Letter to a Friend

Here's a portion of a letter I wrote to a friend last night. It serves as a sort of story-of-my-life, and a piece of my testimony, and a really great blog, in my opinion:

"When I was 21, I was still disfellowshipped from the church. I was living in Pasadena, CA at the time with my best friend who also deals with SSA. I was working at the Banana Republic, and was poor as heck. I had way cute clothes though, haha. But it was the most torn I'd felt in my life. I was working so hard to get my blessings back, and to be able to have full fellowship with the Lord's church again. But at the same time, I was living in a very gay-friendly place, working in a very gay-friendly industry, and surrounded by gays and gay-promoting people. It was a very trying time, and there were days where I felt my head was going to explode. If I could have afforded it, I would have gone to get counseling, but I was so poor. I saved up enough money once a week to eat at my favorite restaurant, as a happy treat! And I worked all the time to be able to live, so I only made it to church on Sundays and Mondays, and occasionally morning institute. It was different from home, where I used to go to institute twice or three times a week, fhe on mondays, and two wards on Sundays (I know, I have OCD).

But I knew I was there in CA for a reason, and I knew I had a lot to learn. I had been prompted to move there, and to grow there. In my experience, people in CA are very interesting: the members are either very conservative, letter-of-the-law type people, or very liberal, open-minded people. Though I felt loved by the vast majority of people, there were times at church where ignorant comments or announcements were made, and they were directed at the gays. With the help of my best friend, I learned to not take those comments personally, and learned to be understanding of others who didn't know any better. I learned to balance SGA in my life with the gospel, and let the gospel take precedence whenever there were discrepencies. I learned a healthy fear of evil things, and learned to maintain strength in goodness. A month before my 22nd birthday, I was refellowshipped into the church! And the day after Christmas, I received my patriarchal blessing. I was so happy! After 2 1/2 years, I was finally able to partake of the sacrament, and hold callings, and speak and sing in church again! All of the pain, the tears, the struggles: they were all worth this, being this close to the Lord again.

It's a time in my life that I'll always remember. Whenever I start to feel weak, I can look back at those years, and remember how hard I fought for the life I have now, even when I wasn't sure why I kept going. I know that it was worth it. And if being refellowshipped into the church gave me that much joy, how much more will I feel when the Lord opens the gates of the Celestial Kingdom to me at the judgement day?!

Besides, the songs that I wrote during that time have been some of the best ever! Depression works wonders for creativity, and so does it's reciprocating joy."