon clergywoman, I was/am an irrepressible flirt. It's just how I interact with people. I wink, touch elbows, jokingly kiss anyone on the cheek. There was, once again in Hungary, one instance where I sat next to a teenage girl on the bus. I struck up a conversation and started asking her where she went to school, etc. Not too far into the conversation she gave me a creeped-out look and said with peculiar emphasis, "I have a boyfriend." Then I stopped talking to her because there is just no recovering from that kind of awkwardness. I can't remember if I got up and changed seats, but I should have.

Anyway, flirting indiscriminately is a good thing because 1. it makes any interaction more interesting and 2. it usually puts strangers (and myself) at ease. However, there are several negative consequences to this habit of mine: 1. it can sometimes confuse people into believing that I am a lesbian/into old people/unfaithful to my current boyfriend/a bad missionary and 2. it means that people who I am legitimately interested in often cannot be sure that I mean it when I flirt with them (or, likely as not, avoid flirting with them due to being scared like a little bunny). For whatever reason, when flirting really counts, I am unable to perform. Flirting, for me, does everything but serve its intended purpose.

I started thinking about the irony of this situation this morning at the bus stop. In Utah, I didn't get hit on by strangers very often, I assume because there is a surplus of attractive, accomplished women, many of them 10s, and I am a 6/7, on a good day. Maybe lower since I gained some weight over Christmas.

Anyway, the really great thing about Seattle is that I would say most women are in the 6-8 range. This is similar to the phenomenon that Pamela and I witnessed in Las Vegas, when I turned to her excitedly after getting checked out in a line for a roller coaster and said "Hey! We're hot in Vegas!" Accordingly, I get slightly more public male attention than I did in Utah. This is good for my self esteem but not otherwise helpful.

On Wednesday, for example, a good-looking but older (early 40s?) black guy stopped me in the hallway when I was walking through a building, told me I looked nice, and asked where I worked. I have a highly developed creepometer, so I knew for (reasonably) sure that he wasn't a freak or a rapist, just a friendly guy who liked how I looked. But even though I could sense that, all I did was smile demurely, say something non-committal, and walk away. One could theorize that I was trying to leave him wanting more, but the truth is, I'm not that clever. I was just unnerved.

Exhibit the second. This morning at the bus stop, like I was saying earlier, I was crossing the street at 6:50 in the morning, wearing a dress that came to my knees and no nylons. I stood next to a fellow commuter, a cute guy about my age in a knit black stocking cap. He looked over at me as I shivered and zipped up my coat as far as it would go, and said, "That's ambitious of you, wearing a dress today." He then made a big show of looking up and down my pale, goosey legs, and then said, "I like your style." Once again, I smiled politely, said something non-committal, and then pulled out my iPod and plugged into the nothingness.

That poor guy kept looking over at me while we were standing at the crowded bus stop, and the thing is, he seemed like a really nice guy. I don't know why I didn't encourage him. Obviously I am not self-centered enough to think my semi-rejection did him any lasting harm, but still, it would not have killed me to flirt back. I just never feel like flirting BACK, only flirting forward, when I am sure that nothing will come of it. How ridiculous.

A personal flaw akin to Kayla's mortal fear of old people, except MINE will probably send me to Hell.

Reason why I am a bad person #12,679.5

There is a cute companionship of bright-eyed sister missionaries, in matching twinsets and comfortable shoes, who often hang out in the Wilk during lunchtime.

I was a sister missionary once, was I not? So you think I would be eager as a beaver to talk to them. And yet EVERY TIME I walk by them, my immediate instinct is to do the following:

1. Look down so as to avoid making eye contact.
2. Lengthen my stride (Except in a totally UNRIGHTEOUS way).
3. Take out my phone or my iPod (or both!) from my purse in an attempt to look busy.
4. Sometimes, I even TURN around completely and walk in a different direction.

I don't know why I feel this way. It's similar to my phobia of cops, except it makes no sense.

I don't use the internet to be left alone.

I just read this exquisitely heartfelt tribute to the "25 things about Me" fad here, and it actually inspired me to want to write one of my own.

1. I feel terrible about the way things ended with my maternal grandmother. We had never gotten along very well, but that was mostly because she was pissed off that I joined the Church (The Mormon one, I mean) in 1992-ish (?). I cut off all contact with her when I was in high school. Nor did I go to her funeral in 2006, but now I wish I had. The odd thing is, I think I would have gotten along with the young version of her really well. My mom tells me stories about her and she was a lot like me: kinda spacey, creative, loved to dance, had a hard time following rules. I did her temple work for her after I got back from my mission, and although that was nice, I still wish I had reconciled with her while she was alive.

2. For those of you familiar with the MBTI personality test, my favorites types are as follows: INFPs (because that is what I am), ISFPs (both my brothers and a large number of my friends are ISFPs ... I really think it is my favorite to be friends with), ENFJs, and ENFPs.

3. I love mayonnaise. It is my favorite condiment. I like to eat it on peas instead of butter. I know how gross that sounds, and most people find it disconcerting to watch, so I generally eat it when no one else is around. Except Pamela doesn't seem to mind. I love you, Pamela.

4. I have little to no contact with a bogglingly large number of people that I am facebook friends with. However, I will never delete anyone, because having lots of friends makes me feel cool, and I am somewhat voyeuristic by nature. It's a writer thing.

5. I love YA novels. Particularly the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I like them much better than trashy books written for adults.

6. That said, when I was ten or so, my mom bought me one of those crass Harlequin romance novels, and I read it cover to cover several times. It was there that I learned several crucial anatomical terms that I am too classy to list here. However, if you ask me, I will tell you.

7. As a kid, I loved coffee.

8. Additionally, as a kid I shoplifted fairly regularly, but never liked it. I only did it because one of my cousins made me do her dirty work. I was also never caught.

9. I hate it when people use the word "just" when talking about something very important to them. "I just wanted to say that I know Jesus is the Christ." Just? Just???? I have no impetus to tell anyone else how to bear his or her testimony, but my kids will be forbidden to use such a construction.

10. I probably attach too much significance to language. If you are ever in the doghouse with me, all you have to do is SAY something nice or penitent, and all is forgiven. You don't actually have to DO anything. I know this is foolish, but I doubt it will ever change.

11. There is a certain hallway in the Provo Temple near the Celestial Room, and every single time I walk down it, I feel a strong urge to dance irreverently. If no one else is around, I sometimes do.

12. One time my friend Becca ran over my foot with her car. Incredibly, my foot wasn't broken, although it was very painful.

13. When I was 14 and had the chicken pox, the pustules were concentrated on my face, neck and chest. The first time I looked in the mirror the morning I came down with the pox, I actually screamed. I believe that this was in some form of punishment for being so vain about my skin when I was in middle school.

14. I never learned the multiplication tables. I am absolutely wretched at math. This includes counting. I hate counting out loud or doing math in my head, especially in front of other people. Once, my former elementary school teacher came into a retail store where I worked, and I tried to count her change out for her, and I couldn't do it. I was embarrassed but luckily she was nice about it, otherwise I probably would have lost my job.

15. I never learned how to type. Still can't.

16. I can easily pinpoint the specific time in my life when I was the most miserable. It was in the MTC.

17. I love dinosaurs. I am excited to die so I can go to Heaven and watch movies of real dinosaurs. If this is not possible, I will be a very disappointed dead person.

18. When I was in second grade my mom bought me a training bra even though I had no need for one. I tried wearing it to school one day, but it itched so badly I took it off in the bathroom and stuffed it in my coat pocket. Later that day, on the playground, it fell out.

19. I don't like two-faced-ness (is that a word?). If I don't like someone, I find it impossible to be nice to them. Thus, if I am nice to you, congratulations! I like you. No, really.

20. On New Year's in 2005, I cussed out an old lady in a parking lot, because she was mean to my best friend. To this day, I do not feel bad about this at all.

21. On my mission, I was grabbed and kissed by men in various states of sobriety on eleven different occasions. It averaged out to once a transfer. I kept track of these instances using stickers on the back of my nametag, but when people asked me about them, I said it was to keep track of how many transfers I had been in the country.

22. I cry more often during movies about animals than movies about people. Homeward Bound: the Incredible Journey, for example, makes me cry every single time.

23. I forged several of the signatures on my Honor Society application in high school. Not because I was fibbing, just because I had forgotten to take it around and collect all the signatures I needed. The irony was not lost on me, either.

24. My favorite Hungarian word is: fogcsikorgatás. It means "gnashing of teeth."

25. Adopting my brother in 2003 was my idea. My parents don't like to tell people this, and I've never figured out why.

Well, that was fun. If there is ANYONE in the web-0-sphere who has not yet participated in this little exercise: tag.

I just found this in an old journal

An incomplete list I made in the MTC. It's as true now as it was then.

THINGS I HAVE LEARNED ON MY MISSION

1. I am not as funny as Cori thinks I am (7/5)
2. Silence is not unpleasant (7/6)
3. Missionaries are people, except they are on a mission (7/6)
4. Most men don't realize what they are doing wrong, so you have to tell them (7/9)
5. The reason why I shower so much is because I smell (7/16)

Fantastic news

So first a little Mormon culture trivia for you: when young people serve as missionaries they have a special unique vocabulary that utilizes the metaphor of genealogy. When you enter the country as a missionary, you are "born" in that city. I was born in Pécs, for example. Your first companion in the mission field is thus known as your "mother" or "father." Thus I was born in Pécs to Sister Gillespie. Some missionaries trace such "genealogies" and make a big deal out of them. I am one of those people.

I trained twice on my mission. My first daughter was Sister Welge in Szeged; my second, Sister Beech in Debrecen. My first greenie and I had kind of a rough transfer. I won't go into to detail except to say that it was all my fault. My second greenie had it made because I had learned my lesson with the first (Welge was my first pancake, if you will), and we were the best of friends. Sister Beech went home because of a medical condition after only three transfers (just a few months) so she was barren, as it were. Right before I went home, Sister Welge and I went on splits and had a long heart-to-heart in which I apologized profusely for the mistakes I had made, we made up and became friends. Hooray! No more estrangement!

Despite all that, and because of many other contributing factors, I sometimes wonder if my mission did anyone any good. I had a couple baptisms, but last I heard they are inactive. I worked with a lot of members but I don't know if much came of it. And I had one child on medical leave and one that hated me (until recently). I wasn't sure if it had been much of a success.

Not true! I just talked to greenie #1 (remember, we're friends now) and we had a great little chat. I found out that she opened Békéscsaba, one of the new cities I would have killed to open, annnnnd her daughter, my granddaughter, was also an amazing missionary and opened Kaposvár, the other city I wanted to open.

And thus, my mission was a success. I do rejoice in my posterity.