The Trip, Part I

It's not like I haven't gone on any trips lately--I kind of feel bad for not giving others this kind of attention. But this really was a special one. I signed up for a Church history class this semester because I needed two more religion credits, two more Honors credits, and something that fit with a crazy schedule. This class was the only one that fit the bill. I was surprised, though, to get an email this summer informing me that the class included a trip to Church history sites in the eastern US. My parents, bless them, agreed to pay the subsidized fee--and it was an amazing week.

We flew into Rochester on the 22nd. For the first half of the trip, we were in rental cars and mini vans. We landed and started driving, and all of us were just excited to be there. Couldn't quite believe it--midterms one day, New York the next.

The next morning we went first thing to the Joseph Smith farm. This is where the 14-year-old Joseph Smith prayed about which church to join, and got a direct answer from God and Jesus Christ.

I was just blown away with how beautiful upstate New York is. When we were flying in I had already pretty much decided to move there. The farm itself is also beautiful. And, this is silly, but part of what was so cool about being there was that that's where the Restoration DVD was filmed--the DVD I sometimes saw three times a day on my mission with people learning about the Church. It's a good one. Click the link, go watch it.

The Sacred Grove was a highlight of the trip. It was so peaceful. A few people talked about hoping for a life-changing experience going into the Grove where Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ came to answer a prayer, but that that didn't happen. That instead, there was a feeling of calm and of peace. The feeling here--that feeling--was like being in the temple.

Next was the Grandin Print Shop, where the first edition of the Book of Mormon was printed. As we were about to leave, a senior missionary stood up and said they were one of a handful of missions that was piloting a program with missionaries blogging. MISSIONARIES BLOGGING! Using technology, how wonderful is that? And it's not just the senior couples, but young missionaries, too. Here's his blog, and a link to all the official missionary blogs that have been started. I'll put a link in my blogroll, too.


This is Alvin Smith's grave (Joseph Smith's older brother), though his remains got washed away in a storm a long time ago. So his grave marker.

Home Again, Redbox, Halloween

I got home last night from a Church history trip to Palmyra, New York, Kirtland, Ohio, and Nauvoo, Illinois. It was a wonderful trip. I wanted to blog while I was gone but then I forgot my camera cable...so I'll post about it--with pictures!--real soon. I feel so cheerful since getting back. It was so good to have in the middle of a hard semester.

I used Redbox for the first time in my life tonight. It just blew me away. I think it's pretty much space-age. Technology in general is just amazing me particularly lately. Maybe the Church history tour helped with this--hearing lots of stories and reading about a time when communication was hard, transportation was hard. Now there are cell phones, computer models of buildings, instant publications, airplanes...and Redbox. The video comes out in a little case. It really is like something out of a movie. Seriously.

Today was Halloween on campus--the day closest to it that people could dress up for. This just delights me. I saw a black cat and a couple of wizards. There was the Queen of Hearts with a full Elizabethan collar. I saw a Miss Frizzle with red curly hair piled up, and a dress made out of planet fabric. I had two favorites, though. One was a girl dressed up as an old person. This itself is not that creative. What made me smile was that she was on her own, but still walking with her cane using little shuffles. She was on her cell phone, telling the person on the other end in a grandma voice, "no, today my name is Granny Granger, and that's what I made my second-graders call me." She carried on the voice and the shuffle for as long as I could see or hear her. The second favorite was when I went up to the video section of the library on campus. They keep the videos behind a big desk, and employees have to go get them for you. I was asking about one when all of a sudden Charlie Chaplin walked out from the shelves of videos. I was severely disappointed when he started talking to someone.

Out of the Closet

I realized today how much I don't like talking about politics.

In the half hour break before my French teaching class, I sat down to eat my lunch. Another student from the class (before anyone in my family gets excited about this: he's married) came and sat down next to me and pulled out his.

We were talking about the homework assignment and teaching and whatever, and somehow we got on politics. Or he got on politics. It started out alright. Things I could smile and nod about. Then he started talking about how terrible it was that the Democrats wanted to get rid of democracy, and that really what would be ideal is to return to a flat tax--I mean, people don't want to move up to the next tax bracket, and it makes them lazy. And some people end up living off Medicaid.

I realized about then that this was like those moments on my mission where I started talking to someone on the street who turned out to be very Christian and whose son had been a missionary in China and Australia and just blessed me for what I was doing--when I knew, a moment later, I would talk to them about the Book of Mormon I was carrying, and they'd do a 180.

And so it started getting a little awkward as I didn't really give any "yeah, I know what you mean!"'s to what he was saying. I started making broad generalizations as I was thinking things like, "this is why I don't talk politics. I hate disagreeing, and I hate arguing my points." And that's mostly what I advocated in our conversation (and what I really do believe): we have to start agreeing with each other, or nothing is going to happen for anyone.

The awkwardness increased, though, as it became evident that, even though I'm a Mormon in red Utah county and BYU once more, I wasn't agreeing.

It continues.

This was the second time this semester I've talked about politics. The first one was maybe a week or two ago when I was doing homework in the Wilkinson Center, and a girl came and sat next to me. She was a journalism student, writing a story for the Daily Universe, and could she interview me? I said sure. She asked me about the elections. I told her I had voted for Obama. I was gone for the first year of his presidency, but what I've experienced since I got home I've been happy with--our big problem, though, is that there's no compromising. It's just becoming more and more polarized--therefore, more and more of a stalemate.

Okay, so back to today. Me and French Class Kid were walking into our classroom. I waved at a professor I know who was walking down the hall towards us. Carrie, said the professor as he stopped, you were quoted in the Daily Universe...today or yesterday. Talking about politics. Giving your opinion. French Class Kid turns to the part of the class that was there--hey! he says. She was in the newspaper!

At this point, I just about died. I know that professor's pretty conservative. I knew French Class Kid was, and that he knew I wasn't. And I knew this shouldn't be a big deal. Still, I realized I don't like wearing my politics on my sleeve at BYU. No, I don't really like it period. I kind of felt like I was outed today. ...Still, stand up for what you believe in, right?