Final Essay

I have chosen to write about essay question number six. It is a question that I have asked myself before: For whom should LDS authors write? I think there are two answers to this question. LDS authors first write for themselves and then others. Writing is meant to allow people to reflect on thoughts, ideas and experiences they have had. Writing can be a way to receive more insight or inspiration. It is a way for us to be still and receive revelation or peace in our journeyings. As for the others aspect of the answer to the question, there are two audiences for LDS literature. The first being the LDS believers and the second, those who have not yet come unto the fold of God.

The LDS believers need the stories of other believers to strengthen their faith. It is part of mourning with those who mourn. It is common that people receive answers to their prayers through others. LDS literature can be another tool for the Lord to answer the prayers of His children. This possibly can be true for non-members as well. The LDS community has been counseled to be good record keepers and this can very well be a form of record keeping. Even if the work that an LDS author works with is fiction, it is still a record of ideas and impressions. These works could potentially help our prosperities as well.

As for the non-LDS readers, the reading of LDS literature could help them get to know our faith. It is something that could lead to the conversion of many souls to Christ as testimonies are shared through life experiences and stories.

Something else important here and especially in our more modern times is that LDS literature starts conversations, opens hearts, and ultimately leads us to want to be better and more Christlike. Books, stories, and literature in general allows us to understand each other more and allows for empathy to grow within us.The importance of LDS Literature goes beyond our earthly scope and will until the end of times.

When it comes to marketing to a certain audience, there are possible problems that could surface. It is clear that something like the "Elect of Elohim" epic would have been hard to market to a more non-LDS audience because of its depth of doctrine that is within it. Without the doctrine, I don't think it would be too marketable and I don't think you'd want it to be because of how sacred of a story it is. I think the book Refuge would be more marketable to that global audience because it shows reality and some "not so Mormon" things within it which make it relatable. I think those two examples sort of paint a picture of what makes LDS literature marketable, how well and how correctly the works will be received according to their audiences. Finding a happy medium to which both audiences can be included would be ideal, but isn't always easy. Focusing on the importance of sacred doctrines would go over peoples' heads if they haven't internalized what they are.All of it is a challenge and as time goes on, the balance can be found.

Jeremiah: Kendal's Response

This series was very entertaining, but also accurate in a fictional sense. It brings up a more modern Joseph Smith type of situation. I thought it was interesting because the story felt more personal because of it's modern nature. It all makes me wonder what it would be like to watch this series without having heard much in depth about the LDS faith. I probably wouldn't understand a lot of it, but may just be entertained by the plot and suspense just like any other thriller. I wonder if I would wonder at the origins of the plot or not. I wonder how or if this has been a tool used for missionary work in some way. Whatever may be the answer, I know that I enjoyed it and especially liked it because of the familiar places where the series was filmed. Being amongst the LDS community, I appreciated the funny references and connections made within the film. Those things caught my attention and kept me entertained. I can't help but make the connection that even though the film falls into the fiction category, there is still a personal nature to it. The fact that something like this could happen to any of us. Helped me reflect on maybe how I might've responded if what happened to Jeremiah happened to me.

Avatar

Watching Avatar with this LDS literature lens opened my eyes to the similarities. The plurality of worlds, superior beings, the supernatural, progression of the body and mentality, the search for the rational were all evident within Avatar. The main character goes to a "new world" and people keep saying things like "you aren't in Kanas anymore." Thats like what happened when we went from our premarital world to earth. His brother and him were part of the same genome so when he died it was like he was resurrected with his brother taking his place. There was also the belief in having the ancestors looking after us. How they link us together. The concept of praying over someone when they aren't well and in need of a miracle to survive is evident. Praying together is another thing they did that we believe.

Burton had me thinking about deity how each Avatar was almost as if they were immortal and God-like. Hadn't thought about the digital world as a second life before connecting that to how the main character felt. At one point he says that waking up from being an Avatar was like the dream rather than the reality being the other way around. The thought and belief that earth has a spirit is a good reminder and is very evident within the movie. Kinda like Jake Sully became a new creature with his body, we did the same thing when we came to earth and obtained bodies. We too had a new range of being and function. This has taught us things that we couldn't possibly learn without them.

Essay Draft: Spider-Web Ties and Double Stuf Oreos

   Foot on the brake, hand on the key, with a twist of my wrist, I was on my way. With one 
hand on the wheel turning it left, I saw the shadow of an unknown creature with eight legs on my windshield. His presence was as calm as mine. This arachnid and I weren’t as different as it seemed at the time. Like that spider, I stand calm in the presence of fear. Pulling to the side of the street, I prepared myself for his execution. Looking around my car for the best method of lethal impalement, I remembered the ring doused in the space of the cup holder beside me. It was a large, silver and solid ring scratched by the woes of life of another. I picked it up between my thumb and two first fingers and brought all my focus to the victim in front of me. Not wanting to fracture my windshield, the first blow was light and slow only to get the animal where I wanted him. In that moment, the intensity in the vehicle increased dramatically. Panic was in the air and pumping through my veins in fear of loosing my prey. When he reached the target area and after two attempts to kill him, the spider took its last steps in his earthy life and was squished between two hard matters. Rest in peace web slinging soul.  

  Standing larger and taller than that innocent being that day, I felt a power that I do not feel today. Today I feel as if the spider and I have swapped bodies. That instead of me, myself claiming victory over death, I have been shattered by the unprecedented pressures of life. The pressures of self doubt, expectation, misconception, mistakes, heartache, trauma, fear, anger, anguish and panic are a few feelings that the spider and I share in common. The day I squished that spider, I did not empathize with it as I do now.

One sleeve of Oreos eaten.

“You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.” 

Ernest Hemingway

Milk is poured and drank in one gulp.

   Everything that you do not expect to happen will happen. Someone will call you and manipulate you into giving them thousands of dollars over the phone. You will do it. You will do it in spite of that feeling you have in the pit of your gut that it might be fraudulent. With a chilling fear down your spine, you continue blindly until it is too late. 

Insufficient funds and second sleeve of Oreos eaten.

  You will have a hard time returning to that bank. With the artifacts from that incident stuffed under your bed, they will haunt you like a ghost in your dreams. For days after, you will jump when people unexpectedly, but harmlessly come too close to you. 

Empty box of Oreos.

  You will date a guy and he will kiss you on the first date. He will heal your heart that was stolen from, but you will fall harder than you ever had before. He will tell you he isn’t good enough for you, but you will still go out with him. One day, you will realize he was right. You will stop talking to him and try to go after what you deserve, but you will still miss him.

New box of Oreos. One sleeve of Oreos gone.

   The boy that broke your heart six months ago will come back. You will fall for him again. And guess what? He won’t just come back, but he will break your heart again. Did you see that coming? I didn’t. 

Another sleeves of Oreos eaten.

   One day you will find someone who is worth pursuing but he won’t have much time for you. You will get bored and lonely. Seeking company, evil will find you. Yes, another boy.

Trampled. 

Crunch. Another box of Oreos gone. 

Kendal's Personal Essay Ideas

REFLECT: I wrote a lot about some excepts of my book about my mission, a spider, things from my journal and other concepts that I have been grappling with. Writing about these things and writing them in different forms have allowed me to see things in other perspectives. With these perspectives, I can see clearer and allow myself to progress and move on from things.

SELECT: I think I will write about how my character of the spider relates to how I feel about myself in present time. This will be abstract but also fun in that I will be portrayed as the spider in attempt to understand and put my life to metaphor.

COMMENT: I want to imitate this form here: “I want to tell her… I want to assure her...I want to impart to her...But…” (46) I think it would work well with what I am planning on.

PLAN: I would like to attempt to write in prose for my personal essay. Not sure how that would would exactly, but I play to attempt it maybe. Start out with the spider and take myself out of the equation and then bring the reader to how I relate to the spider.

Kendal's Incorporating Quotes

Writer Atticus said that "we are made of all those who have built and broken us." And at the end of everything I had experienced in the last eighteen months, that was who I had become. In a way, I did not know how to be or even who to be after who I had become. According to me, I appeared to be the same person because my name hadn't changed, but I was also completely different. Trauma and also the miracles I had experienced had left me broken but also whole. Broken at the point of not being able to fully understand what had happened to me. Whole because of the people I had met that had helped changed my heart for the better.

In the midst of both the depression and anxiety of my situation, but also not being fully encompassed within one or the other, I looked to the brightest light in the sky and thought it will all be okay. With that, I echo the words of Maya Angelou:

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that is rooted in pain

I rise

The triumph in rising from the dirt of a trial made the bright light in the sky shine brighter that day and fueled my heart to keep going.

Allowing myself to write freely about the experiences that have left me heartbroken, something that has helped me is the thought that when a writer writes a story down for the first time, I've heard that it should be thought of as the writer telling herself the story. I read that somewhere at sometime and it has shaped my unique perspective about the book I am trying to complete. 

Kendal's Bold Essay Response

I went through something hard today and writing an essay in this way helped me get some of my anger out about what happened. I was able to not only do that, but notice a pattern in my thinking and sort some things out within my heart and mind. It was therapeutic in that way and I was grateful to do it. It inspired me to keep going and keep my head up about things. The words felt free and helped me feel more free in a way. I was able to relax after writing this bold essay. Glad I could do it. The thoughts spinning in my head were brought out of that mind tornado in a way. I felt less afraid and less filtered in my writing and I guess that adds to that free feeling I speak of. Having that safe space felt right and beautiful.

Kendal's Belief Sketch

December 12th 2018 the clouds of darkness and confusion passed by and left me naked with light to cover me and bring a new and fresh joy to my soul. As I looked around, I saw the leaves on the trees were more detailed and sharp. I could feel my feet in my socks in a new way that in them I appreciated warmth. Smelling the crisp winter air, everything felt as if my senses were magnified for my enjoyment. The mouthwatering Chick Fil A sandwich that I bought with my firm dollar bills  came along with the bubbles of my large Dr Pepper I drank in celebration of my new life. It had been a long couple of years in which I'd seen light, but only glimpses of it, but not in this completeness as I describe. My whole soul exclaimed with the light of that day and didn't stop. I began greeting everyone I saw with a smile and sweet words. The birds and the bees called my name and I listened with a holler back. I could feel all of my muscles in my hands, legs and feet as I moved. This is how my life is supposed to be I thought to myself.

Kendal's Character Sketches

Seeing the sun up ahead, she had no fear of freezing. Reaching crowded trial of trees, she noticed the sun peeking through. Light creeping slowly through the leaves, warmed her conflicted heart with ease.The bodies of the leaves full of color, perplexed her mind like thunder.Thunder of the storm she was facing. And the thunder of each cloud that was covering. Each step over the rock-covered ground felt lighter as the leaves empathized with her and her trouble.

As I turned on the light, the creature's shadow projected larger. The light turned him a dark red brown and his details were clearer to me then. Such a simple creature with such complex features.The hairs on each of his legs were as fragile as he was.To think, we have the same creator brought things to light. His story is so different than mine. I didn't know of his travels, but I knew he was just alive as I was until I took that away from him.

She appeared to be a confident soul from Guatemala City, Guatemala, but her heart was in need of much repair. With a halfway bright countenance and smile, she moved forward. Having been raped as a small child, she still carried a large pile of rocks on her back. The difference for her when compared to others who suffered from something similar was that she could still see the light and hope that came only through the gospel of Jesus Christ.  

Three Scenes from Kendal's Life

Foot on the brake, hand on the key, with a twist of my wrist, I was on my way. With one hand on the wheel turning it left, I saw the shadow of an unknown creature with eight legs on my windshield. His presence was as calm as mine before he knew I was his last and final predator. Pulling to the side of the street, I prepared myself for his execution.

I am a writer who’s clenched, but soft hands were ripped and cut by paper from an unknown fraudster. Still terrified by traumatic events, suffers their effects. A morning, brisk by the air of fall, sent the flitting legs of a runner up a mountain.The raw air touched her bare skin well.

Dark dirt and trees encompassed her on her way. Seeing the sun up ahead, she had no fear of freezing.

I needed so much time to heal and I didn’t give myself that time. Instead, I beat myself up even more and the healing didn’t happen for a long, long time because I didn’t allow myself to be imperfect and shattered. It didn’t help that I felt misunderstood by her because she just assumed that I was prideful and selfish and she would tell me. That was the easy assumption. But it went far deeper than just a pride thing. My heart was destroyed.

Kendal's General Conference Analysis

Sister Reyna Aburto talked directly about depression, anxiety and suicide. I was there in the conference center as she gave the talk. To me as someone who has deeply been affected by depression, her words were music to my ears and were very much healing for me personally. Her talk cut really deep especially when she shared that her father committed suicide. For me, sharing something so raw and personal added to her ethos. She didn't sugar coat it and said it directly. It's how we should be about this genre and I think that is why I liked it so much.

I don't remember who it was, but I noticed some allusion to Lord of the Rings which probably woke people up and had them listening more than they were before. 

Another time I saw this was with Elder Holland. He told us about the little boy who raised his foot to sustain the prophet last general conference. He showed two pictures as he told this story and it was easy to follow, familiar and cute. It hooked the audience into listening to him. 

Kendal's Journal

Here's a paragraph from my own journal, followed by variations. 

Proud of my consistency of writing lately. I guess its a mode of survival during fall. Can't believe it's already September. I just finished my homework and I feel like I'm figuring out my schedule nicely. Feels good. I ran up a mountain today. Finally felt alive and was cured from my weird feelings of not feeling human. Loving my classes. My friends are great too. Feel like I'm doing well in all aspects of life and everything is set up for success. 

1. -proud of my consistency with writing

-can't believe its already September 

-ran up a mountain today

-classes and friends are good

-feeling good

2. Proud of my writing consistency and how I ran up a mountain today. Feeling alive and like everything is going to work out makes me feel like everything is set up for success.

3. Why do I have to write or run up mountains to feel okay? How is it already September? Why did I not feel human? 

4. Even though I didn't feel good, I got things in order and feel alive now.

5. Proud of my writing consistency today. I finished my homework and I feel like I am figuring out my schedule nicely. Feels good. I ran up a mountain today and it made me feel alive. Loving my classes. My friends are great too. Feel like I'm doing well in all aspects of life and everything is set up for success.

In reflection I can see the different ways of writing in a journal. Each gives a different feeling to conclude a day. It shows that we each have a choice as to how we do that. Journaling is an art form and I am just seeing that now and I like it. I like 3 and 5 best. The focus on positivity and then the questioning brings up reflection.

Annotations

As I was annotating, I noticed specific patterns in how each writer introduces himself. They use similar words as they do that. I think that comes in with the abridgment Moroni did. They write with authority and ethos in that way.

With this pattern of the promises of the Lord when people are wicked and when they are righteous they have consequences. Something else that catches my eye is the reflection of each of the writers. How their mental patterns are. I think its interesting how one of the writers says he fought much to preserve his people but that he is a wicked man. This was curious to me because I think we think harshly of ourselves no matter how much good we do. I know I do that and I've had a problem with that lately. Seeings someone else doing that and recognizing that has really helped me see how that is evident within myself. I guess thats what literature helps us do. Notice patterns of thinking and refining them.

BOM as Literature

As I consider looking at the Book of Mormon as literature, I think of a few elements that are details that go into it. First, I think of the story lines, plots, and character that influence the story. The writers also play a huge role in the telling of the story. Something to remember is that some of the writers hadn't been formally educated to write well. I think the gift of tongues played a huge role in its arrangement and writing. With those things being said and having read the book as an English major and putting on a literary lens, I can recall that metaphor, symbolism and chiasmus are in the Book of Mormon.

For all these reasons and more I think it will be very helpful to read the Hardy edition further. I have already noticed some of these things in the reading we did and it will be helpful to read further.

My First View of a Western Prairie and Elect of Elohim

I thoroughly enjoyed that first poem because of its connection with nature and childhood. I see it as a pastoral poem being told in a light tone that builds into an excitement. The connection with that and reaching the Western World holds different, but similar distinctions. The giddy feeling of seeing and being in nature is juxtaposed with the feeling of reaching the destination. The purpose of writing the poem is both to express those emotions and bring them to life, but also revealing and telling part of Eliza R. Snow's personal history. The audience is other members of the Church. 

I see the second poem as more of a narrative poem. The audience is anyone who has knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. That is what essentially the poem is, but in a creative way in which adds more insight and maybe some unique feelings there about it by the author. The purpose of the poem is to allow the reader to reflect about what happened to Christ through the history that we learn of in the Plan and have their own personal experience with it in a unique and creative way.

Kendal's Questions about LDS Literature

1. What is considered to be LDS literature?
2. Are the scriptures?
3. Is there a format at which it should be written or is it just faith based?
4. How long has it been around? When does it start? Who started it?
5. Are non members excluded?
6. How do we include them?

Healed by Writing and The Lord

I have always written, but it wasn't till I dug a little deeper to find my true inner emotions to express that I could understand who I am. With that and the knowledge of my divine nature as a daughter of God that I found myself.

When I served my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ, I literally gave my whole self to the work to the point that I lost myself, but not in a good way. I lost myself in the sense that I suffered in order to help others. Not only did I help others at my expense, but I experienced many traumatic experiences. The experiences left me with emotions that I could not understand and because I could not understand them, I could not explain them to others. Trying to understand, but failing, I eventually gave up on trying to either explain myself to others or explain the emotions I felt to myself in my mind and in my journal. I repressed many intense and destructive emotions along the concourse of the 18 months I was serving. 

Coming home from my mission did not change the way I felt. Because I repressed so many emotions I was constantly and unknowingly anxious and depressed. It took some opening up to be able to understand what exactly I was feeling. After opening up more and more frequently in conversations with close friends, I realized that writing a book about my mission experience was what I needed to do to be healed from all the repressed emotions. I did that. I completed a full book. In the time span of 2 years, I spent countless hours trying to sort out experiences, feelings and emotions in my own mind through writing and communicating with my God. He healed me.