So Isaac and I went bowling today and had a great time. As I returned home I saw two Mormon missionaries trekking down our street. I figured I would honk and wave but then I realized they were walking up my driveway. There was no avoiding them so I greeted them and invited them up into my less than clean house complete with a huge trail of ants in the middle of my kitchen from some popcorn that was dropped earlier.
I wasn't entirely sure how they got my name/information because they said they I had met with the missionaries before, which wasn't accurate. They didn't even know that I was a member or really anything about me, so I guess I wasn't necessarily on some "MEMBERS OF CONCERN" list they were handed at a sunday morning meeting.
They were extremely nice and ridiculously sincere, but it's always a little awkward to have someone you just met ten minutes earlier ask you about the frequency of your personal prayers and scripture study and why I haven't gone through the temple. They tried to do their best to give me pat, easy responses to the things that I told them I struggle with. ("Do you like icecream?... Well how did you know you would like icecream before you ever tasted it? You didn't until you tried it!") I give them an A for effort though. I am certain that the one was closer to 19 than 20 and the other one tried to relate the alienation I feel as a single mom in a family ward to the alienation he felt as a college freshman attending Elder's Quorum for the first time.... yeah.
It's hard to even work through the feelings I have within my own mind, let alone articulate them to a couple of missionaries from Idaho. Would I probably feel more like a part of things if anyone would have made any kind of effort to talk to me or get to know me the first year I attended church in my new ward? Yes. But ultimately will I ever feel fully included in any ward at church? No. I don't fit in anywhere and I probably never will. My parental status leaves me not single enough for the single ward (which is an hour away) and not traditional enough for the family ward. I'm too old for YSA crowd but too young for SA stuff (not that I am interested in that crowd at all). I usually leave church feeling lonelier and more depressed than before I came, which, honestly, doesn't really motivate me to want to go on the weeks I don't have Isaac or have to teach Sunday School. But, do consider the church and it's teachings to be true? Yes, I do. I mean, if I had to choose between "yes" and "no" I would choose "yes". So that's where I'm at.
So anyways, I don't think anything they have in their arsenal of scripted role plays prepared them for that conversation, but they sure tried hard. I assured them that I would make a better effort, took their primary-style Book of Mormon reading chart and promised that they would see me tomorrow (reminding them, that I do teach Sunday School and more often than not, I am at church). It wasn't until after they left that I remembered that even having them come inside my house was probably breaking mission rules with me being single and all (but that's a whole different blog). Oops.
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