29 June 2008: Provo, Utah

The Provo Challenge: Day Five

Sunday. God's day.

I told the twins I'd go with them to church because, since I'd already gotten a ride with Presbyterians and been to a Baptist service on this trip, I figured I might as well get a little more good karma for the rest of my time on the road.

The absolute first thing to say about a Mormon church service is that, quite simply, it is the drabbest three hours you'll ever spend in your entire life. I think the reason why I like Baptist services is that nothing gets me like a little Christian rock. And, more importantly, I need a little fire and brimstone to get me going on a Sunday morning

Well, the Mormon service offered neither.


But first, the format for the long-as-balls service is broken into three one-hour segments: The Sacrament Meeting, Sunday School, Relief Society/Priesthood.


During the Sacrament Meeting, I sat with Lenora on my right and a cutie named Kirsten on my left. Unfortunately, this meant I wasn't getting away easy this morning. When the bread came down the row, I ate it. When the water came down the row, I drank it. And when we sang hymns, I sang along.

And it was the hymns that were the drabbest part of this unbelievably drab service.

"Walk in the Way of the Lord," "I Love Jesus," "Jesus Was a Nice Guy"-- you can pretty much imagine what the songs were like. Nerina was the pianist for all of them, which isn't really as impressive as you might imagine-- my dog could plunk out the notes if only she had opposable thumbs-- but the funniest part of the whole thing was the dude who stood at the front solely to conduct the song. And keep in mind, we're talking the kind of music you'd sing in your once-a-week music class in elementary school.


So that was the hymns. Later, when Amber asked me if I thought the hymns were as beautiful as she did, all I could do was cry on the inside. Because, hearing them sing, it was literally like every single person in there wanted to die. Or, I guess, was already dead. Just entirely unbearable.

The other part of the Sacrament Meeting was the weekly speech, which this week happened to be given by a woman whose only qualification to speak at a church service was that she is a dietician. One can only hope she is at least church-ordained.

Anyway, I didn't catch all of it, but this woman's thesis for her speech was, and I quote, "everything in science supports the belief that exercise is good for the body, but these are the guidelines that Heavenly Father already gave us." Boy, who knew that God was so health-conscious. And who knew that exercise really WAS good for the body. Shocker, huh?

The best part about THIS, though, was that the entire time the woman was giving her speech, the bishop was giving a little "oh, great, so its one of THOSE Sundays this week" look to the dude sitting next to him. I mean, it was great.

(A final note about the Sacrament Meeting-- I don't know if it's just me, but the fact that Mormons always refer to God as "Heavenly Father" seems a touch on the cultish side to me. It might be something as simple as NOT saying "our Heavenly father," but leaving out the pronoun-- saying, for instance, "we should live our lives the way Heavenly Father wants us to"-- sounds, I'm sorry, straight outta Jonestown. Whenever they said something about Heavenly Father, I kept imagining a dude in robes being lowered from the ceiling by string while the people on the ground look up and chant "Faaaaaather, Faaaaaather." Am I wrong about this?)

At any rate, after the Sacrament Meeting came Sunday School, which was led by Lenora-- apparently the twins are quite high on the totem pole in their ward. There isn't much to say about this part, because it was mostly just reading out loud from a book, but I do have one comment. This week's lesson was about church ordinances performed by living family members for deceased ancestors. Basically, by doing something or other you can essentially "convert" your dead ancestors to Mormonism. All I can say is that this sounds VERY presumptuous to me. If your ancestors had their own faiths and their own beliefs, and are in their own personal heaven, doesn't it seem a bit rude to even attempt to move them to yours? I mean, for a religion that hasn't even been around for 200 years, and that has been persecuted or ostracized for nearly all of them, it seems to me like Mormons are stepping on a few too many toes with this one. Just my opinion.

Anyway, the final part of the service is typically split up-- Relief Society for girls and Priesthood for dudes, which seems rather anachronistic, but I digress. This Sunday, however, there was a joint thing for everyone. I was only sitting next to Kirsten this time, and we talked a bit before the thing actually began. She said that BYU was her third college, having started at the University of Colorado, but she didn't like it because "everyone there is a hippie." So she transfered to USC, but didn't like it there because "everyone parties too much" and her roommate during her one year there "drank just about every night." But she said she loves it so far in Provo, although she was really tired on Sunday because, get this, she had been at an all-night ping pong tournament and "barely slept at all." I'm telling you, if I had met this girl on my turf-- that is, if I had met her among regular people-- I would have absolutely hated her. But because she's Mormon, she was nothing more nor less than a cute Mormon. And, well, I didn't hate her.

Then she mentioned that her boyfriend had won the tournament, which pretty much negated the previous two sentence, and thinking about everything she had said-- about her reasons for why she transfered from Boulder and USC-- kinda annoyed me. But then the Bishop began his speech, and he was talking about how missionaries have a companion with them-- an older member of the Church-- when they go on their mission. The Bishop then asked the people to raise their hands if they had a "companion," and a good number raised a hand-- but not Kirsten!

So I spent the remainder of the service in a good deal of confusion, because Kirsten had said she had a boyfriend but then didn't raise her hand for a companion. As it turned out, the Bishop had meant Jesus when he said companion, so it didn't actually have anything to do with a companion-boyfriend, but I was certainly entertaining the thought.

The rest of the service was basically the Bishop talking about the merits of a YSA ward-- "Young Single Adult ward" in regards to socializing and service. As far as socializing, well, I've already said that YSA wards are a breeding ground for marriage, and the Bishop certainly didn't dispel that myth. He absolutely was encouraging romantic interaction among the students, and chastised "ward-hopping" because you don't get to know anyone long enough to become serious and get married. And mind you, "long enough" means four months. How quickly can these Mormons actually be hopping?

As far as the service aspect of a YSA ward, the only true happiness in life is to "be like Heavenly Father," and doing service for others is valuable because "it allows you to forget YOUR problems." This final part of the service was pretty unbearable. Let's just move on.

Now that the service had ended, though, don't think my first ever legitimate Mormon experience was over. Every Sunday, the twins make lunch for whichever missionaries are in Provo that week. Because, believe it or not, there are actually Mormon missionaries assigned to Provo. Apparently "Hi, do you have time today to hear about the Mormon Church?" is an innovative and effective way to educate the people who live next to a school named after the leader of the Mormon Church about the Mormon Church.

So the twins made pasta and garlic bread, and this week's two missionaries came over-- a young dude around 22 years old and an older dude around 30. Now, I gotta tell you, I can only remember one time when Mormon missionaries came to my door, and I can't for the life of me tell you what I thought of them. However, if you think these dudes would be stuffy or obnoxious or overbearing with their beliefs, you're dead wrong.

To be perfectly honest, for the first hour or so they were just a couple of nice dudes eating pasta and hanging out. Considering that these two missionaries, in the midst of their mission, were OK with the fact that I was staying with the twins, that just about says it all. We just hung out and talked, and they were digging the adventure of my trip. Mind you, nothing too out of the ordinary was said, but they were cool dudes.

That is, until the younger dude asked if I had any questions for him. This was something of an immediate red flag to me, because I didn't want to steer the conversation from regular stuff to Mormon stuff, so I asked how big the "Y" was-- the big white "Y" that is on the mountains right next to campus. The young dude said "haha, that's not good enough," and I knew it was on-- I was about to get missioned.

Still, I was wary about setting him off with anything deep, meaningful, or, well, religious. So I went with "why are Mormons persecuted," which I figured was safe enough. Not so.

Now, I honestly can't tell you what he said. I mean, I can pretty much sum it up for you in one sentence-- "Jesus Christ appearing to Joseph Smith was the most beautiful thing in the history of the world." I can even tell you what the twins said when he asked them how they know the truth about Jesus-- the rather intangible "I can feel it deep in my bones." Hell, I can even tell you what Deborah said when he asked her why she's glad to know the truth about Jesus-- the even more intangible "because it feels like a warm hug whenever I cry." But I honestly can't tell you a specific word he said.

That didn't matter, though, because this younger missionary dude had better eye contact than anyone I've ever met in my entire life. Seriously, it was some great fucking eye contact. And his voice was literally and almost like rain falling on the roof. So I don't know a single thing that he said, but boy was my attention unwavering.

Somehow, though, I was on the money in the one audience-participation moment of the afternoon. The dude was going on and on, and suddenly he told me to describe my father. Thank god I actually heard him ask me this, so at least there's that, but it snapped me out of a near-doze and so all I could think of was "strong and provider." The missionary dude said "so is Heavenly Father." (Oh come on, they said the same thing about Charles Manson, am I REALLY off-base in thinking Heavenly Father sounds like a cult leader?)

Anyway, I wish I had said "absent and deadbeat." What would he have said to THAT, huh?

The last thing he said was that I'm going to heaven. For all the faults anyone might have with the Mormon faith, at least you can say that they're very heaven-friendly. As long as you're a good person, Mormons think you're going to heaven. I like that. Although I still could have used some fire and brimstone.

So finally the missionaries left, but not before they knelt and said a prayer for me and my journeys. For those of you keeping track at home, this means I had now had a prayer said for me and my journeys by Presbyterians, Baptists, and Mormons. I was feeling pretty invincible. All I needed was a Jew and a Muslim and I'd have the complete set.

After the prayer, the younger missionary gave me a Book of Mormon and said he would pray that I might "find the truth." I took the book, and might give it a glance over since that's the least I can do, but this exemplifies my main problem with the missionaries-- I have a hard time with people using words like "truth" or "proof" or "know" when talking about religion. I mean, yeah, more power to you if you believe it, but religion is by definition an act of faith. You can't "know" religion to be "true," and you certainly can't have "proof" of it, and I just have a hard time taking religious types seriously when they make claims for any of those three.

At any rate, they left, and it was just me, the twins, and Amber in the living room. Amber and Nerina went back to Nerina's room, and now it was just me and Lenora, together again at the site of the original scandal-- the living room couch. Lenora asked me what I thought of the missionaries, and I said that they were nice dudes. She asked what I thought of getting missioned, and I just held up my brand new Book of Mormon and said "well, I've got this now."

She smiled and said something about how I had seemed really into it. I didn't disagree but asked her what she meant by that, and she said she was impressed by how I was paying such good attention while the younger dude was talking to me. I didn't disagree. And then she said she was impressed by how I had given such a thoughtful answer to the question about my father. I didn't disagree.

And I guess she must have really been quite impressed. Because, and I would never in a million years have missed this signal, but she gave me what was undoubtedly the Mormon come-hither: she pulled the blanket over her lap.

Think about this for a second.

1) It was two days before July, not to mention over 90 degrees outside.
2) She was impressed by my performance with the missionaries.
3) She felt Mormon regret the last time we Mormon made out on the couch.

Really, women all over this nation give sultry glances from across the bar, but Mormons pull the blanket over their laps. So she gave me the Mormon come-hither and I Mormon went thither. I moved over a little bit and put my hand under the blanket, because I knew she was ready to enjoy a little Mormon foreplay safely out of the discerning eye of Nerina and Amber.

But, let me tell you, we didn't linger too long with the Mormon foreplay-- no sir, we went full speed ahead to a Mormon make out, except for that this was a bit more than a Mormon make out. I would actually go ahead and call it a Mormon hook up.

Don't get too excited yet, though. The thing about the Mormon hook up is that, while emphatically a hook up for Mormons, it nonetheless still falls below a regular make out. The scale, then, to my knowledge is Mormon make out---Mormon hook up---regular make out---regular hook up, with whatever gradations you'd like in between.

The Mormon hook up differs from the Mormon make out in terms of physical activity, of course, but more important is that it takes the emotional state of willingness to the next level. When you Mormon make out with someone for the first time, the girl is in a nearly completely passive state-- that is, the guy goes in for the kiss and the girl basically just sits there and kisses back until the guy pulls away.

The Mormon hook up, though, is mostly about the girl's emotional dirrrtying-- it typically comes a few days after any given Mormon make out, when the girl is safely secure that she has escaped Heavenly Father's wrath.

Now, in a Mormon hook up, the girl still of course never makes the first move-- never ever. But the difference is that, during a Mormon hook up, the girl might linger a while. To best explain this is that the Mormon hook up is where the girl might put her hands on the sides of the guy's head-- encouraging him to stay as long as he likes and suggesting that she, too, might be feeling the electicity of the moment. Along these lines, the Mormon hook up is where the girl might introduce tongue into the equation. "Yes, that's my tongue in your mouth, and I don't care if I'm going to hell because of it."

The other part of the Mormon hook up is the physical lovin', and here is where the ranking of the Mormon and non-Mormon versions of making out and hooking up become debatable. For argument's sake, let's call regular making out strictly kissing and regular hooking up anything more than that but less than sex. For Mormons, let's call making out how I defined it before and let's call BAD DECISION anything pre-marital below the belt.

So where does that leave a Mormon hook up? Well, on the kissing front, a regular make out is almost by definition better than a Mormon hook up. I know I said that the Mormon hook up might introduce the tongue action, but in a regular make out it's safe to say that the tongue action was, comparatively, already introduced yesterday. You'll have to either take my word on this or go make out with a Mormon girl.


The rest is where it gets tricky. A regular make out is no hands. Again going by the definition above, once you get the happy hands you've gotten yourself into a regular hook up. On the flip side, though, and contrary to what you might think, a Mormon hook up doesn't 100% forbid happy hands. Although, of course, anything below the belt is a BAD DECISION.

But above the belt? Let's just say that the Mormon hook up has been known to look the other way. The one caveat, though, is that Mormon flirtation rules apply when dealing with a frisky Mormon hook up-- you have to make it seem like an accident.

Let me run this next part by you, to show you what I mean. Because, while I may not kiss and tell, you bet your ass I'll Mormon hook up and tell.

So, to start with, after some Mormon hook up kissing Lenora kinda finagled her body so that she was at the end of the couch and then kinda finagled mine so that lying down with my head on her lap was the convenient solution. I'm not exactly sure what part of the Mormon hook up this was, but my best guess is that it has something to do with a Mormon hook up being one step closer to a post-marital BAD DECISION, which is of course not a bad decision at all, but which is one step closer to having children. Maybe part of the Mormon hook up is the erotic longings of having a family and letting your child sleep on your lap?

Or maybe lying down with my head on her lap meant that I was giving her Mormon oral sex. Hell, you decide.

Either way, the main point is that she took my hand while I was lying down and held it for a little bit. Standard fare. Then she raised my hand and gave it a little kiss. Standard fare. Then oops, she accidentally dropped my hand and when she caught it she accidentally grazed it against her breasts. Bam, Mormon hook up.

So this happened for a little while, and eventually Nerina came into the living room and suggested that we drive to the river and read scriptures. Hot diggity dog.

We drove about 15 minutes away-- because apparently you need that "perfect spot" to really get the scriptures flowing-- but within three minutes of Nerina reading the mosquitos were starting to hover. And these girls, for all their wonderful charms, have a more irrational fear of mosquitos than anyone that I've ever known for anything else. So back into the car we went.

We started driving back home, but I had a date with a girl named Katie who I had met at the dinner bbq-dance party the night before. She was cute. But on the other hand she was a BYU student. But back on the first hand she hadn't been too into the country dancing. I figured there was at least a little potential.

The twins dropped me off outside Katie's apartment and when she came out she was looking kinda frazzled. She asked me what I wanted to do, and when I said it didn't really matter to me she looked even more frazzled. She asked if I wanted to walk around campus. Sure, it's a Mormon date after all.

So we walked around for an hour or so, and Katie was looking nervous as hell the entire time. We hit it off pretty well and had a good time, and she was a cutie, but she was also so unbelievably conservative I didn't know what to do with myself. I don't mean politically, because thank God we didn't get into that, but this girl is as Mormon as they come. She's only kissed one dude in her entire life, which I guess is to be expected by a strictly conservative Mormon but seems pretty unbelievable anyway. But more than just that, she said it's "so unlike me to go out with someone I just met, I can't believe I'm here with you."

No, that's right. We were taking a walk around campus. It was a pretty big step for her.

So we kept walking around, and considering all the huge differences between us it was pretty incredible that we were getting along. And, I'm telling you, this girl could not stop repeating how big of a shocker it was that she was out with a guy she "barely even knows."

Finally we headed back to her place. Of course, by this point it was getting towards midnight and under no circumstances could she have a guy in her apartment after midnight. Which, along with "no one of the opposite sex in a bedroom at any time," is the golden rule of housing. I can't even BEGIN to imagine what Katie's response would have been if I had met her that first night and needed a place to crash.

So we got to her place and I met her roommates, who were nice enough. But since I couldn't stay we decided to head to the canyon instead, which is one of the main places BYU students go at night to hang out. Well, wouldn't you know, the roommates decided to invite themselves along.

Now, group dating is a pretty big thing for BYU students-- and the whole idea of BYU group dating is, I believe, a result of the culture of "creative dating." When a BYU kid goes on a date he's not taking her to the bar, he's probably not taking her out to dinner, and he's definitely not taking her home afterwards to get laid. So if the dude and his date are going to a bonfire, the more the merrier. If they're having a picnic, the more the merrier. If they're playing a life-sized game of human Risk, you bet your ass there's going to be a crowd. After all, a life-sized game of human Risk is the #1 "date" for BYU students. Hell, even if a dude's only cooking dinner for his date and then they're watching a movie, you might as well make it a dinner party. It's not like anyone's going to need any privacy.

What it comes down to is that, with BYU dating, fun equals creativity. And since dating means being creative with two people, you might as well make it ten. Not to mention that, if you're quintuple-dating, even if Satan gets a hold of you and puts impure thoughts in your head, there's no way for you act on them. That might also be why group dating is so encouraged by the elders.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that other couples coming along on dates is mostly par for the course in Provo. But this situation that we had with Katie and her roommates, this wasn't a group date. This was, surprise of surprises, a Mormon bar save.

With some HUGE distinctions.

First of all, and this couldn't be any more obvious, a Mormon bar save will never in a billion years take place in a bar. It's just not going to happen, ever. A Mormon bar save will take place in a park, or on a walk, or maybe at a dance, but just like a regular bar save it's when a chick steps in to save her friend from the guy that's talking to her.

The second thing about the Mormon bar save is that, and anyone outside of the state of Utah would agree with this, the girl who's doing the saving isn't exactly saving the world. A Mormon bar save protects the girl from the creep who's trying to connect with her soul in conversation, or saves the girl from the sketch-ball who's trying to hold her hand, or God forbid shields the girl from the Shadester McShadikins who's going in for a kiss on the cheek. We're not exactly dealing with Pike guys here.

The third thing about the Mormon bar save, and my favorite, is the tactics employed on the save. A 49-State bar save might employ the "lesbian lover" technique, and even the dude who's game is getting shot down can at least respect the intriguing, if also obviously false, hotness of the save. Not gonna happen in Provo, the anti-homosexual capital of America. Not even if they're lesbians. And not even if they're NOT lesbians. Trust me, you'll get some Mormon fun with your Mormon bar save. Not quite as good as the lesbian lovers.

The other funny thing about the Mormon bar save is that, because we're talking about Mormons here, the girl whose dude is getting interceded can under no circumstances change the outcome of the save. Hand-holding, let me remind you, is just one step short of Mormon making out, which is just one step short of Mormon hooking up, which is just one step short of BAD DECISION, which is just one step short of getting pregnant and going to hell. So no matter how much the girl doesn't want her friends to Mormon bar save her from the dude, tough luck-- if she protests it, everyone knows she's on the fast track to hell.

So that's how we found ourselves on our way to the canyon with Katie's roommates in tow. Any by "in tow," what I mean is that Katie and I rode together in one car and the roommates rode together in another car. Katie had looked pretty devastated when her roommates came downstairs and said they were coming along, and Katie herself had apologized profusely to me when she heard the news, but because she couldn't do anything about the Mormon bar save I guess riding in her car alone was the consolation prize.

And no, you creeps, I didn't hold her hand.

So we went a little ways towards the canyon and got out at a field. Katie and I sat down and talked for a little bit while the two roommates had brought along a soccer ball and were kicking it back and forth-- and hopefully feeling stupid for Mormon bar saving a girl from the guy she's sitting in a field with and talking to. The good news is that, since I had been missioned that afternoon, I had of wealth of things to talk about. The even better news is that, since I had a wealth of things to talk about, I didn't once have to resort to calling the Mormon Church a cult.

So we sat and talked, and I can't be thankful enough that this was on my fifth day in Provo. Because had it been sooner, and had I spent an hour talking to this VERYconservative and VERYmormon girl any earlier in my trip, I probably would have left the very next day. As it was, though, I was prepared. And, I should add, by this point I had learned the exact proportion of serious and comedy that are needed for a good conversation with a cute Mormon girl. Which, for the record, is about 80-20.

It was a beautiful night out, and I told Katie that I thought it was perfect conditions for a camp-out. I asked if she'd want to camp out too-- you know, because if you suggest camping out and bonfires and picnics and life-sized games of human Risk you've got a 50% chance of convincing a Mormon to do just about anything-- and her answer was a resolute no. Not that I was so very surprised by this, although if the roommates had stayed along-- which I know they would have-- it seems to me like it would have been nothing but good, clean Mormon fun. With maybe a little scriptures thrown in there.

But no dice. So, instead, Katie dropped me off at Denny's. Like you didn't know that was going to happen.

This time, however, I had called up Taz and told him to meet me there. Yes, Taz-- I hadn't seen him since Thursday night, and had never seen him outside of Macey's except for the brief time in the hot tub, but I figured he'd be a good dude to hang out with on a Sunday night. So I got to Denny's and waited a few minutes before Taz showed up with a girl on his arm.

It should be mentioned that Taz doesn't go to BYU. It should also be mentioned that this chick was only in Provo for the summer, and so definitely didn't go to BYU. Not to mention, might not have even been Mormon. So when I say that they were "all over each other" at Denny's, do take it with a grain of salt-- but only a grain. They were all over each other "as far as Provo goes," no doubt, but the chick was definitely dropping some hints that our boy Tazzer was going to get lucky that night.

Needless to say, and not just because Taz had good things in store for him that night, I didn't give two shits when he and his chick left. They got up to pay for their food and I walked to the cash register with them, and the cashier-- a cute girl whose name I think was Aushel, although that does seem a bit retarded-- said that she recognized me as it was my third consecutive night at Denny's. She then said that she had sat a couple of scraggly-looking dudes at the table behind where Taz and I were sitting because she had seen that I was mostly meeting people during my time there-- which the exception, of course, of Taz-- and that she thought they'd be cool people to talk to.

So I went over and sat down with these two dudes. Only one of them was scraggly-looking-- albeit very scraggly-looking-- but they were both of the hippie variety, what with their drawing pictures of things and eating hash browns at 2:00 in the morning. Since that's what hippies do.

But these dudes were invested as hell in their pictures, and literally not even saying three words a piece. I was rather, well, bored-- although I hate to speak so low of a Denny's. And since it was late and I was tired, I decided to call it a night.

So I went back to the cash register to talk to Aushel, since I figured her helping me out with the table-- regardless of how enthusiastic the dudes sitting at it were-- counted for at least something. She said she was getting off work in about half an hour, so I asked if I could get a ride back towards town and she said she was going the other way. Which, at least, meant she probably didn't go to BYU. So then, just before I headed back to the house, I asked if she wanted to get lunch the next day, and she said she would be at the Seven Peaks water park all day.

Well wouldn't you know, that's where the twins and I were going, too. What luck.