Please Don’t Leave Me

March 13, 2015

I had been very honest with the Sisters during our next meetings. I told them that I didn’t exactly enjoy going to church on Sundays because it was so freaking boring and I couldn’t comprehend some things. Like for example, there was that one Sunday where apparently every member of the church could bear testimony… or at least that is how I understood it. However, most of the people who gave testimony told some rather unspectacular stories, somehow connected it with God, and suddenly started to cry.

For me - as “unbeliever” - those were pretty awkward situations. I couldn’t identify with what they felt and I didn’t really have an understanding for their tears. There were so many horrible things happening out there in the world and they cried because of some random experiences. Even grown men! It was so weird!

I just tried not to grin or show any other sign of incomprehension and waited till it was over. But that’s not even the Sunday I wanted to talk about. The Sunday I want to talk about is March 8, 2015. Last Sunday. What happened that day is really memorable… in a bad way.

In the morning we went to church. To my surprise – after I had told the Sisters that I thought church was boring - it wasn’t boring this time. Don’t ask me why! I have no idea why…

Actually I was supposed to write down a question and think about it during those three hours of church, but that didn’t work. There is this annoying voice inside of my head that always tells me everything I do is not good enough or embarrassing… though I’m pretty sure the only thing that’s embarrassing is my stupid, inhibited behavior. I couldn’t get the voice to shut up that day, though, so I didn’t write down anything, but still, time went by very fast.

I went home. I was perfectly fine; the sense of euphoria after church was more remarkable than ever before. But then it happened. Snow White, my best friend, texted me and asked if I wanted to meet up with her and our dogs in the Park. Snow is very critical of religion. I know her for almost ten years and we were so close to each other. She truly was my best friend… but I didn’t dare to tell her about the Mormons because I was so scared of her reaction. I was meeting the Sisters for more than 2 months now and had already told some friends about them. Most of them were extremely suspicious of it and told me to stop meeting them. Nevertheless they said that it was my decision and that they would respect it as long as I wouldn’t change, or talk about it all the time. I had no intention of doing that.

Then there is Aurora. She’s one of my closest friends. I love her so freaking much! She’s in a different country as an Au Pair at the moment though. We text non-stop and try to skype as often as possible. Oh how thankful I am for her! I talked to her about the whole Mormon-thing before I even met the Sisters for the first time and she was absolutely cool with it. She said whatever makes me happy is ok with her. She was excited for me when I told her about the Sisters and how much I loved them. She even said that she wanted to meet them one day! I miss her so much… but back to Snow White.

I made a stupid mistake. I didn’t think and before I knew it I had sent a text that mentioned the missionaries. And so it was one thing after another. She wanted to know if I meant ‘missionaries’ as in ‘people who try to force their religion on other people’. I told her a little bit about the Sisters, how sweet and lovely they were, and that they didn’t try to force anything on anybody. She expressed her skepticism. Okay, I entirely understand it! I would be skeptical too if I was in her position, wouldn’t I?

I told her that I was kinda serious about it and that I really considered to be baptized, though, I wasn’t entirely sure about it. Then it really got going! She compared it to Islamism and tried to explain her position to me by saying that I wouldn’t be pleased either if she wanted to become Islamist. I was starting to panic. I hadn’t been prepared for such a negative reaction.

It was completely weird but the next words I wrote just came out of nowhere. I was pretty surprised when I read the message I had just sent.

“My whole life I wasn’t sure if there’s a God, what’s the meaning of life, etc. …now I finally found a religion that gives me everything I was looking for. Meeting missionaries of the church since the beginning of January now…I always tell the Sisters that I’m not sure yet and actually don’t know if I really want it, but the truth is that this church already means so much to me and when I think about ending the entire thing…stop going to church on Sundays…it makes me sad. My parents are against it. My whole family is against it. I’ve already told Aurora and she’s ok with it. Some of my University-friends are ok with it too as long as I don’t bother them with it. I didn’t tell anyone else yet. I wanted to tell you about it so badly, but I was terrified of your reaction because I know how negative you think about things like this…I just hope that you maybe understand it a little bit. If you want to, I could introduce you to some of the church members so that you can see that they are normal human beings. I really don’t want to lose you…”

I swear, before I read the message I didn’t know that I was feeling that way. How was this possible?

For a horribly long time my phone told me that Snow was writing. I was nervous. So freaking nervous. I was incredibly scared of her answer…and there was good reason for my fear.

“Sorry, no sympathy,” were her first words. She said she’d know me well enough to know how easy to manipulate I was. As an example she named ‘animal protection’. I didn’t get it… is it a bad thing now to love animals and fight for their rights? She wrote some more and then she told me to choose between her and the church. She said she didn’t want to have anything to do with it and would rather keep me in memory as I was.

What did I do? My little sister Olaf (she choose that name herself ;P) sat right next to me. I handed her my phone so that she could read the message. Tears began to flow from my eyes. When I saw the shocked expression on my little sisters face I knew that it was true; that my best friend had really wrote that message. My world suddenly broke down. I knew that I couldn’t choose her friendship over the church. I don’t know why, but I just knew that I couldn’t. Amidst all the sorrow and pain it felt right to choose the church. Still, my heart broke. I’ve never been in a relationship with a guy before so I never went through a break up. But I’m sure it can’t be worse than this!

It probably sounds as if Snow White and I weren’t real best friends, but believe me, we were. In school we were inseparable, we laughed and cried together about everything, we entrusted our lives to each other… we share a bunch of amazing memories.

She was the only person I could really tell everything…(well except for this thing, I guess). She has always been there for me. And know that I needed her so much… she was gone.

We didn’t talk, write, or meet again ever since that day. I’m disappointed, hurt, sad…angry? No, absolutely not. I get her. But then again I don’t get her at all. Dang it, she was my best friend!! Both of us wanted to become elementary school teachers. We wanted to work at the same school, have kids around the same time so that they could be friends too… I’m still myself! I didn’t change! I told her that I didn’t really know if I wanted to be baptized! And still…she’s gone. It hurts so freaking much.

But I do know that I made the right decision. Someone gave me this quote after I cried my eyes out in deep despair:

- God says: "The reason some people have turned against you 

and walked away from you without reason, 

has nothing to do with you. 

It is because I have removed them from your life 

because they cannot go where I am taking you next. 

They will only hinder you in your next level 

because they have already served their purpose in your life. 

Let them go and keep moving. 

Greater is coming" -

There is so much comfort in this quote. It doesn’t really make this situation any easier or my feelings any less painful…but it gives me hope.

Let’s Do It Again

March 13, 2015

Today’s March 13, 2015. It’s been quite a while since my last post. First of all, yes, I’m still meeting the Sisters. Sister Anna (Anna and Elsa…see what I did there? :D) is the new Sister Belle and she’s incredibly sweet. Don’t get me wrong! I really miss Sister Belle. I still pray for her every night but that won’t bring her back...

Yes, you read right. I pray every night. That’s something I never thought I would do… like ever! But nevertheless I do it now. And I pray for a lot of people and a lot of things and the weirdest thing is that these prayers really seem to help.

Back to Sister Anna… like I said. She’s so sweet! She’s the incarnation of sweet! I know her for how long? Not even two months I think, but still, she’s already so important to me. She’s great. Seriously an awesome human being!!

And then there is Sister Elsa… Sister Elsa is incredible. She just needs to look at you with her big, blue eyes and every trace of doubt is gone. How does she do it? I have no idea, it’s insane, but she succeeds in taking away my doubts again and again.

Sister Elsa and Sister Anna are a dream team. They are perfect in what they are doing. (That’s why I choose to name them Anna and Elsa b/c let's be honest, everyone loves them, especially together as a sisterly team). These missionaries mean so much to me. I really love them. My problem is just that maybe they are a little too perfect; a little too important to me. I’m like 100% sure, if it wasn’t for them – if exactly these two people wouldn’t exist – I would already have broken off contact weeks ago, like I had planned.

However, they do exist. And I’m so incredibly thankful that I had the great pleasure to meet them. Also, I’m quite certain that it’s not a coincidence that - of all people - I met these two girls. Okay, so I didn’t write anything in quite a while… there’s a lot to catch up on.

In my last post I wrote about goodbyes and husbands. So firstly, I talked with the Sisters about the husband-thing and they assured me that it was a misunderstanding. Husband and wife are absolutely equal. I trust them… I hope they didn’t lie.

About the goodbyes… well, I think differently about it now. After all those weeks with the Sisters, I’m sure - or at least I hope - that our goodbyes won’t be forever. Yes, as long as they are on their mission somewhere in Germany and don’t have access to social media or anything, we can’t have contact. I won’t see them, I won’t hear anything from them; they will be gone … as if it had just been a dream I suddenly had to wake up from.

Oh yes, that’s going to be hard. Like I told you, I’m not a person for goodbyes. If I could make a wish right here and right now, it would be that both of them could stay forever. But I know that this is an incredibly selfish wish. They’re probably looking forward to seeing other German cities. In addition, there are so many more people out there who deserve to meet these two Sisters – world’s best missionaries! They are fantastic and they can achieve so much. And also, I’m pretty sure that they can’t wait for the day when they will finally be home again, united with their families and friends.

Of course, they never complained or mentioned anything about feeling homesick… but these Mormons are quite the family people. I’m sure they miss their families madly. I will be so happy for them when they finally get back home! They deserve to be happy. They really do. And I know that they can’t be happy in Arendelle, which is so far away from their families.

Anyway, in such an era of globalization it shouldn’t be a problem to stay in touch, not even if there’s a distance of more than thousands of miles between us. If they don’t just pretend to be nice and stuff (which is my mother’s theory) we will stay in touch.

Good, so what happened since my last post? Hm, very much. Incredibly much! Like I said, I met the Sisters a few more times. I didn’t really have a choice because my stupid heart always told me to meet them. It just feels so right to talk to them, you know?

They taught me a lot about the gospel, we discussed, I doubted, they tried to convince me, they succeeded, I doubted even more… A lot of times I had the desire to just give up and go back to ‘normal’. Praying daily, reading in the Book of Mormon daily… oh dang it! Who am I trying to fool? For quite a while I didn’t do that!

I had exam period. It was a shock! You already know that I miss school like crazy and I don’t really like University, and those exams were just horrible! It’s my first semester in University so I had no idea what they would be like. I thought graduating High School was difficult but compared to University-finals high school was nothing! I had all my finals within 2 weeks and for each one I had to learn more than for all of my (High) school leaving exams together! No kidding!

You can probably imagine that I was pretty busy and religion was the least thing I cared about. I was convinced that the only thing that could help me through finals was studying, studying, studying. (Ever noticed that there is the word ‘dying’ inside of ‘studying’? ;D). No God, no prayer, no book would help me (except for my textbooks of course). So during exam period I didn’t go to church, I didn’t read the Book of Mormon, I didn’t pray… I went back to ‘normal’.

But after my finals were over, after my head was no longer filled with irrelevant year dates and all kinds of Middle High German grammatical phenomena etc. I noticed that something was missing.

In addition, I always had the weird feeling of being watched. I was all innocently drinking my black tea with milk in the morning and bam! – I felt guilty. I went to bed without praying – I felt guilty. On Sundays I didn’t dare to walk my dogs in a Park near to the church because I was scared to meet a Mormon and that I would have to explain myself.

The funny thing is that one Sunday after I didn't go to church I dared to go to the Park with my grandma and we really met Mormons. Two Elders. It was bad! I think I never had such a guilty conscience before in my whole life. My first instinct was to change directions but the dogs wanted to go the other way. I was hoping that they wouldn’t recognize us and told my grandma that she should just pass by inconspicuously. I turned around to see what my dog was doing and when I turned back to my grandma she was directly walking towards the Elders and started to talk to them.

I was dying a thousand deaths and the Elders didn’t even do anything bad. They were just smiling (what a surprise) and asking how we were doing. All good. But my stupid bad conscious didn’t want to go away.

So what did I do? I started to pray again at night before going to bed. What happened? I could fall asleep more quickly and more easily, and without feeling guilty. I was feeling more at ease and … calmer? I don’t know how to describe it, but the difference was clearly recognizable.

I started to meet the Sisters again and more regularly. I was honest with them, though, and told them that I didn’t know if and what I believed. I told them that I wanted to believe in something, but not just in anything but rather in the right and true thing!

My grandma had to join me for a few meetings. She knows a lot about the Bible so I wanted to have her with me to feel ‘safer’. The Sisters could have told me anything and stupid-me would have believed it… my grandma made me feel more comfortable.

To my surprise, most of the time my grandma was pretty enthused by everything the Sisters said. After our meetings we would keep talking about it. Yeah, we also made fun of many things but then I had such a bad feeling again and I seriously felt watched! I know, it sounds paranoid. Maybe I have already gone mad… well, not maybe. I’m entirely bonkers. But all the best people are, right? ;)

However, one day my grandma asked me to meet the Mad Hatter again. She said she had met the Sisters a few times, so it was my turn now to return the favor and meet the Mad Hatter again. I decided that it would do no harm to see him again. After all, I was looking for the right religion and I needed to give him another chance.

The Mad Hatter was pleased to see me. My grandma had told him about my meetings with the Mormons and he was convinced that he could talk me out of it. He tried to convince me that Mormonism was pure moronism. (Why the heck do these words sound so similar!? :O). The thing is just that the more he talked, the more I felt convinced of the contrary. What he said didn’t make me doubt the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints more, but rather less.  

He did his best to find bible verses that proofed how wrong the Latter-day Saints were. He had no chance though…with his Bible verses he only proofed to me that everything the Sisters said was indeed true…at least according to the Bible. Still, a large part of my consciousness told me that the church wasn’t true and that I only liked it because I liked the Sisters so much. At least that’s what my mother told me all the time. 

After the Mad Hatter was done trying to convince me of the ‘falsity’ of the Mormon Church, he briefly explained what he believed in. It was logical. It totally made sense to me! And he could proof everything with the Bible.

And then there still were Jehovah’s Witnesses. I know so much about that religious community because of my family, and even though I absolutely don’t like them I had to admit that their theories made sense to me too!  

The more I learned about religion, the less I believed. It was just too much; too many theories, too many logical possibilities. Oh yes, and let’s not forget the theory of evolution! I believed in it for years!   

I really felt awful. It would have been so nice to believe that life has a meaning; that we’re all here for a reason… That there is a God in heaven who has a plan for us, that life isn’t over after death, that we can be together with the people and animals (!) we love f o r e v e r. It was too confusing though. It seemed impossible to find out the truth.

I went back to ‘normal’ once again. I stopped believing in God completely. There was no praying, no reading the scriptures, … I even texted the Sisters and told them that I didn’t want to meet them again. Of course I didn’t put it that way… I tried to put it politely. It wasn’t the Sisters’ fault that I couldn’t believe! Oh man, how bad I felt!

Minutes later I got a phone call. Can you guess who it was? Exactly, the Sisters. I had already perfected my don’t-pick-up-the-phone-skills so I ignored the call. What could they possibly say? I was confused, didn’t know what to believe, my parents were more than happy to hear that I “broke up” with the Sisters. I thought that I was doing the right thing…my heart was bleeding though.

Sister Elsa and Anna aren’t stupid. And they don’t give up. Sister Elsa left a message on my mailbox. Ok, what was I supposed to do now? What should I do? I should just delete the message and try to forget everything. What did I want to do? I wanted to listen to the message. Just listen, I wouldn’t automatically have to call them back or something.

I decided to listen to it… and it was a mistake. At that moment I had lost. It was the sweetest message ever! I couldn’t just ignore it! That would have been cruel. I couldn’t really deal with my emotions at that moment so I went to my mother and let her listen to the message too. She said that it was just bootlicking and lies. The Sisters knew how to ‘catch’ people. They were trained and knew what to say to people in certain situations. It was painful to hear it…but somewhere inside of me I knew that my mother was probably right. I was sure that they were sort of ‘trained’ and I knew that they liked to exaggerate a little. But, excuse me, I’m only human! If someone’s super nice and stuff, no matter if it’s real or fake, then I will be super nice too! At least until I know for sure that it’s only faked.

I texted them and we met on the same day. My mother was a little shocked about it but I just couldn’t resist… I wanted to meet Sister Elsa and Sister Anna so bad! I wanted to talk about everything…and maybe end things in a more decent way than sending a text. They understood me, as always. I told them that I didn’t know what to believe. I made it clear that I didn’t want to be baptized in the near future. They promised me that I would find out the truth if I prayed and read the scriptures, just like Joseph Smith did.

I’m a good girl so that’s what I did. I didn’t find out anything though. I didn’t feel anything while praying. What I couldn’t deny, though, is that I was feeling way better after I met them. I wore a smile the rest of the day without even noticing it. And something else I can’t explain is that I left the room that day … after we had agreed on a new date of baptism. April 18… I mean, hello? I went in there to talk to them because I wanted to end things, but no, I leave with a date of baptism in mind. How’s that even possible? These Sisters are incredible.

I don’t know if it was the next meeting but one day we watched a little movie about Joseph Smith. It showed how he got his answer and restored the gospel. The movie was well made and incredibly sweet. After we watched it the Sisters wanted to know how I felt about it. I turned into stone; I said I didn’t feel anything in particular. You could clearly see the disappointment in their faces. I mentally slapped myself. Why couldn’t I just be honest? The truth was that the movie really touched me. I’m sure it’s blasphemous to say but I could identify with Joseph Smith a little bit. At least I know how he must have felt back then when he was 14 years old and wanted to know which religion was the right one.

But then came Sunday… one of the worst days of my life!

That's It, Isn't It?

January 18, 2015

On a Sunday at 7:30 am my alarm clock woke me up. On a Sunday! At 7:30 am!! The good thing was that because of my nervousness I wasn’t tired at all.  My mother had allowed me to take the car, which was great because Buses aren’t really useful on Sunday mornings. I picked up my grandma and drove towards the church. It was cold and windy and I wanted to die because I was really scared. I don’t even know why.

A million of ‘What If’s were buzzing through my mind. Fortunately my grandma wasn’t nervous at all. If she hadn’t been with me I probably wouldn’t have stepped into the building.      

At the inside of the building there were many young men in dark suits with name badges. They looked like some FBI special agents. Had we just entered a church or had we entered a police department? Those special agents greeted us politely but I could see in their faces that they were confused because they didn’t know us. I told them that Sister Elsa and Sister Belle had invited us. Their eyes lit up immediately and one of them said that he would go and get Sister Elsa. These agents didn’t look a day older than me but according to their badges they were called “Elders”. Weird, weird…

I only met Sister Elsa for the third time that day but it was more like meeting a good old friend. She was – of course – smiling brightly and introduced us to some people. Oh how I like meeting new people! It’s absolutely not awkward at all! Okay, to be honest, it really wasn’t that bad. I mean, yeah, I was my socially awkward self but all the people we met were pretty much the opposite. They were super friendly, brightly smiling, talkative (!) human beings. Sister Belle was engaged in a conversation so we only exchanged friendly nods.

We were told that church on Sunday consisted of three parts; each one was about an hour long. The first part was called ‘Relief Society’ or something like that. It was for women aged 18 and older. Men and children were in different ‘meetings’.

They sang a lot during that part and talked about an author I had never heard of. Everything would have been totally fine if they hadn’t talked about husbands. Yeah, that’s right. Husbands. They had some words on a blackboard. I think these words were: children, husband, god, family, church, job, friends and hobbies. A woman was supposed to arrange those words in order of priority. ‘God’ was already put in first position.

The Lady arranged these words like this: God, husband, children, family, church, job, friends, and hobbies. If I have had to do it that day, it would have looked like this: god, children, friends, family, husband, job, hobbies, church. The lady’s order would have been fine with me too because I thought it was her opinion, but then the woman that led the ‘lesson’ agreed with her and emphasized the importance of the husband. Apparently the husband was the most important ‘thing’ after God. A wife was supposed to obey her husband. I was just sitting there…stunned.

That was an impossible thought for me. Let’s just say I don’t have the best experiences with men (though I personally have never been in a relationship before but shush!!) and ever since I can think I always wanted to be independent … I didn’t even have plans to marry. Obedience to the husband didn’t sound any better to me than getting hit by a car or cut into pieces. At that moment I decided that this church was not for me. Still, I wanted to ask the Sisters about it first … just to be sure.

For the next hour we went into a smaller room with only 10 people or something. (I didn’t count ‘em). I still haven’t figured out the actual sense of that part but it’s like a more specific lesson about a smaller topic. I think it was about what happens after death. We had already talked about that with the Sisters so it wasn’t that interesting. Anyway, I didn’t really listen because I was busy laughing at Sister Elsa’s Bible. It was the smallest edition of the Bible I had ever seen! Like seriously, you’d need a magnifying glass to properly read it.

The last act was the ‘sacrament meeting’. My grandma and I were told that it was the most important part but to be honest, it was the most boring part. I really had some trouble staying awake. Probably it was because I wasn’t nervous anymore and I could feel the tiredness now.

People prayed, sang, preached and passed around the sacrament, which consisted of blessed water and bread. Sounds weird, doesn’t it? I thought it was completely weird! But then something happened that really struck me.

A man announced that some missionaries would leave today to continue their mission in another city. Sister Belle was one of them. She would go to another city and then she would go back home, which was far, far away from Germany. I would never see her again. It was like a kick in the gut.

I mean yes, I had only met her three times now but I already really liked her and Sister Elsa. I was really sad to hear that she would leave. And she clearly wasn’t happy about it either. She had been in our city (let’s call it Arendelle to make things easier :D And yes, I LOVE Frozen!! ;P) for a few months now. She probably met some great people in Arendelle and that she had to leave seemed unreal. No matter how much fun I have had with Sister Elsa, I left the church with a really bad feeling that day.

I said my goodbyes, thanked her for everything and wished her all the best. There was nothing more you could do. 

And ever since that day I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m seriously so sad! Yes, I knew that missionaries don’t stay forever but I never really thought about what it meant. I’m the kind of person who quickly hates people or likes them. And if I like them, I like them a lot! Most of the people I talked to that day were missionaries. That meant most of the people I talked to and I liked would be leaving forever sooner or later. That sucked!

I found out that missionaries get a call that informs them if they will stay or leave every six weeks. If I decided to meet Sister Elsa and her new, still unknown colleague again, it would only be a matter of time until Sister Elsa would be gone too… and then the new colleague, and the next one, and so on. It’s an endless cycle of making new friends and loosing them again. Unfortunately, I’m absolutely no person for goodbyes. I cling to well known things. Months after graduating High School I still wish I could go back because I miss school so freaking much and I know that I will miss Sister Belle for quite a while. If I get to know Sister Elsa better and then she leaves in a few weeks … that would hurt! 

I do believe in God now. I do believe in the Bible. I won't stop looking for the right religion! But after the husband-thing and the saying goodbye part … I don't think that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would make me happy.

Skirt Alert

January 17, 2015

My Birthday was on Friday. It was a great day but I couldn’t really focus on anything. I was thinking about Sunday nonstop. The Sisters had told us to wear a skirt. My grandma immediately said that she wouldn’t wear a skirt but I wasn’t really game enough to do so… 

I never wear skirts! I’m a Jeans-T-Shirt-Converse kinda girl. Needless to say that I didn’t even own a proper skirt at that time. In addition, I had no idea what a ‘proper-church-skirt’ looked like. My mother told me that it - at least - needed to be knee-length. Great, the only skirt in my possession was shorter. 

I spent hours to search for church-appropriated skirts on the net. I ordered some, using the express delivery, but of course they didn’t arrive in time. On Saturday I begged my mother to go skirt shopping with me. I have no idea why she agreed because she had said that she wouldn’t support me with the whole Mormon thing, but she did. She even paid for the skirts we bought! Those skirts weren’t exactly pretty (and I look absolutely stupid in a skirt!!) but they would work.

Saturday night... I was so freaking nervous! I don’t exactly enjoy meeting new people (I hate it!) and a whole church full of new people was enough to completely freak me out. I tried on hundreds of outfits but I didn’t like a single one because, yeah, skirts just look incredibly ridiculous on me! And those long skirts made me look like an old cat lady!!

Nevertheless, with the help of my whole family I managed to choose an outfit that didn’t feel too weird. I listened to Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ a couple of times and tried to shake off my nervousness and the thoughts of everything that could go wrong. It helped… at least until my alarm clock woke me up the next morning.