Church In California

I realize that my blog has been pretty suck-tastic as of late. I'm working on it. I've got some posts a-brewin'. Maybe now that I'm seriously considering working on my thesis my increased computer time will lead to using the blog as a distraction again like it has been in the past. Anyway...

I have been home now for a few weeks. It will now be four weeks by this Friday, which kind of blows me away because it feels like it has passed by very slowly, but also very quickly if that makes any kind of sense. Being back here in the OC as a Young Single Adult (YSA) reminds me of how much I enjoy my life up in Utah. Church is just so different down here. Sundays feel non-stop with having church in the late afternoon, followed by some kind of dinner, and then a fireside. All of a sudden 1-9pm gets taken up and Sunday is already gone. Here, the older YSAs don't participate as much in activities, so when I go to an FHE, it feels like there are only 20-23 year olds in attendance. I haven't been to institute yet, but I know it's even more exaggerated there. In Utah I'm very aware of my age, but somehow being here as a single LDS person makes me aware of it, but in a very negative way. Weird how that runs contrary to what I might normally think about the situation.

You know what's nice about a student ward near BYU? Everyone feels like an all-star church member. Today in class, neither of the teachers prepared their lessons using much (if any) material from the teacher's manuals, and so the lessons felt very elementary. Today we had the Wentworth Letter from Joseph Smith as the topic in Elder's Quorum, which should have been a really cool lesson, but instead turned out to be a recital of the Articles of Faith. I ended up just reading the lesson in the book and leaving when I was done. It's amazing to me how much harder it is for me to not just skip out after sacrament meeting because the classes seem so ill-prepared. That's not always the case, but it certainly was today.

I think the hardest part about being a single church member in my stage of life down here is that I just feel really out of place. I've had this conversation with several other people (at least four that I can think of off the top of my head) and that seems to be a common sentiment, which is really kind of sad.

There is also a part of me that wonders if it's just a matter of becoming really involved in the ward and activities that are going on. Last week I volunteered for everything that I could, but it feels like I have to turn a blind eye to a lot of things that would really bother me. I don't really remember feeling like it required so much to get invested into church. Normally it's something that I pretty easily gravitate to, but that hasn't been the case down here so far. It's been weird.

This post is a lot of poo-pooing everything and I probably need to just change my attitude, but I am definitely glad that this is only a temporary thing for me. I love my ward and how I feel in Utah. If it weren't for family and really close friends here, I don't think I could handle this scene at this point in my life. So if I haven't seen you yet, probably just you Andersons, let's hang out because I'm not sure how long I'll be staying.

Just putting that out there.