Happy Vally

I was primping for another date.  Only his one was different from my normal horrific sleazy online creepers.  My older heathen sister set us up.  I love my older sister but she can be a little…dramatic. She started the conversation with “you will like him” to “I always wanted to make out with him” and finished with “don’t worry I told him all about your plan for an invento baby if you never get married.” God, thank you!  I was dreading the inevitable invento baby talk that is typical of a first date.  My sister was 99% sure he was no longer a Mormon. She knew we would fall in love and have a lovely post-Mormon family.  I was only in Utah for my little sister’s wedding and had no intention to start a long distance relationship but I figured it would be nice to spend some time with another post-Mormon.

When John picked me up I started right into the church crap.  He was right there with me. We did hit it off but I soon discover that John not only was he a Mormon but he was the Elders Corm President!   That basically mean he is the best Mormon guy in his ward.  He was unlike any Mormon guy that I ever met. He didn’t judge people and supported my leaving the church.  He left the church for two years… he really really left…and he came back. The life he lived would destroy any person Mormon or not.  He was a bouncer. He knows all the problems with the church but came back anyways.

“How can you do it John? How can you ware those garments and want to get married in the temple again?”

“I just realized I was happier in the church. I focus I the things I know to be true.”

My sister was texting me during the date.  I decided it was time for a little pay back.

“Oh he is wonderful.” I texted, “You know he is Elder’s Corm Press and he has really opened my mind to a lot of things about the church I never understood.  Making me re-think this.”

My phone rang instantly, sister in a panic “What! He is Mormon?  I’m so sorry.  Don’t listen to anything he says.   I’ll come get you. Where are you?”

John and I laughed, “Oh we are in his hot tub, hang on let me get my swimming suit back on.”

I think it’s cool John wants to be Mormon. He know   the history of Joseph Smith and he is okay with it.  It's the people who don't know i feel sorry.  Like me.  The walls of Jaricho come crashing down one day and your left standing naked. 

  

Needless to say my sister flipped her lid when she discovered she had set me up with the enemy.  She begged me not to see him again but I liked John.  John saved me from making some big mistakes. He talked to me for 5 hours.  John seamed to understand what I was going through. He didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. Can you imagine, an Elders Corm President who was not judgmental? He really is a wonderful guy and he is the type of guy I hope to find someday. Frist time in my life where I would not date a guy because he wanted to get married in the temple.   I liked him so much I asked him to be my date for the wedding. I had to fight my heathen married sister for him.  For some reason she wanted him to be her date. Gosh...

At temple my heathen sister and I waited in the temple holding cell.  We were rather irreverent.  John was there and stopped my us from having a blow up. John was able to help me forget the trauma of the temple wedding. I really had a blast at the wedding reception and when something Mormon triggered me he was there.   

At one point at the reception I stopped and looked around me.  Old friends and familiar faces.  Most were Mormon some used to be but all were just there to have fun. I’m a Mormon.  It will always be a part of me and that is not bad.  Before I met John I’ll admit that my biggest fear was I would bounce.   Leaving the church is huge culture shock and a lot of people can’t make it out.  All these rules are gone and in their place a new world that makes no since.  John showed me another side.  He knows the church is not 100% true but there is good in it. Heck if I lived in Utah I might even go to church sometimes. I would love to be a Jack Mormon. They have the best of both worlds.  As I was visiting old friends in Provo I remembered the community they have.  It was all warm and fuzzy.  Can I be happy as a Non-Mormon?

   

I was raised a Mormon. That is my life. That is who I am.  It’s the only life I have known. I never really wanted to leave the church. I was happy as a Mormon. I remembered how comforting it was to have instant friends.  You get to live very simply.   It’s a magical place where you are promised a Happy Ever After.  Eventually Santa takes off his beard and all that left was a fat greasy man with nacho breath. You can still wait for presents to appear under the tree, or you can go out a buy yourself an XBOX… Or maybe you can go the store buy your XBOX , wrap it, and stuff it under the tree marked “From Santa”.  Either way you got what you wanted so what does it matter how you got there?