To My Family

To My Family:

I don’t like to talk about this stuff with you all too much. It makes me uncomfortable. I fear I’ll sound didactic or sanctimonious. That’s why you’re getting it in blog form.

Almost four years ago, I joined a church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Mormon church. Not one of you asked me why, and I’m actually pretty glad about that. I wouldn't have known how to answer then.

I do now.

So here’s my reason. You didn’t ask for it, but you’re getting it anyway. Because it’s been the single most important decision of my life and I want a chance to explain it.

When I was five, my parents and I moved from San Diego to Idaho. Idaho sits right in the middle of the “Mormon bubble.” I can remember being in Kindergarten and finding a CTR ring on the playground (CTR stands for "choose the right" and is a commonly used initialism in my church). I hoped I’d get to keep it so I’d fit in with every other kid in my class. In high school, many students in my school walked daily across the street to the Seminary building for an hour long church class. There’s an LDS Institute (a building where church classes are held for college-age people) in my town. I have been firmly entrenched in the Mormon culture for a long time.

And it is a culture. Mormons have their own brand of humor, movies, idioms, and fashion trends. All were inescapable for me all through my childhood and adolescence. As such, I came to fit right in. I laughed at the humor, watched the movies, understood the idioms, and wore the fashion trends. I did get left out occasionally. In Seminary, kids would make “warm fuzzies” (there’s a Mormon phrase), which were just little notes with nice messages on them. Then, those warm fuzzies would get distributed throughout our classes. And I never got one. I didn’t get invited to a lot of youth activities because they were held in church houses or at the Institute. That kind of thing didn’t hurt my feelings too much. I had an unspoken agreement with my LDS friends that I wouldn’t judge them for their faith if they wouldn’t try to proselytize to me.

Then one friend accidentally sent the missionaries to my house. And because this church had been such presence in my life, I let them in and listened to what they had to say.

And then, five months later, I joined the church. After all, it encompassed everything I was familiar with: every boy I had dated, a lot of my friends, that whole culture I had grown up around. It just made sense.

BUT THAT’S NOT WHY I JOINED THIS CHURCH.

Being an only child has given me one strength--I’ve had to learn to gel in a lot of different social groups. I never had a huge group of siblings to shape me. My entire family was pretty diverse. So I’ve had to develop a strong sense of myself as an individual. After working so hard at that, why would I throw it all away to conform to the people around me?

I joined this church because I believe in it. Everything. The culture and people are just a fringe benefit.

I’ve always had a viewpoint with regards to drinking and partying and fooling around with boys. This church matches those beliefs I already held. But that’s still not the reason I joined it.

I chose to give up 10% of my income, a minimum of three hours of my week, having my family there to witness my wedding, coffee, tea, and all sorts of other things because I believe in this church.

You’ve probably heard an awful lot about what my church’s members believe and probably only a solid third of it is accurate. Be that as it is, we do believe in some stuff that could sound a little weird from the outside. It did to me.

When I first decided to be baptized into this church, I met with a friend who threw my scriptures in my face and told me that “book of fairytales” would ruin my life. And all I could do was thank her for her opinion and leave. Because I only believe these things because of feelings I’ve had while studying them. That’s how faith works. I know you’re my family and I could provide scientific evidence to prove it. I know that you love me, too, but science won't prove that. That's where faith steps in.

Praying feels weird and talking about praying feels ever weirder. But praying is exactly what I was doing when I found my faith. And by the time I was done praying, something had changed inside me. But it wasn’t the effects of one prayer that led me to join this church. I prayed about it fervently every day. I still do. I wake up every morning and reaffirm my belief by praying.

I believe in God. And I believe in Jesus Christ. And I believe that this church is the best way for me to get to them both. These beliefs have taught me to have hope. Because they have taught me that there is a reason behind this life we live. They have taught me that family really is the most important thing we have. They have taught me that we will all be together again one day.

This church, as I said, matches my own beliefs on a lot of different points, but that’s not what keeps me coming back. What use is spackle where there are no cracks? Sure, this church reinforces what I already know to be true. But it is the cracks and holes in my understanding, in my very being, that this church trickles into, filling and strengthening. Those cracks--the “whys” that science and human understanding don’t fill--are the reasons I joined this church. And we all have these gaps in our understanding. I try very hard to not judge people for filling their gaps differently. We are all working to fill those gaps for ourselves. And we all go about it differently. I have found what works for me. And I hope you have found, or will find, what works for you. It has beautified my life in ways I never imagined.

I love you all.

Love,

Catherine