An Experiment

28 June 2007
My bishop sometimes comes up with the most harebrained ideas to help me out with my problems. The funny thing is that all of his ideas have helped me out so far. I talked to him last night about certain issues I am having and he came up with another harebrained idea. I am really surprised that it is working and helping me out a lot!

Talking with him last night was really kind of weird. Everything that we have been trying has not really helped me out, except for one of his new ideas last night. I am still having the same problems and I keep falling into the same pitfalls. I am not going to tell you what my problems are and what I have to do to help me get away from them, but I will tell you about his crazy experiment that he wants me to try.

His experiment involves enlisting a guy from our ward to be my close friend. I know what you are thinking, a forced friendship, hooray! It is something that we all want in this life, NOT! This friendship is different though. The bishop and Elder's Quorum President is going to pray and find someone special for me. He is going to know that I need some help. Our first meeting as "friends" is going to be with the bishop. In this meeting, I am going to tell this "friend" pretty much everything about myself and my dealing with "SSA" or being gay. This "friend" is supposed to try to be there whenever he can for me. I am supposed to call him when I need help, when I need to talk, or when I just need a friend. My bishop wants me to have other friends who know about my situation who are not gay. It is going to be interesting to see how this experiment works out.

Last night, I was really scared and told him no. I was in tears the whole time he was telling me this. I felt like I could never tell someone who I did not know at all. I have already been hurt enough lately and I did not think that I could handle more hurt by having someone know who I did not trust. I eventually got over this through reading the scriptures, praying, and talking to Brady. I called my bishop today and told him that I am willing to give it a try. To be honest, I am really scared and excited at the same time. Brady told me today that people say when you follow a Priesthood leader, you cannot go too wrong. I am hoping that he is right!

Dating Salad

23 June 2007
Drex is finally coming back home today from his escapades in Florida. Before he left, he asked me to watch after and take care of Salad. Salad and I, however, might have taken it a little out of context. We ended up going on a couple of dates together. They have all been really fun and he have talked about a lot of topics. I do not think that this is what Drex had in mind when he asked me to take care of her. Taking his future wife out is probably not the best thing, but I guess that it does not matter now. We have already gone out!

Last night we went to Costa Vida for dinner and had great conversation about many random and fun topics. We then headed to the Scera Shell Outdoor Theater to see Ragtime. Yes, it was a musical and I guess that makes my gayness obvious! I do not care though! I had a great time and really enjoyed the whole production of it.

When we first got there, we watched little children running up to the stage and playing games. There was also a woman with down's syndrome yelling at them. It was a really funny and cute situation. The director came out on stage to introduce the production and Salad pegged him as gay, I concurred. The whole rest of the musical we ended up pegging a couple of others. Salad also believes that the whole black population in Utah County was in this play and I would have to say that almost the whole black population was in this musical. These are not the points that I wanted to bring up though. I found the musical to be a very spiritual experience for me.

I felt the inklings of the spirit in the first half of the musical. It mainly happened when they were talking about walking into the darkness together to find the light. Then at the very end, it talked about how everyone has a purpose here in life and that we should not waste our life in darkness, never fulfilling our purpose. This really hit me as something that I must do. There might be times in my life where I get discouraged and want to do things that I should not. I just need to remember that God has a plan and a purpose for me. I must do my best to fulfill that purpose! We all need to fulfill our purposes. We have SSA for a reason and hopefully we will not stay in darkness, never fulfilling our purposes.

Seeing the musical with Salad could not have happened at a better time in my life! Drex, thanks for letting me date/take care of Salad!

Hugs for All

22 June 2007
Reading posts about hugging is really interesting to me. I am personally a very physical person and I love to show affection for others. Hugging is one of the ways I show affection for others. So for everyone who reads my blog, ask me for a hug next time you see me! I will give you one because I love you all!

Happy hugging and hugs for all!

Adventures with John

Finals are finally over for me and on Wednesday night, I get an email for John saying that he and a bunch of other MoHos are going hot tubbing. He asked me if I wanted to come. Of course, I decided to go because I love meeting new people and I have wanted to meet John for a while. I pulled on my swimming suit and headed out the door. I got there a little bit early since they were not there yet, so I was waiting for them. The next thing that I know, two cars pull up and someone jumps out of one and starts calling someone. I assumed that this was John and lo and behold my phone starts ringing and it was John. I was introduced to everyone in the group and we headed out to the hot tub.

In the hot tub, it was hot, steamy, and sweaty, but it was from the heat of course! ;) We had a great time talking about nothing and everything at the same time. I got to know new people and some older friends better. I had a great time chatting in the hot tub with them and then there was a leg orgy in the hot tub, but that needs a whole post on its own! We got bored with the hot tub and decided to go pool hopping. We headed to another pool and hot tub and partied! We messed around and talked some more. We eventually called it quits and headed off to bed. Before we all left, we had to give and receive hugs. I love how we are so gay! AtP made the comment that if anybody saw us hugging out there they would definitely think that we were either gay or messed up (we are probably both)!

John has been talking to me about swimming and I was going to show him some of the ropes yesterday morning. I got a text from him about eight saying that he was awake and wanted to go swimming. We met and headed to the RB. It was our luck that they had swimming camps going on and we could not go swimming. We headed to the Provo Rec, they had swim team going on. Then we went to the Scera Pool, they had swimming lessons going on. Finally we went Orem Rec and it was just our luck that they were also doing swimming lessons. We gave up on our quest to go swimming.

We then headed to Kneader's for all-you-can-eat french toast (so good)! We were there for about an hour talking about life, relationships, the church, and love. It was a really good talk. Let me say that I have found an amazing new friend! Huzzah! (that's for you Salad). I am really sad to see him go on vacation with his family and then head back to Moab. I really hope that John decides to come to BYU for law school, because I really enjoyed hanging out with him!

Thanks John for playing with me! :)

What is Love?

21 June 2007
I have been having interesting talks with my bishop lately on love. They have been interesting to say the least. This is a new bishop (this is not the same one who was helping me originally because i changed wards). My last bishop told me that I should be completely honest with my new bishop and tell him everything, if I felt the need to. I felt like I should tell my new bishop everything so he could better understand exactly what I was going through. This has helped him understand me a lot better and what I like best about him is that he is very non-judgmental.

Lately I have been struggling with the topic of love. I have wondered many times about how I could love a man and it be wrong. I thought that love came from God. Love does not come from Satan because only evil comes from Satan. I personally do not see love as evil (sorry if some of you think that). I went to my bishop and told him how I feel and I gave him my case (it was a lot more complicated than what I described above). He was dumbfounded after I gave him my case. He really did not know what to say. The first thing he said was that it was interesting that I said that love does not come from Satan. He agreed with me on this, but he then asked the one question that strikes fear into many hearts...

He asked me, "What is love?" He then gave me a lengthy explanation about how lust can be misinterpreted as love and how lust is not the way. Being my usual feisty self, I retorted and told him that it definitely was not lust. He then asked me the question again, "What is love?" I then gave him my definition (you can see more of it on this post). I told him that I never wanted to do anything to hurt someone I loved, that I wanted what was best for them, that I would try to give up everything if I could help them, that I loved spending time with them and when they were gone I was sad, that when they are sad, I am sad, and that these is a sexual component of love with some people. He said that this definition is one that he would give of love. He agreed with me that I was not lusting after a man.

Then we had a conversation about dating and everything. I really do not want to go into that because that is for another post, if I choose to write about it. It makes me wonder though if this "gay" love is bad. According to my bishop, I am not lusting after someone. This adds another interesting twist to everything. He did tell me that if I decided to pursue a relationship (a social one) that I would have to be extremely careful for it not to develop into a sexual relationship, which would take my chance of going on a mission away. I am not sure if I am going to try dating again, but it was just something interest I thought I would throw out there.

Things Are Messy

14 June 2007
Wow! There are a lot of things going on right now and finals week is approaching fast. I want to write about a lot of things, but I am going to have to wait until after finals. I hope all is well for everyone!

Cranberry

10 June 2007
On Friday night, I was feeling really sad and depressed. I had already exercised for three hours (two hours of swimming and one hour of running) that day to get over that, but nothing was really working. After doing that, I got home and sat and did homework until nine. I have such a boring life. During that time, I texted a few people to see what was up. I did not get many responses. I got one response that made me very happy! It was from my good friend Cranberry.

Cranberry and I go way back. We met in health class in seventh grade and we have been good friends ever since. She is also one of the first people that I came out to. All that I can say about her is that she is truly amazing and I am really glad to have her as my friend! :D

We chatted for a while and I decided to go up yesterday to help her move and to hang out with her. I had not seen her for a good couple of months and all day, my excitement was ready to burst out of my chest. As I was driving up to see her, I was talking to Brady. I am sure that he could tell that I was really excited, but if he could not, he must have been missing something. When I got there, it was a glorious reunion! It was really good to see her again and she still looked like her amazing self, despite the grubby clothes from moving. I helped her move into her new apartment and we chatted about a lot of things: being gay, the church, life in general, plans, goals, hopes, dreams, parents, family, friends, etc. This brought back a lot of good memories for me. I am not sure if it did for her, but it was fun! Cranberry really brightened up my day and weekend because it been a kind of a depressing one for me.

I think that I am definitely going to go up to Salt Lake to visit her more often because it was a very nice break. Cranberry has also offered me her couch whenever I need to get away from P-town. She is amazing! I love her to death!

PS Salad, she loves your blog!

PPS She wants to meet some of my friends in the MoHo world. If anyone wants to meet her when I go visit her, let me know because we will have an amazing time!

Am I Proud To Be Gay?

06 June 2007
Since I have food poisoning right now, I am stuck at home having lovely colored flows coming out of both ends of my body. I have been hearing and reading about the "pride" of being gay. This topic has come into many discussions with some close friends. It seems like everyone has their own definitions of what this "pride" exactly is. I am going to throw mine out there and you can either agree or disagree.

Pride (according to Dictionary.com) means a becoming or dignified self of what is due to oneself or one's position or character; self-respect, self-esteem. By the way, that was the third on the list. The first two were not very good definitions. This definition defines my position on my "pride" of being gay. I do not lower my self-esteem and I do not lower my rank as a human being because I am gay. I am a perfectly normal person who likes men. I also do not loose self-respect for myself. I love myself and the fact that I am gay. There are, however, some times when I would like to not be gay. These are during depressing times though.

I guess that I can say that I am proud to be gay. Like Drex's comment on Odd's last post, I feel a great sense of pride in being gay because of the trials I go through and the experiences I have. I have learned a lot from my experiences and I have done a lot of thinking (a lot more than the typical brainwashed Mormons). I have gained a lot stronger testimony than I would have otherwise had. I have met amazing people who mean the world to me. There are just so many benefits that I have gained from being gay. I also feel like there is a greater purpose in me being gay. I am supposed to learn something from it that will help me. Even though my life and your lives are much harder than most peoples, I can proudly say that I am proud to be gay!

This has got me to the point of wondering what my life would be like if I was not gay. What would my life be like? I would probably be on a mission right now or at least being almost ready to leave (I plan to go on a mission next year at this time). I probably would have an ok relationship with my parents and brother. I would not have the view of life and the world that I have today. I would probably be hanging out with SSGs (the horror)! I would not have the same view of women as I do. I would not be able to cook, sew, accessorize, and shop. I probably would not have the testimony that I have. I would not have the amazing friends that I have right now. I think that life would be just plain boring! Is this what my life would really be like if I was not gay? I think that it is a fair guess.

I love being gay because there is so much to it. My life is a lot more complicated, but that makes it fun. It also brings different challenges in my life that not very many people get to experience (I love being unique and I love a good challenge). I used to want to have my gayness be taken away from me, but now, you could not do anything to take it away from me. I can proudly say that I am proud to be gay! Hooray for being gay!

PS Calvin and I chatted for a while and I guess I did not make a clear enough point on how I feel. I accept myself for who I am and I do not need to let everyone know that I am gay to be accepting. I also do not need to be proud to be gay by letting everyone know that I am (it is only a small part of who I am). I am not ashamed to be gay and I can be proud by just being who I am.

Pure Love

05 June 2007
I was going to write about my six experiences of getting hit on by gay men (before I was out and before I officially decided that I was gay), but I think that I want to share it another time. There has been something more pertinent on my mind. It is something that is deep inside and it seems to never go away. I do not know if anyone has felt like this before, but I know that I have. It is something stronger than anything that I have ever felt before in my life. It is a true and pure love for my friends. I think I somewhat know how Christ feels towards all of us, but there is no possible way that I could ever compare my love for others to His love for others.

As some of you know, I broke down on last Tuesday night. I totally freaked out and basically fell really far from where I was. If I did not have my amazing friends to lift me up, I really do not know where I would be. God has blessed me with wonderful people whom I love a lot and who love me a lot! Calvin, Salad, Drex, Hidden, Romulus, Brady, Caitlin, EvadingOdd (or just Odd now), Danish Boy, and many others, you are all amazing! You brought me up when Satan was kicking me down. You helped mend my bruised and broken heart, soul, and body. I cannot express my gratitude for you and I just want you to know that it is on the deepest level. This is where I come to my understanding pure love.

We all hear from the scriptures that Charity is the pure love of Christ and many other things about Christ's pure love for us. What exactly is pure love? My definition of pure love is a love with no conditions upon which it is predicated. You love someone because you genuinely care for their welfare and you want to help the succeed. Pure love is also never wanting to do something to hurt someone and bring them down. Pure love is the highest level of love and it is something that we all need to work on having more of. Now, back to my experiences.

I always felt like I had some sort of pure love because the way I feel for Logan, but I have never understood it as much as I do now. During my break down, I asked Calvin and Drex to give me a blessing. Let me just say that it was just what I needed and it was perfect! Thanks guys! Thanks Salad for writing it down because I read it every morning when I wake up. In the blessing was said some wonderful things about me and my friends (they are much to sacred for me to share) and this has helped me realize the love I have for my friends.

When I first jumped into the MoHo world, I was really scared that they were going to expect me to do things with them or they were just looking to hook up. I soon found that it was the complete opposite. I then became nervous and wondered if from my prior experiences if I would do somethings that would harm them or cause them problems. I found this also to be false. All of you are genuinely great people and I love all y'all! I would never want to do anything to harm you and I would much rather be friends with all of you rather than date and have sex with you. I have found that a lot of my homosexual desires have decreased when I am with you rather than increase. Do not get me wrong, I am still gay, but it seems easier not to worry about doing anything wrong with all y'all. It is great!

This is where I get my pure love for all of you. I see the amazing people you all are. I see that each of you has a divine purpose here in life and I would never want to harm you from achieving that divine purpose (that would be really selfish of me). Even when I am attracted to a MoHo and we become really good friends, my pure love comes from deep inside of me and prevents me from pushing or going along with pressures to do anything. It is deep inside and something that will never go away. I see how I influence all y'all and I see how you influence me. I would have it no other way.

Sometimes I wonder if this is a little slice of heaven for me. I think that it might be because I have great friends who care about me and whom I care about, the love we have for each other, the great times we have together (despite all of our trials), and the growth that we have together. It is wonderful!