What religion were you brought up with?

I know this has already come up, but I keep returning to the basic question, What does it mean to be a Mormon? What does it mean to me? The prompt in our book says, "Dive right into the essence of your experience. No explanation." And I just keep asking myself, do I explain something so all-encompassing? It's not possible to completely separate my religion from the rest of my life. It's like when tried to paint with watercolors when I was in Elementary school and I used too much water. Soon all the paints ran together, mixing and shifting until it was all one undefinable color.

My first memories of my religion are of going to church every week when I was really little. I remember when I turned three and I got to go to Primary for the first time and sit on the little plastic chairs, squirmy and bouncy and not sure yet what was going on, only knowing that I was now with the big kids. I remember dresses with ruffles and lace and shiny black shoes and socks with a little frill at the top, clothing that was special because I only wore it once a week. I remember learning names of people from the scriptures, Moses and Abraham and David from the Bible and Nephi, Abinadi, and Helaman from The Book of Mormon. I remember learning the songs from the Primary Children's Songbook, songs about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and prayer and faith and stars and lilac bushes. I remember my parents singing those songs to me at night before I went to bed along with "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Inchworm" and "Mr. Sandman." Once when I was asked in Primary to pick a song for everyone to sing, I couldn't think of anything except "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." The music leader just kinda laughed and told me to pick a church song. I didn't realize there was a difference because, for me, everyday life and church were one and the same, part of the same pattern and routine. I think every little kid thinks that everyone's life is like theirs, but I think that idea was reinforced by the fact that pretty much everyone I knew was a Mormon too.

Mormons have a reputation for being odd, and we know it. We call ourselves a "peculiar people" and it's something we're proud of. We don't drink alcohol, coffee, or tea; we don't smoke or chew tobacco; we don't date until we're sixteen and we don't have sex until after we're married. We don't watich R-rated movies and try to keep our language and jokes clean. We send out missionaries all over the world, and we don't pay our local leaders for all the time the put into their callings. We're really not that different from a lot of people, but we're so far over on the conservative and strict adherence scale, we forget it sometimes. It's a global church, with over 13 million members, but it's also very much focused on the individual and having a personal relationship with God, our Heavenly Father. Our wards become like extended families, everyone calling each other "Brother Herrick" and "Sister Maryon." We know about each others' lives and we are there for every part of it--births, deaths, illness, weddings, graduation, moving on and staying put.

It's a religion of sacrifice and obedience. The early members of the Church started in upstate New York, but because of persecution, they had to move to Ohio, then to Missouri, where they were killed, robbed, and ordered out of the state. The governor at the time actually made it legal to kill the Mormons. So again, they picked up and moved to Illinois, and eventually forced to trek across the country, finally stopping in Utah. This early history of sacrifice and persecution has been handed down to members now, become part of who we are as a Church and as a people.

There is so much hope and happiness in my religion, so many answers to difficult questions. There is support and comfort and joy, both from the organization of it and the gospel and doctrine of it. But it also asks a lot of us, and can become this tremendous source of guilt. It can feel like we have this extra responsibility to teach and preach and be better every day. It requires pretty constant effort and attention. And we can always be better, but the goal is perfection. We know we can't be perfect in this life, but we can in the next life and that's what we're working toward. It makes it hard to remember that it's okay to be imperfect here when the goal is always there.

This weekend is General Conference weekend, where we gather together as a whole church and hear talks and counsel from the head of the Church, a prophet of God, and his counselors and other leaders. In Utah, General Conference is basically a holiday weekend. Teachers lighten homework loads, families plan get-togethers, grocery stores sell out of ice cream, and most other businesses are really slow. We have two 2-hour sessions on Saturday, plus a meeting just for the men Saturday night, then two more sessions on Sunday. In Utah it's shown on TV so my family always made a big breakfast Sunday morning and watched the first session in our pajamas. I would work on puzzles while my dad caught up on his ironing, Rachel and Ethan sleepily watching from the couch and my mom listening from the kitchen. We turn on all the TVs in the house and usually at least one radio so that no matter where you go, you can hear the talks and music. Here in Pittsburgh I might be able to find it somewhere On Demand, but I'll probably end up going to our church building to watch it broadcast live from Salt Lake. My roommates and friends and I will probably go out to eat Saturday night, and we'll enjoy sleeping in on Sunday morning without any meetings to go to. It's a good weekend.