Cassie's first draft

I sat at the park reading Walt Whitman while watching a child sit alone on the swing with no one to push her.

I watched a different girl with her grass-stained knees and Dorito dusted fingers flitter across the grass as she gathered a buttery bouquet. The sun-fallen weeds bunched in her chubby fists. She gave her collection of starbits to her mother, sneezing. "Wow! They're lovely," her mom said, she said she is going to put them in a vase in the kitchen. My kitchen has scab-red roses from Costco. I guess I picked them out too.

I am not nostalgic for childhood innocence. But at one point in my life I exchanged my dad reading The Little Prince to me at bedtime for white noise to drown out my thoughts while I sleep. And I don’t know why.

The month I turned four was the same month of the Columbine High School massacre. That same, tragic morning, I woke up hundreds of miles away with a popsicle swollen wrist from falling out of my bed due to a nightmare. Despite having what we would realize later was a broken arm, I insisted on going on my preschool field trip.

April in Minnesota meant I wore my puffy purple coat with the pom pom fuzz on the sleeves to the zoo. I used the scraggly fuzz to wipe my tears anonymously when the evidence of hurt leaked out of my eyes.

That day isn’t just my first memory of pain, it’s my first memory of managing pain without my mom.

When I got picked up from school, we went to the doctor and I got a Lisa Frank pink cast bound to my arm. My mom pulled out a black Sharpie from her ever-prepared purse and wrote “Mom,” substituting the letter O for a heart.

By the time we drove home, the victims’ names from the Columbine massacre were being shared, one girl had my name. My mom cried so hard she had to pull over the car to keep us safe. Sympathizing with my mother’s tears was as foreign a concept as death to me then. So I sat still.

Like many children, I was born full of helium. I believed that if I put fireflies in a jar at night they would turn into fairies and keep my room safe. I believed that the sun rays that descended from clouds were stairs for Jesus so He could visit Earth. And I believed that my parents could protect me from anything.

My mom stopped crying before she was done feeling sad to continue our journey home. I think that on that drive she and I accepted together that her love for me did not make me invincible.

Realizing my mom’s inability to protect me didn’t make me not believe in her. I still believed she loved me. I still believed she would tell me the truth about which Prom dress made my waist look best. I still knew she would edit my college entrance essays with harsh honesty even with late notice. I still called her when my car stopped running on the freeway and I wasn’t sure what to do next.

I never stopped believing in my mom the way I would, years later, stop believing in God when too many desperate pleas for divine intervention got lost in the mail.

I don’t think I ever stopped believing God heard and answered prayers, just that He stopped answering mine. I stopped believing that everything happens for a reason orchestrated by God (but I still, paradoxically to me, believed in miracles). I stopped feeling guilty that I wasn’t receiving Godly comfort, because I stopped believing the empty space was due to my own spiritual shortcomings.

Still, praying makes me feel like an amputee, reaching for God like a phantom touch.

I’ve tried to be a second coming a thousand times. Looking for signs of God in what feels like self-fulfilled destruction.

On a summer evening, I carried myself into the vastness of air to look from as far as I could climb. I watched as the west reached for clothes of new colors: Oranges, purples, and pinks. In this fuchsia evening, I imagined that my Mother wrote me a love letter of pink clouds. Surrounded by the sea’s powerful ink and a piercing sky, I live in a world of blue. Under the barely perceptible fire of the sky, I felt myself wobble towards hope. My heart longs for pink clouds.

“Bring me the sunset in a cup,” Emily Dickinson says. “Let it be full of cotton candy clouds,” I whisper.

I watch the heavens a lot for someone who never seems to hear back from God.



Sometimes I wonder if God is one of those people who likes to sit in silence in long car trips and feels like that’s bonding. I wonder if God is a Scorpio. I wonder if God is a woman and what She thinks about there being so few women on the Supreme Court. I wonder if God stress bakes like my little sister or if God gets excited to cross things off a to-do list. I wonder if God watched me cry in my car after a doctor’s visit where things didn’t go as planned, and I wonder if God, even though people are suffering far more than I ever have, I wonder if God prays for me to be comforted, the way I’ve prayed for people who didn’t want my help.

Julie's Personal Essay Draft

When some people hear the word divorce, they think of a thunderstorm. Parents’ voices raised in anger. Kids cowering in the background as they listen to the booms grow louder and watch the lightning flash.

But this wasn’t the case for my parents. For me, the divorce was a snowstorm: falling so quietly and lightly that the reality of what had happened was a cloud that had passed over before I started to pay attention. The signs were there. In my flowering innocence, my five-year-old self just never considered them.

Dorothy Personal Essay Draft

I repeated the same mundane phrase that I really only recited when my manager was around, “And if you apply for a Nordstrom credit card you can save 10% today!” I scanned the screen for the total and told the customer, “That will save you over $90!” Had I actually just convinced someone to spend nearly $1,000 on a baby stroller? My hands took the customer’s card and entered the information and my mind buzzed around the transaction that just took place. Wasn’t it just a few months ago that my hands had helped mother’s tie their babies to their backs with nothing but a piece of fabric?

When I first returned my grandpa handed me a large Diet Coke, with lime, that welcomed me home. My sister gently brushed through my tangled hair while my mom’s hands sorted through a suitcase full of long skirts and uneaten granola bars. My fingers sped through T9 texting on a small flip phone, because something about an iPhone seemed daunting and yet unimportant at the time.

Selling overpriced baby strollers was not the only thing that I did at Nordstrom. I ran my hands over jackets and shirts that cost as much as a year's supply of rice in the place that I once called home. I wandered into the makeup section where different sales associates tried to match foundations that would cover up the countless freckles that had recently surfaced on my skin. I enjoyed meeting my dad and brother for lunch each day and hearing about what our different jobs entailed. Occasionally, my brother would mention how he was able to use the Spanish he had learned on his mission to help customers.

I once was able to share a brief moment of helping someone in their native language of Portuguese. I shared how I had lived in Cape Verde, and with a puzzled look, she asked if I liked one of their main dishes, cachupa. I remembered my hands scooping this fish stew into a small container nearly every time that it was offered to me because I did not want it to resurface later. I told her it was not my favorite but listed a few other local favorites that I did enjoy. She smiled and told me her favorite American food was a hot dog. I laughed and told her she was welcome to come over that Sunday and eat hot dogs with my family.

While she never came, and I never even caught her name, this simple interaction left me wanting more. I wanted to use my hands for more than measuring small children’s feet in the children’s department of an overpriced store. I wanted more than pointing to a brochure about Nordstrom credit cards to customers whenever my manager was around. I took a few days off from work and drove to Los Angeles with my recently divorced friend. My hands gripped the steering wheel as she shared the emotional abuse she had endured for years. Had I not heard so many similar stories about mistreatment between spouses a few months prior? While I was no longer a missionary, I felt like some of those previous stories shared with me had prepared me to help this dear friend when it was most needed.

In Los Angeles, I received a few updates from work about who was the top seller of the day and what the goals for our sales team were. I rolled my eyes at how trivial this seemed. I visited the Los Angeles Temple Visitors Center where my hands framed my best friends face in a loving embrace after months of being apart. We laughed and cried and tried to count the days until we would be reunited in Utah once again. As I waved goodbye, I felt envious of my friend in her mid length skirt and strict missionary curfew.

“No feeling is final.” The quote from Rainer Maria Rilke echoed in my head on my flight home from LA. The last flight I had taken, that did not offer snacks or meals even though it was a transatlantic flight, was when I unexpectedly returned home from my mission and felt discouraged about the turn of events. This flight offered Diet Coke and snacks, which was comforting, but I wished the plane was taking me somewhere else other than my job back to Nordstrom. 

The words from the Rilke quote were in my mind, “Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror.” I have experineced both and was following the advice in the quote of “just keep going.” I reunited with a friend who had cookies delivered to my house and texted me everyday to wish that I would have a good day and at times I felt like I was in a Nicholas Sparks movie with the gestures that I was receiving. The beauty and terror I had experienced the past few months ensured that no feeling was final but a choice I was left with was—finishing my missionary service.

No one expected me to or really even mentioned it to me. I had a comfortable life and new
wardrobe that I had acquired while working at Nordstrom. Things seemed to be working out,
I had upgraded from my flip phone and had a boy who was texting me everyday.
However hard I tried to move on, I was constantly reminded of Cape Verde and the hands held of
people I loved there. I thought about the texture of the stray dogs I would pet, the meals I ate off of
tubberware lids, and my hands sticky with sweat, struggling to gather my hair in a ponytail.
These moments of discomfort reminded me that no feeling is final, and that my comfort of a retail
job and full nights sleep, was not what I really wanted to be doing. One text
challenged all of that, "Hi my name is Dorothy Smith and I would like to resubmit my mission papers."

Siera's Personal Essay Draft

I am worried mine is a little didactic. Any suggestions would be great! 

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.” -Blaise Pascal  

I rushed to secure a spot on the hard limestone bench. With 42 people in our class, there was never enough places to sit. My bladder was full, my head ached from exhaustion, and sweat was pooling at my kneecaps and running down my legs, just your typical filed trip. It was Brother Skinner’s turn to instruct us, which I was excited about. I loved his dry humor, his obscure fact knowledge, and his love of Israel that just permeated through everything he said.

            “Behind you, under that church that looks more like a beetle than a place of worship, is the house of Simon Peter. We are almost hundred percent sure that that is the place.” He explained. 

            We walked the expanse of the site, I tried to listen intently to the voice buzzing through my headset as I walked. We had been out almost three months now, and all of the places we went to started to look the same in some ways. Brother Hopkin had encouraged us to go and sit out and look at the sea read a few scriptures and ponder about what we read. After sitting for a few minutes, I knew I needed to walk again, the calming waves of the blue and green sea were putting me to sleep. I walked to the edge of the site back into the synagogue that was built on a synagogue that Christ would have taught in. For a 1000+ year old structure, I would say it was in pretty good shape. The remanence of pillars on either side of me allowed me to imagine the this once was a great room. 

I walked past the synagogue and looked out at the pile of black rocks that was suppose to be the town Capernaum. It was hard to picture houses where there was only two feet high black squares looking more like fort walls of sand castles, crudely constructed. Passing by the black stone town and I walked toward the buglike edifice and peered down at the pentagon shaped rock structure that was suppose to be the Chief Apostles humble home.  

The distance between his home and the first synagogue was significantly small. This was most definitely his home church and those black stones were his hometown. It was small and I imagine it was a pretty close knit community. Brother Skinner had told us that Christ probably spent a lot of time in Capernaum, staying in Peter’s home and teaching at his synagogue. Eventually, he would have organized his church in Peter’s home.  

I thought about all of these as I looked the glass that surrounded his home. Suddenly, I was caught for a moment in what felt like a vision, though I am not sure that’s what I would call it. In my mind’s eye I saw people crowded within the small polygon, hugging each other, talking with each other, and being taught by the Savior. I saw or rather felt, Christ interacting with Peter and his family. Sharing meals with them, helping them around the house, and ministering to them. The intimacy of these moments was almost tangible. I could feel the brotherhood, it was a glow and a warmth that was much different than the sun on my back. Tears filled me eyes. I felt an arm being extended towards me. It said, I wanted you to be a part of this. You are my disciple too. I felt that hole in my heart fill and this feeling mend everything that was broken. 

Growing up in the church, I have always been told that Christ can mend the broken hearted. That we can base our value and worth on Him and He can take away our loneliness. I told people that on my mission, I’ve shared those thoughts with my siblings and friends. Yet, I spent my entire life believing that I wasn’t doing enough to deserve His love. It wasn’t until that moment that I truly believed I was enough. 

Henry's Essay Draft

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the explorer Robert Walton wrote a letter back home to his family describing the innate feeling he had to go out and explore the world. Unable to describe it accurately he wrote, “There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.”

I’m not sure I fully knew what exactly I was getting myself into. Neither did my dad. We never really stopped to ask ourselves if it was worth it or if we should we just find a different weekend to go.

In the summer of 2009 my dad, three of my brothers, and I set out to hike King’s Peak, the tallest peak in the state of Utah sitting at 13,528 feet. I was thirteen and had zero interest giving up a summer weekend filled with swimming, video games, my couch, and friends, to go backpacking for a whole weekend. We piled in the Outback and heading to the trail. Cramped and grumpy, we arrived. Well, not really. Adam realized he was holding the map upside down (yes, a map) and led us to the wrong trailhead. My dad is usually a quite aggressive driver but man, I had never seen him drive like that before. Running hours behind schedule now, we arrived at the real trailhead. Our trailhead.

Five minutes in and we’re already soaked. I was fully convinced that one of us was gonna die from a lightning strike. I’m crying at night saying I want to go home, and the freeze-dried turkey tetrazzini isn’t helping. I sat in the tent while Will and my dad were fixing dinner and getting drinking water for us. Sitting and pouting. The next day wasn’t better. It was worse, actually. Dark clouds are everywhere, including in my own head. I lagged behind and was lost on the summit. No one in sight. I legitimately thought, in my 8^th grade mind, I might never see my family again. After screaming loud enough for my mom at home to hear, my dad found me and we headed back down the mountain, never reaching the summit.

Ten years passed with every August as a not-so-gentle reminder of King’s Peak. The most vivid feelings of the gooey mud, piercing rain, and bitter cold never fled my memory. My dad would occasionally mention how he anticipated the day that we climbed it together, but those memories came back and I stuck to my vows of never attempting that summit ever, ever again. Suddenly, in the Summer of 2019, it clicked. To this day I don’t know what changed or why, but I felt like Robert Walton.

My family isn’t an outdoorsy family who loves spending time in nature. Most of our camping gear is from the 90’s and our “new gear” is from the mid 2000’s. I hadn’t been camping for well over five years. As my dad and I pack up the night before our adventure, I felt sick. My Nike Free Runs and J Crew khakis aren’t convincing me that I am fully prepared for this trip. My dad’s boots are twenty years old and his Levis aren’t much newer than that. The drive up was early and cold. I was alone with my pacing thoughts as my dad took a few business calls. We arrived at the right trailhead on the first try this time and loaded up our packs. The scent of powdered Gatorade placed me right back in 2009 again. Suddenly my surroundings were all familiar. The trail, the trees, the river, my dad. A strange sense of unexpected confidence overcame me.

The first part of the day was quick and easy. Passing fellow hikers, stopping infrequently to catch our breath, and moving a lot faster than we had anticipated. We set up camp in a perfect spot next to a little pond and on a grassy patch that seemed tailor made for us with big boulders to sit on and rest our packs.

Then the rain came. And it came hard. My dad and I lay in our tent, deafened by the beating of the rain on our tent. It felt like thousands of middle schoolers were having on all-out airsoft war on our tent. We remained calm and decided it was time to eat. The turkey tetrazzini was back. Ten years later I was sitting in a tent, in the pouring rain, eating turkey tetrazzini. (I wasn’t crying this time, though.)

Morning came and we set out on the trail to the summit. Dozens of people passing us with the latest hiking gear who seemed much more equipped for what lied ahead of all of us. This day was filled with a lot more breaks than the day prior. Sometimes we wouldn’t take more than 30 steps and we would stop again until my dad couldn’t hear his heart beating anymore. I began to feel a little uneasy every time I heard his huffs and puffs. He stayed calm and I kept my worries in my head, where they belonged.

We arrived at the base of the summit. It looked eerily familiar. We finally got cell phone reception and my dad gave my mom a call to let her know we were still ok. I checked my texts and had to shift plans I had to next weekend. Then we buckled up and headed up the summit. Now we were taking breaks every 10-15 steps. At this point, I didn’t blame thirteen-year-old Henry anymore. The hike had turned into a climb. We thought we saw the peak, only to summit it and look on to see an even higher peak in front of us. A family of three passed us, with the young dad carrying his three-year-old on his back. Honestly, just find a babysitter.

Suddenly as I climbed up a boulder, I saw multiple heads poking out just thirty yards away. With a new burst of adrenaline, we pushed up ahead and arrived at the peak. 13,528 feet. Thirteen Thousand Five Hundred and Twenty-Eight feet. We took a seat, and then some pictures. Ate some snacks without really chatting too much. We just embraced the colorful beauty below us. It wasn’t long before the daunting clouds to the left of us started threatening. We packed up and moved down the mountain. Multiple people passed us asking how much further till the peak. “Not too close” my dad said.

The second we got off the summit and back on to the trail, we were drenched with showers from those clouds who had been threatening for so long. We put our heads down and marched back towards our camp at twice the speed moving down-hill this time. We were on our way home leaving the hardest part further and further behind us. There was never much chatter along the trail the entire hike. But in the middle of this massive rain-turned-to-hail storm, I asked my dad, “what have you been thinking about this whole time?”

“Your mom” he said.

Cameron's Personal Essay Draft

“Moonrocks, Nevada. A place where any urbane would dread, but for he who loved riding dirt bikes, it became a heaven on earth. A place that unites family in wholesome recreation, but at times can border the line of life and death.”

There was a time when I didn’t believe in a God. Nevertheless, I wasn’t what you might consider a problem child nor a rebellious teenager. I just didn’t think about the possibility that there might be something out there greater than myself, my family, or my friends. If you were to ask me what I believed in, I’d tell you that if I do good deeds in this life, I’d end up where I want to go in heaven. For my 19-year-old brain, heaven consisted of a motocross track, jumps, and all the dirt bikes I could ever want.

Marcus's Essay Draft: I'll Find Out, in Due Time

I’ll Find Out, In Due Time

An eternal promise to a mortal being; torment, light can’t unveil.

My relationship with Father has always been distant.

When I was younger, I felt close to Him in the sense that I knew he was there; like a child being supervised. However, the older I got, the more I treated Him like any teenager would – off handed communications and years of detachment. A blessing from my church Patriarch mended that detachment, for a moment. The voice of the old timely Patriarch, sounded familiar, though I had not heard it before; not his voice, but His. Reassuring. Calming, even.

Unsettling.

Oct. 23, 2011 – Journal Entry 7

Today in the MTC during scripture study, my class laughed at me because I drew an image of Jesus crossing the Atlantic Ocean to visit the Americas in a boat – a rendition of what I thought happened in The Book of Mormon. Apparently, I was way off.