Kara's Wedding

I was in Sacramento last weekend for the wedding of a close friend of mine. I would say we were best friends for several years. We used to work together. We both served missions. We did all manner of girly things together. She is the closest thing I've ever had to a sister. She has been dating this convert from Mexico for a couple of years. I expected them to be married in the temple, but they had a civil wedding in her parent's back yard. I didn't pry to find out why they didn't go to the temple. It would probably be pretty easy to guess. I didn't spend lot of time with her before the wedding, perhaps I planned it that way subconsciously. She does not yet know about my new religious development and I wasn't ready to tell her. I especially didn't want to draw attention away from her on her big day. I will tell her when the time is right. Another friend of mine in Sacramento, Teri took the missionary discussions with some other member friends while we were in High School. I understood that she would have joined but her parents asked her to wait until she was 18. I spent quite a bit of time with her on my last visit and we talked about the church and my decision to leave it. She said that she was really turned off by how each Sunday she was told another thing that she could NOT do. When one of the teachers started telling her that even hot chocolate was technically against the Word of Wisdom, that was the final straw for her. When I first told Teri over the phone about my discovery, after her shock and awe she responded with, "Aww, little Trixter is growing up."

I guess I wasn't under the impression that being a member of the church indicated that I was not growing up. I felt that it made me quite mature, actually. Afterall, I had nearly mastered the art of resistance by being a member of the church. I don't drink, smoke, do drugs, have sex, listen to hardcore rock & roll (and I don’t mean Elvis Presley), dress immodestly, swear, lie, cheat, steal, watch R rated movies, gamble, shop or work on Sundays. Hell, I even served a full time mission while I didn't even get to listen to music other than church hymns, read any books besides the standard works, visit or call friends, watch movies (besides church videos), go on dates, go dancing, go swimming, take naps, sleep in or stay up late. There are few people who could manage to live within such strict guidelines, but I did. I was a pretty darn ...no Damn obedient missionary. I used to say that I wouldn't trade my mission experience for the World because I learned so much. I think now I would have gotten more out of what I wanted to do more than serve a mission, which was to join the Peace Corps. I wanted to devote at least a portion of my life to helping people. I'm sure I would have done more good by joining the Peace Corps than I did on my mission, even with the few hours of service we did in the rest homes which at the time, I felt was a poor excuse for community service. So I found out that I am not at mature as I thought. That’s ok, though because I feel like I am finally on the right track. I thought I had all the answers to life given to me in a nice little package. All I had to do was 'hold to the rod'. As it turns out, the way to happiness isn't a road of rules and restrictions at all, but simply one of love, kindness and understanding of others, including ourselves. It felt so nice to be able to be myself around Teri. I even showed off my new underwear to her. She said, “When did you get a cute butt?” Then she began to wonder who I was and what I did with her prude friend. I told her I am Trixie’s evil twin, and that I have taken over, so her ‘prude’ friend won’t be coming back.

Teri and I decided to leave the reception a little early to take off to San Francisco for some Salsa dancing. I think the name of the place we went is something like La Coca Rocco. I’m probably way, off, but something like that. Translated it probably means, ‘The Cockroach’ or something. It’s a cool place though. One of Teri’s old boyfriend’s took her there when they were dating. Then Teri took Kara and I a few nights just before I moved out to Utah, but we got there kind of late that night.

This time we got there just before the band started and the place was just filling up. There were a lot more people than last time. Both of us hardly sat down because we were always being asked to dance. The first guy that asked me to dance became pretty fond of me and kept coming back for more. He was pretty fun to dance with too because he let me get creative.
Teri met an admirer too. I guess they really hit it off because last I heard he was driving up to Sacramento the next night to go salsa dancing with her again!