White Polyester and Fluorescent Lights

Musings of an Ex-Mormon

I remember liking how it felt to spin in my baptismal dress. It was one of those dresses where the skirt part of the dress unfurled like lily petals and pleated in on itself when I started spinning the other way. It made me feel like a princess, or a bride, or maybe something more magical.

We rehearsed in the days leading up to my baptism at the Ward Branch for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. My dentist, a family friend and former employer to my mother, would be the one to dunk me under the water. I remember being relieved that I could plug my nose, because I hadn’t learned how to go under water without breathing it in and choking on it.

I remember how the fabric of the dress felt and sounded under my small hands. The polyester made that hissing sound; like when I scratched my nail against my cousin’s trampoline in Utah. Zzzpt. Zzzpt. Zzzpt.

I remember feeling special when all of my family came to see me get the gift of the Holy Ghost. I remember watching the water fill up the off-white tiled walls of the baptismal font and testing the temperature to make sure it wouldn’t be too hot for my little feet.

I remember the smell of the Ward Building. Something stale and homey, like a used bookstore or Nanny’s car.

I remember the weight of the dress when it soaked through as I stepped into the water. It was deep enough to come up to my waist and warm like a bath. I remember crossing my arms, but bringing my right hand up to plug my nose like I was about to do a canon ball in Nanny’s pool. I remember the brief embrace of my dentist before he submerged me and brought me back up, pale brown hair pasted to my cheeks and neck and forehead.

I remember not feeling any different when it was done. It had been confusing since all of the grown-ups had told me that I’d have a new companion with me at all times. A spiritual ally to tell me when I was doing the right thing, or to bring me comfort when I missed my dad several states away, or when I felt left out at school. I didn’t feel a new presence. In fact, I’d felt more haunted by the hitchhiking ghosts at Disneyland than I did by the Holy Ghost.

I remember that being the beginning of my disillusionment with the church; a story arc that concluded four years later with my leaving. Even as a twelve-year old I couldn’t reconcile the feeling of immense, terrible guilt and fear I felt over drinking a caffeinated soda with a god that supposedly loved me unconditionally.

My mother had left the church years before when the bishop asked to see her tax returns to prove that she, a single mother, had tithed enough to be temple worthy.

I left when I didn’t see the compassion and goodness they preached reflected in my family in Utah and in the legislature the church endorsed. How could I believe in a church that sought to tear families apart because they had two fathers or two mothers? How could I believe in the church that couldn’t convince my father to quit smoking cigarettes, or to maybe pick up the phone and give me a call once a week?

I still can’t reconcile the paradox of it.

I’m an adult now and I haven’t stepped foot in a mormon church since my grandfather’s memorial service in Utah when I was nineteen. The mormon church has never given up on me.

I often found myself oddly nervous when I see the missionaries—who are really children themselves—biking around my neighborhood. A few times, when I’d gotten home from work or some errand, I’d see them wandering around my apartment complex in search of a unit.

I would park and wait to watch their trajectory to make sure they weren’t going to my place; staying low in my car like I was some sort of John Wick-style assassin who finally got out of the game and didn’t want to be dragged back in.

Eventually I would get around to submitting my information to that lawyer who gets people removed from the ward lists I promised myself each time.

A couple months ago someone knocked on the door when I was waiting for a package and trying to make homemade bread. I opened the door to find two young girls modestly dressed, each of them blonde and pretty, like all the good mormons in Utah were. They wore their black name tags on their shirts and held the book of mormon in their hands; the LDS spin off from the bible.

It was hot out that day—a hundred something. I felt for them having to walk around in the summer heat. They were warm and polite, I didn’t invite them inside because I knew I’d be wasting their time if I did. Not to mention my house was a mess and I was trying to bake sandwich bread.

I did, however, offer them a glass of water.

They looked at each other a little concerned, like it might be against the rules to accept it when they were the ones meant to be of service. But they finally did sheepishly accept the offer. I got them each a cool cup of water in a cup easy to dispose of when they were done with it. After I handed them over, I talked to them.

“So, where are you girls on mission from?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m from Utah—typical,” one said a self-depricatingly.

“And—uh, I’m from Colorado,” the other one said.

“Did you guys just start your mission? Or are you coming to the end of it?” I asked.

“We just got here a few months ago, we’ll be here around two years,” the one from Utah said. “We’re getting to know the neighborhood so we just wanted to visit members of the ward.”

“Well I haven’t considered myself a part of the church since I was a kid, but I appreciate you for coming by,” I said. “My beliefs don’t really align with the church any more and there are a lot of things I don’t agree with when it comes to church policies.”

The one from Utah smiled and handed me a card. “Well if you ever need service, or just someone to talk to, feel free to give us a call. We’re not staying far,” she said.

I took the card and smiled, thanking them. They thanked me for the water and left.

I still have their card pinned to my bulletin board. I’m not really sure why. Sometimes I think about asking them to come help me organize my bookshelves, or I think about inviting them over to do some cooking in advance with me. I think about having conversations with them about my life and about what I believe now. I think about flipping the script and becoming a missionary for a life of freedom and morality based on your own internal compass instead of instructions detailed in a book.

But that train of thought always pulls into the same station. It’s a bad idea and it’s a waste of their resources and energy to invite them over when I know they will never get me back into the stuffy, stain-resistant carpeted hallways of their church.

After all, who am I to try to change them?

They’re just kids.