Chapter 17

Sitting next to her, you could never ignore her. Her eyes are so dark, they’re almost black. Dark melted pools of chocolate. She’s infectiously charming. She could carry on a conversation with anyone.

The first day we met, we shared. I told her of Stooph. Of Giorgiano. Of all the things that had happened to me. She told me of her brother – of waking up to find him dead in the room next door.

Turns out suicide was a theme of my mission. And it all started with Brittney.

Brittney is a walking contradiction. She declares independence, but clings to her loved ones. She comes off as naïve, but hides a past that could rival that of any tragic heroine. We knew it meant something on that first day, sharing pain as we sat on the floor of the residence hall, our backs to the tall, oblong closets. Pain is a drug, and we shared it as addicts shared a needle. Bleeding into each other, listening and talking at the same time. As I removed the needle, I would hand it to her. Figuratively sharing everything, even disease. Once you do that kind of sharing, there’s no turning back.

Our last night together was something surreal; an experience so out-of-body that I must have been in a state of trauma. All night long, Rachel, Kelia, Brittney and I arranged and rearranged my suitcases. 2 bloody suitcases for 18 months. Not even the hippies of the world could declare that fair. As I shifted the 18 month supply of tampons and vitamins from one suitcase to another, they sat on the top bunks. Encouraging me. Asking me to stay. At one point Brittney crawled in my luggage. Asked me to take her with me. Later that night Kelia gave me an hour long massage. Britney and I took pictures making faces together. One of those pictures sits on her nightstand. It has since she came home early from Argentina.

The next morning, we all woke up at 6:30. You were disobedient if you didn’t. Never mind the fact that we had slept less than 2 hours. Never mind that I would spend the next 24 hours on three different airplanes, my knees touching the seat in front of me as I tried to ignore the movies playing on the screens that surrounded me. Never mind that those girls would spend the next 12 hours crying, mourning the loss of an imprisoned sisterhood. Disregard all that. Waking up at 6:30 was much more important, or so they told us. Truthfully, at that point, it was. We had made a commitment. And doesn’t it say something about all of us that we followed it?

We loaded into the bus – all 9 of us. The four Georgian speakers, the 4 Armenian elders, and me. I was the last to board. And as I placed my stockinged foot carefully on the step, an urge pressed me. I turned. Saw the backs of the girls who had come to mean so much. I ran. I ran to them, and we embraced. I cried. It really is like a friendship forged in prison; forced to connect in shackled obedience, strict adherence to the sex-deprived rules of the MTC.

The MTC really is one of the greatest miracles in the world. 2,000 young people, committed to a rigorous moral code and study schedule, yet disobedience and delinquency are minimal. World leaders visit that campus, to see 19 year old boys speaking Russian after just 6 weeks in language training. It is a miracle. And just like any other miracles, the sacrifices made to create it and keep it up are sizable.

Family.

Music.

Films.

Late nights.

Sleeping in.

All the treasured past times of a carefree generation, stolen overnight by a religious fortitude not usually displayed in teenage boys and young adult women.

Then there are the real sacrifices.

Time.

Sanity.

Being alone.

Comforts of home, of friends, of anything familiar.

The walls are brick and coated with paint probably used in juvenile detention centers or insane asylums. You begin to feel like you’re in one. Same routine, day after day, our nylon shackles binding us to the commitment we didn’t understand before we made it. The pain of misunderstanding and dislike, of competition for something that shouldn’t matter. The need to prove yourself.

I can see why they didn’t like me. Why they acted the way they did. The truth is, I don’t blame them. Looking back, it all seems a daze anyway. I was still in emotional Trauma from the Stooph incident. All I knew is that I felt unloved. Lonely. Hated. Feelings I didn’t understand. And blast it, I had none of my former vices to dull the intensity of the self-loathing that filled my veins. Loud music. Long midnight drives. Kissing strangers to feel something more powerful than it. Anger. I had none of those. Instead I had to turn to a God that I didn’t know. That I didn’t trust.

So I turned.

And the biggest miracle of all? I found him there. Waiting, as he said he would be, with open arms. And every time after that, I found him again. I found him that first time in a late night in November. Staying up too late to be alone; the white handbook says not to do that, I know, but I did. I sat first at my desk, reading the scriptures. Marking them, trying to glean any comfort I could from those thin, fragile pages. For the first time in my life, coming to the Lord with a need. The feeling was so strong that it filled me. It was warm, and pleasant, but so powerful it made my body shake. As I trembled, tears flowed out of my eyes, down my nose and cheeks, dripping onto the untouched pages I had neglected for so long. I tried to relish it, to feel every last sensation. I do that with every strong emotion – push it to its limits, making sure I understand what it is trying to teach me.

The next time, it was late at night. I found him comforting me in the searing pain of illness, as I cried alone on the ancient couch in our apartment. Sister Smith sleeping just a few yards away. I clutched at my stomach, wishing I could tear it open and rip out whatever was causing the pain. And I felt him there, cradling my sweaty brow and whispering words of comfort.

He was even there in that taxi, when I felt the angels bow in reverence to my pain.

And now? He sustains my every footstep. Corrects when I stumble. Steadies my trembling hand as I reach out to others. Assures me that by giving, I will receive everything I need.

He is no longer a God I don’t know or trust. He is my Father. Wise, kind, and all knowing. I’m still learning to trust.