The 19 year old convert

Baptised.
Fresh
Clean
pure

I was now a member of a real live church.  I church I choose.  I church I hoped to one day fully know to be true.  I was happy & content.  Not a care in the world. 

I was surrounded by my old & new friends while I chatted after my dunking.  My father choose not to attend.  He said he could not support me in joining the church.  I couldn't blame him.  All the info he had about my church was from years back when he met some extremest fridge "members" back in the 60's.  They took him in after his rig broke down on a desert high way.  The gave him free room & board.  Fed him & fixed his rig for free.  He stayed a few days with the people.  Playing baseball with the kids & helping the men with their farm work.  He said they were kind, very poor, giving & polygamists.

He just could not support me in a weird cult.  No matter how much I tried to teach him what I was taught....the truth ..... he would have none of it.

And for the first time in my short life, I felt truly, utterly alone.

I pushed those thoughts away as I stood eating cookies with my new congregation. 
I...would enjoy my grown up decision with gusto!  I would eat cookies & cheese potato casserole with abandoned!  I had places to go, people to meet & a religion to adhere to.

The thoughts of loneliness & dread gave way to excitement & exhilaration

I was safe.
I was wanted.




I was a dumb as a box of rocks!

I fear it was my childish faith in the "arm of man" that brought me to where I was a few years ago.  Brought under & drowned in that sea of faithful but ignorant trust.

The night I was baptised a new missionary shook my hand.  He gripped it hard & stared me straight in the eyes.  He words to this day, etched in my brain.  But at that time, those words held no deep meaning.

"Sister...you must always remember.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is true...the people..... are not."

What the heck did that mean?  Well...I sorta knew what he meant.  But it wasn't until I walked through hell with these church people did I fully understand his words.

It took awhile to decode his meaning...which was pretty blunt.  I mean really...ya don't need a decoder ring from a cereal box to understand....GOSPEL = good.  People of earth = a$$hats.

I JUST DID NOT GET IT.

Not even when Brother Ay called those boys n*****s

Or I was called "sweet spirit" over & over again (sweet spirit means nice but ugly and/or slow)

Or when a young man told me he was disappointed in me when I could not fulfill my new calling (job in the church that is volunteer) teaching young children the Gospel...that I just was baptised into!  Even with the tears in my eyes & the vomit still on my shirt from having a panic attach in the bathroom after I fled in failure & humiliation from the room filled with children.

Or when I was taken advantage of for months by a man 7 years older (and wiser he might add) who had no right to touch me.  Who shamed me & messed with my head yet talked about his Priesthood power and how smart he was & how lucky I was to find him.

Or how I found out from a friend of mine, my name had been "written upon the walls" and I was known to a large group of young righteous men as a "snake"...a young women who used her charms (wait....wasn't I a "sweet" spirit few months ago?!) to lure young men to their carnal deaths....but yet all I had done was date the wrong man.  My virginity proudly intact after fighting off advances from that "righteous" Priesthood holding man.     

Or being insulted, demeaned, belittled & talked down to.

Or when I watched the father of the kids I was babysitting call his wife a stupid $itch over & over in front of his friends & his children.  And then to see him in the Holy house of the Lord....wha?!!!

Or listening to women tear into the flesh of their "sisters".  Watching the back stabbing, lying & venom spitting in aw & horror.

Or being just plain ignored.

Or the constant arguments from my father.  Our close relationship forever torn apart by my decision to join a cult. 




I would like to say I was strong in the arms of the Lord.  But at the end of the day,
 I was and will be, for the longest time

a lost, scared, hopeful
19 year old girl

Scales begin to fall

I....was blinded.

Here I was this August day
19
Living with my Dad
Innocent
Ready for an adventure

I joined a church filled with happy people.  People who took interest in me.  Guided me.  Fed me.  Entertained me.  Liked me.

At that moment I had rose colored glasses on.  A thin layer of shiny scales covered my eyes, my brain, my heart.  I had made a safe place for myself. 

I was safe from growing up.  Safe from going off into the world without a net.  This church...these people...would become my net.  I allowed myself to wander off in a crowd of righteous people.  They would guide me, place me on a path I needed to go....even if it ment jostling me about.

I was....safe.

Oh how beautiful those shiny scales made my life look.  How lovely the people.  How clean their lives.  Everything....rose hue.



A week after my baptism I drove to Great America with some friends & their parents.  I sat in the back of the steamy van as I listen to my friends Dad babble on about sports, weather & other mindless things I had no interest in.  It was so nice of this family take me out & about.  Adding me...the convert, so easily to their plans.  I was starting to feel like a baby bird that had been scooped of the ground & carried to a new nest.  Strange but safe. 

That day we ate lunch at our van.  We decided to spend the evening at the park to avoid the heat.  I still remember the ham sandwiches my friends Mom made us.  Yummy & soft.  Ahh, this is the life!

After all tidy & clean, off we walked, through the parking lot...heading towards a night filled with fun.  Up ahead of me I spot them.  2 young men...wandering through the parking lot after spending the day at the park.  They were tall. As they got closer, they become very cute.  Cute.....CuteRrrr...well Hello boys!  Dressed in t shirts & plaid long shorts.  Clean cut.  Tall....boyzzZzzz.

The moment before they pass me they smile & say Hello.  Were they looking at me?  Did my hair look ok?  I throw back a Hi & I ours eyes lock.  Boyzzzz.

Left foot......glance
Right foot....... "Ya know whats the problem with the world today?" My friends father loudly asks his walking brood.

Left foot....."No...whats' that Brother Ay?"

Right foot.....boyz pass me... I can smell their sweaty cologne...swoon.

Left foot.....  "What will mess up this world? 

Those

Damn

N****RS"







BAM!


My feet stop cold.  I feel like I have been punched so hard in the chest I can't breath.

"Damn n****rs" Brother Ay repeats as he marches ahead of me, shacking his head in disgust.

I had seen the boys heads whip toward me...righttt as they pass.  Brother Ay made sure those boys heard him.

I felt the ground slip beneath me.  I watched Brother Ay walk ahead.  He held a "high" calling in my new church.  He held the priesthood.  He had raised a nice family. 

He called those strapping, handsome boys...that..word.

I'm confused & bewildered.  I force my feet to march on the hot pavement. 

"Clink"....behind me....a scale had slipped off my eyes.

I march on to spend the day with my head spinning.  I don't enjoy my night at the park.  I feel hollow & weak.  I'm angry & disgusted.

I hear nothing but those hateful words.

I see nothing but the mask of pain on the young men's faces as they catch my eye....as my fellow member of my church calls them

unthinkable.

"clink"