Page 7 of Living for Truth
Hannah
Ihate Sundays.
I’ve hated them for as long as I can remember.
But Sunday is for brunch and relaxing.
Not when you grow up Mormon—sorry—a “Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”
In the few instances I’ve met someone who hasn’t heard of the cult I grew up in, I consider them extremely lucky. Lucky they didn't have to sit on scratchy, uncomfortable benches and listen to the same lessons and speeches and stories about someone losing their keys and an almighty being taking the time to help them find them because they “prayed.”Invest in one of those tracking tiles for yours and God’s sake.
They’re lucky because when they turned eight, they didn’t have to put on a white jumpsuit and be dunked under water in front of their whole family and then be told that if you sin, you’re going to hell.
Lucky because when they turned twelve, they didn't have to sit in a class for two hours—an hour now—every Sunday and be told their body was going to be what leads young men to sin.
Lucky that at eighteen, they weren’t forced into a new group of young single adults whose sole purpose is to get married and “multiply and replenish the earth.”
I stopped believing in this sham of a religion about two years ago in the midst of my fifth miscarriage, after my best friend told me the true history, and I started learning about the fallacies in the doctrine. I haven’t stopped coming to church because I don’t know how to do that without causing a scene, especially now that I’m living with my parents again.
I haven’t talked to anyone other than my cousin Emma and my best friend, Sage, about it.
Emma moved to California with her best friend’s family a couple years after graduating high school. She’s living her best ex-mo life.
Even our cousin Elli left the church and is traveling the country with her boyfriend on his music tour.
I want to be free like them. Emma told me I could come live with her and her bestie if I wanted to, but I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. I think the familiarity of church helped during the divorce, but now it’s more of a pain in the ass than it is helpful. Idreadgoing.
“Sister Layton, will you read the next scriptures for us please?”
Shit.
I really need to stop letting my thoughts wander when I should be paying attention. Where were we?
My only church friend, Lucy, discreetly points to where the last person left off, and I mouth a “thank you” to her.
“Of course, Sister Mayfield.” I clear my throat and readDoctrine and Covenantschapter eighteen, verses fifteen and sixteen.
“Thank you, Sister Layton. Any thoughts you’d like to add along with that?”
I politely shake my head, and she moves on with the lesson.
Lucy leans over to me. “You okay? You looked like you were in a completely different world.”
I fucking wish.
“I’m okay, thank you. Just tired.” I check the time on my phone and realize I still have thirty minutes before I can get out of here and internally groan.
As soon as “amen” is murmured at the end of the closing prayer, I book it out of the Relief Society room so I can make a quick exit.
Squeezing through the crowded halls makes my escape take longer than I want, which means the second counselor in the bishopric, Brother Bragg, is able to grab my attention and call me into a meeting.
I hate these meetings. It’s like a job interview, but instead of them asking you questions, they’re telling you “God called you to this position” and questioning your worthiness.
The offices smell like old men and look exactly the same. White walls, carpet halfway up the walls, big oak desk and a brown office chair. Pictures of Jesus and the nearest temple and a filing cabinet behind the desk.
“Sister Layton. How’ve you been?” Brother Bragg asks, leaning back in his oversized office chair.
He looks like a villain, to be honest. Like most of the other members of the bishopric, he’s a portly white man with a bald head and clean-shaven face. His nose is sharp, and his brown eyes lack any real warmth, though he puts on a good show. He’s wearing a crisp, black suit with the standard white collared shirt underneath and a blue checked tie.
