I arrived in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, and I've been rediscovering the real world. It's like they froze my body in 2006 & now they're thawing me out to fight the communists, like Captain America. I've used a Blackberry & a Bluetooth earpiece & an iPod Nano for the first time, and it's like watching my grandpa try to check his email. No clue what I am doing. But I'm learning fast.
Funny how things can change with old high school acquaintances, too. You might leave a girl fairly normal, for instance, and you come back and she's a bisexual with a braided mohawk and a tongue ring. For instance. And then some of the wilder blood-drinking Satanists you went to school with now seem to be pretty well-adjusted and happy to see you. It's a little unnerving.
My final interview with President Batchelor was terse and uninformative. Lord bless you, here is your commemorative lapel pin, give me back the credit card. But the testimony meeting was powerful. I fully expected to watch all the Utah elders weep & wonder why I didn't feel so moved; but I got about ten seconds through my testimony & started bawling like a child--and then wondered what everyone else's problem was that they couldn't cry.
I had felt a little flippant about it all that day, it wasn't "real" yet. But when we started the departing slideshow, I realized what a gift it had been to serve in the Arkansas Little Rock Mission, how unique an experience it had been. I had a fresh awareness of the personality of God, and how much He loves to give good gifts. So I pretty much lost my cool as soon as they made me start talking.
The flight home was the longest of my life. I tried to pass the time formulating some idea of what I would do with myself when I got home, but nothing seemed to come except a vague sense of peace, that whatever happened would be all right if I'll just do my best to live the gospel. So I looked out the window the entire flight, and listened to the married black man behind me flirt with the pretty white grad student in the window seat.
Shopping for clothes was amusing... I went in painfully nerdy p-day clothes & glasses, which along with the missionary hairdo was pretty depressing. The skinny blonde girl that worked there handled my attempt to buy classy clothes in the most deliciously patronizing way. Umm... why don't you try the pile of t-shirts with video game characters and little snide phrases on them, that's how you people like to dress, isn't it? So Mom had to help out. (Laugh all you want, my mom knows where it's at.)
Thus equipped with some gentile clothes, we went down to BYU to meet my trainer, the erstwhile Elder (now Sterling) Maughan. You could hardly look up without making eye contact with some beautiful girl, and you'd smile and some would even smile back. I'm sure I will often salivate for college life in the course of the next several months, but it will have to wait. It will be good to have some cool-off time, too, so I don't propose to the first girl who says 'okay' to dinner & a movie.
It's incredible, though, how all these things about which I've been fantasizing for years are suddenly real and in reach. I'm now required to worry about things that I've been forbidden to worry about for two years... college, dating, money, career, etc. Over the past week or so it's become much more strongly apparent that I need to look into a career with CES. I had considered it to be unrealistic, but it's starting to look possible, and everyone has been so supportive that I'd feel like a wimp if I didn't at least check it out.
Grandpa arranged for a visit with an Institute teacher who lives in his ward, Bro. Beckstrom, so I could ask him my questions and get a clearer idea of the job. His first question for me, amusingly, was one that had never occurred to me, and which took me completely by surprise. "So, do you like teenagers?"
I had to laugh at myself. I had given absolutely no thought to the fact that my lectures would have an audience--particularly a teenage audience--and that there might be some challenges associated with that."You know, teaching would be a pretty sweet gig if it weren't for the students, " he says with a laugh.
So, do you like teenagers? My automatic response was, "No," but then I thought better of it and it was, "Hell no"; but then I thought about it some more, and realized that one of the things I loved best about being a missionary was talking to teenagers who thought I was born wearing a necktie, and showing empathy and relating to them. I would be scared to teach a classroom full of bored teenagers, but it would be a thrill, a challenge, and I think I could learn how to do it. That's why you go to school for it. I would never be wealthy, but I don't need to be wealthy, and the perks sound amazing.
It's been an exhilarating week. But I need to get back to Colorado & go on a date. It's way past time for me to get rolling on that.
--Kevin
