Disclaimer: Being gutless as I am, and after the national threatening of Hamza Ali Abbasi, I have decided to write about a religion that is not my own (or yours, most likely). Please refrain from taking offense at any or all opinions presented henceforth, as they have no direct correlation with Islam (unless, perhaps, you draw your own).
My best friend at college was a Colombian who grew up in Bethesda - the rich backyard of central Washington DC. Julia was no ordinary mean girl. She was sassy, slightly crude, extremely funny and almost always politically incorrect - a refreshing personality wastefully (pun intended) wandering in a citadel of revolutionary feminists. Julia and I did some stupid things together. But nothing compares to the time when we became obsessed with the Mormon faith.
I guess it all started when I decided to spend thanksgiving with Julia during my sophomore year. On the drive from the airport to Bethesda, in the weird town of Kensington, MD, I saw what is perhaps the most, and I mean most, beautiful building in the entire, entire, District of Columbia - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was magnificent. Rising from the ground like Cinderella’s caste, the Mormon Church gleamed in the moonlight as if it was encased in a dome of fireflies. Every inch of that church screamed money and power, and I was intrigued. The next day, Julia got in touch with Jack Juvenile, an ex-convict who had been expelled from his Mormon faith for being caught having sex on the premises of the same church that had so piqued my interest. He was fresh out of juvenile prison (hence the name), but had recovered his Driver’s License and agreed to take us to the church. Our mental faculties were slightly comprised by the time we got there and we weren’t allowed inside (Mormon’s only, ugh!). Regardless, we spend an hour at the Visitor’s Centre, tracking down our Mormon lineage on a large desktop computer and learning about Mormons in Pakistan (yeah right!) from two Thai ladies. We left with a copy of the Book of Mormon, which I took back to college and kept safe for the next two years.
Everybody from the President of the church to lowly missionaries is appointed through dreams
I remember it so well. It was senior year. I woke up groggy and tired still and lay in bed for an hour before deciding to make a move. The night before had gone a little awry, as thirty lesbians had crashed Julia’s intimate birthday dinner at our shared apartment. I was expecting everything from dirty dishes to empty juice boxes to broken furniture, but was not prepared for what I found. The Book of Mormon that Julia and I had so painstakingly acquired (not really, but still), was missing from the shelf where it had been proudly displayed for all to see. It was stolen. We searched for it for days, spreading word far and wide, but to no avail. It was at that time that Jack Juvenile commented on my forlorn Facebook Status. “Just order a new one online” he had said. Our world was about to be changed.
The next day was Sunday. Julia and I were eating brunch in front of our TV when we heard a knock on the door. Two devilishly handsome young men were standing on our doorstep. “Anyone order a book?”
Mormon missionaries
***
Barry and Greg were students at Amherst and UMass, respectively. They were also missionaries who had personally come to deliver us the book and talk to us about Mormonism. Now guys, much like Scientology (and other popular religions), the foundation of Mormonism is very mysterious. Long ago, in the early 1800s, Joseph Smith was troubled because he couldn’t decide which sect of Christianity to commit to. He prayed for clarity and was led by divine intervention to a series of gold metal sheets that he dug up from the ground and translated into English. This became known as the Book of Mormon. Okay, so polygamy is off the table for the Mormons of today (I know, I was so looking forward to hearing some crazy polygamy stories). Also, everybody, from the President of the church to the lowly missionaries, is appointed through dreams. This is perhaps the coolest thing about the religion. The President dreams up the members of his cabinet, who dream up their subordinates, and so on, all the way down to Barry and Greg, who were super stoked to have been dream-appointed. As they explained, being chosen as a missionary set them off on a path towards the Sun - the highest heaven. Only the best Mormons will get to go there. Normal Mormons will go to the moon - a slightly lesser heaven but still kind of fun. And everybody else, like Julia, and me, would end up on the stars - the lowest heaven. There will be no hell for anyone.
When Barry got home that evening, he felt slightly humiliated. He knew those girls weren’t serious, although he really couldn’t figure out why they cared to learn so much about Mormonism. In fact, he couldn’t understand his own thoughts and feelings regarding religion either. Dream-prophecies were meant to be accurate, since they obviously excluded human intervention in important decisions, but Barry wondered why he was chosen to be a missionary in that random clerk’s dream. He had doubts. After all, nobody really ever saw those gold sheets or witnessed Joseph Smith translating them. When Barry was a child, he was told that most other religions were false because astronauts went up beyond the sky and didn’t find a heaven. But astronauts went to the moon as well, and there wasn’t a heaven there either. Barry was torn.
“Why do we get to go the stars just because we weren’t born Mormon?” the girls had asked. “After all, wouldn’t you be scared to abandon your religion for another?”
