Final Thoughts on Sharing and Our Mormon Project

I shared this email with my dad via email in a PDF format. My parents’ knew about this relationship and they watched the ups and downs for about a year before they didn’t want to hear about it anymore. It got to the point where my mom wouldn’t talk to me and I didn’t want to talk to my dad because he was very negative. I recognize now that their behavior occurred because they felt helpless and didn’t know how to help me; they also felt my behavior was aimed at them as a way to hurt them (which it wasn’t). I felt hurt that they weren’t there for me when I needed them most and they made the experience about them, but when I decided to kick him out of my life they came right back into my life and were very supportive.

Sending him the essay felt like opening that wound a little bit because it brought out the sadness he and my mom experienced.  But I hadn’t told him about the dream so that clarified things for him and we were able to talk about it through email and then more in depth when I got home. My favorite quote from him about the situation was this: “It probably goes to show how blinded in bad relationships people can become; as perplexing as it is, the loving explanation of one or both parents sometimes don't shed light on the situation for the person involved - even creating resentment which is of course, exactly not what is needed.”

Sharing our stories

I learned a lot about my friends and the way people react to our essays through sharing my story as well as a few others with people I know.

One of the main responses I got was actually about Viridianas essay, which I shared with a few member and non-member friends in Argentina. Many were quick to respond to her conversion story, and one friend was willing to share it with five people and then invite them to listen to the missionaries. I'm still waiting for a response from him on whether they accepted The invitation or not. Another non-member I shared her story with said it really helped her to remember why she converted in the first place.

With my personal essay, I shared it in person with one of my roommates who just lost his grandfather. As my essay was focused on the passing of my own grandmother, I felt this would be appropriate. He didn't say much, but I could tell he appreciated it, and I feel our friendship has grown since..

The last mentionable person that I shared my essay with was my father. As it was his mother that passed I wasn't sure how he would respond, especially with it being so candid in the essay how my grandmother had passed. He was surprisingly very happy that I had shared it with so many and that endured a good conversation about the people I had shared it with and how it had helped them.

All in all, it was a very good response, and more than I had expected to come from our activity of sharing our personal essays with others.

Sharing and Responding

I sent an email to the people in my family, explaining to them a bit why I was asking them to view/read this. I also spoke with my sister and mother on the phone to tell them more about it. With my roommates, I approached them in person and asked if they would be willing to read it and share their thoughts. My friend from high school and work I was a little more careful about approaching because we hadn’t spoken in quite a while. I texted one of them and Facebook messaged the other and we chatted about life and caught up before I mentioned anything about the essay. I also tried to bring the topic up in conversation so it didn’t seem like I was using them. I actually had my mom share my essay with my former seminary teacher, simply because he is super technologically challenged and wouldn’t read in unless it was in his hand.

I’ve talked to almost everyone I personally shared it with and will hopefully speak with my seminary teacher over the break, looking for opinions and reflections on what they read. I talked a lot more in depth with my roommates about the subject matter and we all had a big heart to heart where we talked about hard things we had gone through and things we missed and such. It was actually a really beneficial thing for us to do because it helped us form a deeper connection and get out of our own bubble and understand everyone else’s bubble for once.

My sister was an interesting one to share it with (she’s the one mentioned first in the essay) because it’s a topic we’ve spoken about quite frequently over the years. She was actually really surprised by some of the things I wrote because she’d never thought about it in that way. We went through almost the same experience and we were there together at both funerals, but there’s a fourteen year age gap between us that distinguished the experience. It was kind of a bonding experience and just a learning experience in general.

Sharing Katie’s essay with my friend from high school was such an incredible experience, because she was actually baptized while we were sophomores. She mentioned a time where we had gone to the park for lunch and ended up just talking about life and she told me that that was the first time she had ever thought she might want something more in life. I vaguely remember the conversation, but it made an impact on her as I shared my stories and thoughts, similarly to how Katie and her friends sat in the car and shared stories. It was a very uplifting and completely unexpected experience.

Share Bears

As much as I was hesitant to share my essay with anyone outside of...this class, I found the results to be positive enough to make the experience worth it--even if the results were limited.

I first shared it with the actual Elder Clark from the story (who's name was changed). He said he appreciated me sharing it with him and he thought it was a good essay, but he asked that I not post it on Facebook publicly or share it with anyone who doesn't already know the story. I told him the whole class had already read it and he was fine with that but he was afraid others might connect the dots and find out who it was. There's members of his own family that don't know anything about it

Heeding that advice, I shared it only with people who knew about the experience, which ended up being narrowed down to my family and the mission president from the story. I send it to my parents who sent me an email back telling me they liked it and wondered why I hadn't told them more about it sooner. They didn't realize how dragged down I was during the experience, which made me a little sad knowing that I had a period of great stress but I never bothered to tell anyone about it.

I also sent it to my old mission president yesterday but haven't heard back yet.

So it wasn't the most fruitful sharing experience but I think it made a difference with those that count.

The Process of Sharing

         So far sharing has gone pretty well this weekend. Through these sharing efforts I have been able to make some good connections, and continue to make more and make them meaningful.

       The first people I reached out too was my two high school teachers named Mr. Snedeker and Mr. Tinker. I haven't really been able to talk to them a whole lot since I got back from my mission, but they were always supportive. I shared the link to my essay on the blog, and they were very thankful that I thought of them and shared something so personal with them.

      I also reached out to a ward member from back home that runs that Mormon Faces Instagram account, and she has agreed for when I get back home for break to be interviewed and featured on the account, explaining positive ways to use social media, and linking to our class blog. I've also reached out to some of my family members, close and extended, and sent them my PDF version to read, as they have followed my mission adventure throughout the two years, and this makes a good little epilogue to it.

     I'm still in the process of sharing, still trying to get in contact with some people, but overall so far, the sharing has been a very positive experience. I feel this is exactly what Elder Bednar meant when he gave his devotional talk about social media, and its positive impact it can have on people and their relationships. We just have to have the courage to share, and allow the spirit to work through us and inspire us who to share it with.

Just Share It!

At first I was dreading sharing my essay with people. So I decided to start slow and share with someone that I was very comfortable with. That ended up being my cousin, Scott. We are pretty close, and the essay I wrote is about our grandpa, so I thought he would like it. And he did! In fact, he asked if it was alright if he shared it with his mom (my aunt). It was really encouraging to hear back positive feedback, and it emboldened me to share more.

I also decided to share Keegan's essay with a recent convert who is considering going on a mission. I had thought of this friend and thought he could appreciate a story about someone's missionary experiences and how it had affected their life. Because of this, I chose to share Keegan's essay and this led to some meaningful discussion. We talked about where he would want to go if he could choose, and I told him about where I had served my mission too.

Because of my success sharing someone else's essay, I decided to share Katie's essay with my little sister. My sister is a sophomore in high school, so I thought she would appreciate this essay because Katie talked about going to dances, which is something that my sister is fascinated with. My sister said the essay was fantastic, and she wanted to read more, so I sent her my essay. After reading it she told me it was "srsly awesome" and she compared me to one of her favorite authors. It was a cool chance to connect with her, even though we are at very different stages in our lives.

Here are some short tips from my experiences about how to best share personal content like this.

-Have a plan, and think about who you will share with and how to share it
-Don't be scared, these people are your friends
-Start with the lowest-pressure sharing, such as a close friend
-From that expand to others that you feel the message could help
-Share in a natural way: feel free to tell them you're doing it for a class, and why you thought of them
-Ask what they thought

I hope this helps others with their sharing!

Successes with Sharing

So far, sharing has gone really well for me. I haven't completed all my sharing at this point, but I am working through each experience trying to make it meaningful.

My focus with sharing my own essay was to share it with people that would understand it the best, who either went through my experience with me or saw me through it. I shared my essay with the best friend that held my hand during the funeral. I was really nervous to do this because I had tried to talk to him in the past about Jared's death, but he just wasn't ready to talk about it. It has now been 1 1/2 years since Jared's passing, so I was hoping that talking about it now would be a good experience, and it was! I sent the essay over a Facebook message to this friend and got a very positive response from it. I felt like it was really appreciated and helped with some healing my friend is still dealing with.

I also shared it with a teacher I am fairly close to and who knew Jared very well. She was happy to see me portraying Jared in such a positive light and trying to teach others to learn from his life.

I did share a few other's essays in various places. I read Hailey's essay to my brother, who loves video games, and he got quite the kick out of it! I also just generally shared Hailey's essay on Facebook because I am friends with lots of mothers who I think need to better understand how loved they are, especially for their quirks! I have gotten three likes on the post so far.

I sent my sisters Emily's essay because they are both applying for college right now and could use the encouragement. One of them responded saying that she is motivated to keep on trying no matter what happens in her future and that Emily's essay gave her hope.

I am going to continue sharing in different ways and am excited to see what kind of reactions I will receive from others!

Action Plan for Sharing My Personal Essay

1.    My sister, Sarah H. Sarah was going to college far away at U-Penn and always kept busy with internships. I started a relationship with this guy as she was away. I think it would be amusing to hear her remarks about my personal essay. It will be exciting to see what she thinks about the relationship I had made the minute she left. I am curious of what she will think about when I tie in the Book of Mormon reference as well.

2.    My old Math teacher, Mr. Hamel. I was his TA for the class. He became a friend in school as I went throughout the day. In the speech that he gave at graduation he mentioned my name. I imagine it will be interesting to see if he remembers what had happened throughout the years I got to know this gentleman in my story. He use to teach at where the gentleman went to school and he taught the gentleman that I had started a great relationship with. I am curious to see how he reacts to the inclusion of the Book of Mormon as well, seeing that he has no interest in religion. I will contact him through the school since He contacted me seeing how college had gone.

3.    My brother, Mark Harris. He has been with me through thick and thin. I have been there for him through thick and thin as well. He has helped me through my struggles and we see each other almost 4 days a week. I never expressed to him about this personal essay until the other day. He seems quite intrigued to read my essay face to face. I am excited to hear his comments on it.

4.    The social networking online my plan is to share the clip that we make and a link to the rest of the stories or personal essays on Instagram. I notice that I post some quotes from the prophets and apostles and other church members and a couple of friends always express some comments over the quotes and I would be delighted to hear their response.

5.    A friend that I have had and became close with in high school went to a complete different college all the way in Texas. She emailed me to see how I was doing and how life was. I will email her later a copy of this essay and clip to see her response. I am nervous to see what she might think to the tie in of the Book of Mormon because she is strictly Baptist but we became best friend in our last high school years together and are really understanding about both our religions.

6.    My co-workers, Rachel, Mike and Ben. We all work together and learn about each other’s lives as we work. This would be a social networking offline with three of my great new friends I have made at work. I am excited to learn and here about their responses when I will present my essay to them during a lunch break or another brake we might have.

Action Plan for Personal Essays & Videos

It was hard for me to decide who to share my essay with. I don't want to burden people with it because it's kind of heavy and I also don't want it to seem like I'm seeking their praise by sharing it with them. But after realizing the point of this assignment and the essay itself isn't about me, rather it's about bringing people to the Book of Mormon through the light in our writing, it became clear who I should share it with.

1. My Mom: I kind of hint at this in the free writes and drafts we've done for this class, but my relationship with my mother struggled when I was with the guy. She couldn't stand how unhappy I was, and it got to the point where she wouldn't talk to me because it made her too sad. That was really hard because my mom is my best friend and my confidant. I already felt so alone because of everything that was going on and when she wasn't someone I could go to for comfort things were really dark. I'm going to email her the final video and a link to the essay and then talk with her about it on the phone. I want to hear what she thinks and to see if she's better able to understand what I was going through, especially why it was so hard for me to end it even once I realized it was bad.

2. My friend Macie: Macie was with me for all of it through the year and a half. She was vocal with comfort and also gave advice that I trusted. She's commented on how much I've changed since I got him out of my life, and I hope by reading my essay she'll be able to see the full extent of the progress. I want to give her the essay and then meet up with her in person and talk about it, and also share my gratitude with her for all of the support and love she's shown me.

3. My roommate Rachael: I read the first (and second) drafts of the essay to Rachael for an earlier blog post assignment, so she's asked about where the final draft is going. I will give her a physical copy and see how she responds by talking about it in person.

4. My cousin Kristen: She was in a very abusive relationship for a couple of years and only recently got out of it. I've been connecting with her a lot more recently via Snapchat and Facebook (and at a family reunion this summer), and I would be interested to hear her perspective on my essay.

5. (Maybe) The guy I'm seeing now: I recently got into a happy, healthy relationship. This man and I have talked a little bit about our exes, including the one I wrote about in the essay. I didn't go into much detail about all of it, but some of the insecurities and fears I developed from that unhealthy relationship have resurfaced as I've started to be with this man. He's helping me work through them and willing to talk about things, which is such a blessing. Maybe showing him this will help him see why I struggle with some things and help us grow closer together.

6. Facebook friends: I really love Romney's essay so I'm going to post a link for his essay on my Facebook. I think it's something people who I'm friends with (especially the English majors) will enjoy a lot because of the vivid descriptions and the emotions it evokes.

7.

A Mother's Critique

I chose to share my personal essay with the smartest person I know: my mom.  She was traveling internationally and so it was surprisingly difficult to get a hold of her until today.  But as we read over my essay together, I was reminded of how cool she is.  She is an English major and her favorite pastime is reading novels.  Therefore, I imagined that she could give fairly helpful feedback.  I was correct.

Most of the feedback I received was literary.  She analyzed a lot of aspects of my paper, like tense, transitions, and wording.  She helped to recognize a lot of areas where I was too vague, for example, by saying, “we sat,” instead of explaining who was sitting.  “Do not overestimate your audience and assume that they can always follow what you are thinking.” As she pointed this out, I realized that it is something that I do a lot in my writing.  

At one point during our conversation, I even felt slightly frustrated because there were so many things that were apparent to her that I needed to improve.

However, she also was very happy to see me writing about my brother. “You’re a good writer, I like what you’ve done.  I’m quite impressed actually.”  She told me this when I finished reading it to her.  She suggested that I also show it to my brother because he was the subject of my personal essay.  It makes me wonder what his reaction to it will be.  But I believe that I will wait until the final draft before showing it to him.

All in all, this sharing experience opened my eyes to a more clear style of writing, and helped me to bond with my mother.  We remained talking for over an hour after she finished giving me feedback on my essay. 

When you least expect it

I'm the third out of six children in my family. We have all served missions so far. My three siblings that are younger than me are all boys. One is on his mission in the Ukraine, the other is going to Iowa and went into the MTC today, and the youngest is a senior in high school. So this past week my parents drove down from Canada to bring my brother to the MTC.

Yesterday I convinced my parents that they need to see Christopher Nolan's new film Interstellar, so we all went including my missionary brother to see the movie in IMAX in Sandy. On the way back I was driving and figured I should get my brother to read my personal essay draft and give me some spiritual insight since he has been set apart as a missionary. So he grabbed my phone and read it to himself as I was responsibly paying attention to the road. He laughed out loud during the middle section which I was hoping he would.

Once he was finished he simply said it was good and smiled. I did a bit more proding and he reminded me of the few grammar errors, but said that he really enjoyed reading it and then turned and handed the phone to my dad that was sitting in the back seat with my mom and said "you should really read this." My dad asked what it was, and after my brother wouldn't tell him he began to read it out loud so my mom could hear so she wouldn't have to read it again.

It was an interesting experience to hear my dad read my words out loud. My family is very family with the friendship that I have with brother Miller, but haven't heard all the little stories. His voice went from an almost confused tone, to one of recognition, to laughter, and then finally to tears. My mom was also crying, and I too was getting choked up by their reactions. After a long pause ounce he finished reading I finally had the gumpsion to tell them that I wrote the essay to make people laugh and not cry. We all had a little chuckle, but it was very strong spirit that we felt in our CRV driving back to Provo.

I was reminded that my dad also had a very strong friendship with brother Miller having served as a counsellor to him in the bishopric in our ward before. He too had a great amount of respect and love for this man as I do, and we shared a special moment together. I never would have guessed that this relatively insignificant piece of literature that I managed to piece together. 

A Convergence of Inauthentic Authenticity

As I shared my story with my wife, Amy, I realized the amount of artistic license that I had taken with the story. She had been with me in the car with my grandparents while most of the events transpired, so she new the story as well as I did.  I had intentionally shifted the timeline on some things, but others I hadn't even realized that I had changed, so it was interesting to talk to her about the changes that I had made and their effect on the story. Overall the feedback I got was that even though she new the timeline and events were not strictly true, it still came across as authentic. That lead us to an interesting discussion of what it actually means to be 'authentic'. Perhaps we want a sort of achieved authenticity in writing, but if writing were strictly about what actually happened it would likely feel somewhat hollow and scattered.

There were also some ideas that Amy had that could refine the topic and help focus it. She was drawn (and repulsed, she wanted to add) by the imagery of my grandma drinking Vanilla Ensure, and said that I could make it more vivid by being more specific about its color (perhaps describing it as off-white or yellowish-white). I found it interesting that she commented on this, because this had been a point that others had focused on when I had read it to them in class as well. 

She also indicated that the end of the story brought up a new character-my sister-that could probably be addressed less specifically. Finally, my wife felt that the most important part of the story was my Grandpa, and that I could introduce him sooner and more specifically. At the same time, she liked the light-hearted intro and conclusion, using my Step-Grandma to lighten the mood. Overall, it was very interesting to have a perspective from someone outside of the class, and it was good to see that it resonated with someone, biased though she may be. 

Finding Courage in a Friend

I chose to share my personal essay with my roommate who is not a member of the Church. Because our essays aim to include the Book of Mormon along with our personal experience, I thought she would provide a good perspective because she is not familiar with Book of Mormon stories and she would tell me if something didn't flow. Sometimes as members of the Church we forget that not everyone knows these accounts and we need to be mindful of that if our goal is to appeal to people who do not share our faith. 

We began with this draft of my essay. She said she liked the part with the dream; she said the descriptions were clear and helped her feel my emotion. However, she said starting with the story of Lehi turned her off and she suggested I bring in the religious aspect at the end. She also said she wished the essay gave more background on my relationship. While she knows the story with that guy, she said she didn't feel like the second draft gave the reader enough reasoning for why I would experience such a dream.

After hearing her suggestions, I read the first draft to her. I didn’t originally post it on our blog because I was worried it was too personal (I’ve gone back and taken out some identifying details). She loved this draft. She said it was considerably more powerful because it shows I’m a real person and it shows how much pain I was in. She said the first draft I read to her felt preachy and out of place, but the way I incorporated the Book of Mormon in the second reading was significantly more compelling.

Reading the original draft to her was hard; my voice was shaking and I felt really vulnerable. But seeing how moved she was and hearing how she never realized how badly I was hurting made me realize I have something in that draft to build on. That feeling was confirmed when she said she felt it could help people who are in similar relationships (and even people who receive dreams from God) to talk about what they’re going through. This is a story I need to share, not only to help myself heal, but also to help other people understand what it feels like to be in an emotionally abusive relationship. 

Finally Opening Up

My best friend and I at a beach in
Mexico.

Reading my personal essay to my friend, I was really nervous about what she would think. I don't normally talk about the subject I chose to write about, and she had moved before the scenario happened. She never really knew what I was feeling or what was going on because I had distanced myself from my friends, because in my 15 year old mind, that was being strong.

After running Color Me Rad.

She really enjoyed hearing my personal essay, and because she has been in my house before, she was able to have a better picture of my house. Even though she knew the design of my house, she still had a hard time taking in all the detail. She suggested I improve on the flow of my detail, and maybe change a few words to create a better description.

Finding hideous clothes for each other
and modeling them.

As I was reading out loud, I noted a few places where the flow between paragraphs needed a little fixing up as well. I needed to let loose on this paper, and really get through what I was trying to show. The essay seemed boring, even though there was a lot of detail. In reading it out loud, I even got a little bored. I'm going to see how maybe changing some details may make it, well, less boring.

After I was done reading the essay to her in the parking lot of a movie theater late last night, she asked a few questions about how I felt during that situation, and what was really going on. She had tried to be a good friend to me during that time, checking up on me and making sure I was okay, but I had pushed her out. I was always "okay." So it was nice to finally be able to open up to her, and deepen our relationship.

Sharing Time with my Wife

I chose to share my personal essay with my wife.

She enjoyed my description of my moving to Utah as a young man. In the first part of my essay she really liked how I portrayed my love for Iowa and all the people I spent a lot of time with. This helped her to understand even more clearly how I felt when I moved to Utah as I described the changes I experienced in my essay. The connection I established to Iowa through my use of imagery helped her relate to leaving Iowa. She said she could relate to feeling so attached to a residence because she had formed some similar memories in her hometown.

As I read to her some of my first experiences with Utah, she laughed because it was fun for her to see just how different Utah is to someone who isn't from here. She thought I did a great job of setting up the environment I was thrown into upon moving here. The details I provided about the culture that existed at the middle school helped her to understand why I experienced some of the challenges I faced as the new kid.

My wife said the voice I used in my essay was creative and fitting for my essay. She thought it added to the middle school aged experiences. She thought that if someone who was young and in middle school were to read my essay they would most likely be able to relate well. She said the effective use of voice pulls the reader into my shoes within the essay.

Towards the end of my essay I tie my experiences into the Book of Mormon through Lehi and his family's experience moving into the wilderness. My wife thought I could tie this into my story more than I am now. One of the suggestions she had was to add more information about how my brothers in my family may have either helped or hurt my experience as the new kid. She mentioned that this may help me relate to Nephi even more.

Overall, sharing my personal essay and reading it aloud to my wife was a positive experience. I think she learned new things about me and my youth while providing some good feedback for improvement. I would like to share and receive feedback on any future writing I do as well.

Connecting Through Form

            It was a great experience in sharing and reading my personal essay with my girlfriend, as it provided good feedback on some things I could work on, but as well as strengthen our relationship together. Some of the changes that I made after I read it out loud once again and hearing some of the feedback she gave I think really improved the overall strength of the essay. Not really any major changes to the essay, but small tweaks here and there on words and phrases that help the flow of the essay and improve the description in the essay.

            Like I said before, the experience of sharing my own writing with my girlfriend was a very positive one. Let alone the feedback she gave, I was able to express a mission memory in a whole new form that allowed her to connect to it in a different way. Instead of telling her a story by memory, I let the words of this personal essay bring her into a small portion of my mission. She was able to see another view, angle, perspective of my experiences in Africa through my writing. I don’t share my writing with anyone in my personal life, so I was little nervous when reading this to her. But she greatly appreciated it, and this opened up questions and discussion on some other parts of my mission that we had never talked about before. This experience showed me that writing is just another form of how we can express ourselves to our audience and others. Sometimes, like writing in different styles, communicating through formal essays instead or tweets or texts, we can have a better personal connection with someone and connect with a multitude of people.

Ready for Marriange?

Personal essays… personal essays…

You know, the problem with sharing personal essays— is well, they’re personal.

Photo from: christianpost.com

I decided to share my essay with my fiancée. We’ve dated for a year now and we have gotten know each other extremely well! Or at least I thought so. 

As she read my personal essay all she kept repeating over and over was, “I thought I knew everything about you!” and “Why have you never told me about this?”

Suffice it to say it actually rattled us a bit. How much do we TRULY know about each other? Do we know each other as well as we thought we did? Are we ready to get married? Are we actually ready?

The personal essay is a form that is so unique and intimate that it provides a space for reflection that even fiancées don’t tend to bridge frequently. After contemplating all this, the only lame excuse I could give her was, “well, it never came up.” 

She gave some advice on the rhetorical side of my personal essay.
She explained that some symbolism was vague and I would be better off to state it more fluidly with the rest of the tone of my paper.
Another idea she had was to change the timing at which I interjected thoughts of the Book of Mormon within the events of the story.
 I love the advice she gave and I’ll be sure to implement them for the final draft of my essay. 

Same Page?

Sharing my personal essay proved to be a little harder than I had anticipated. This is mostly due to the fact that I asked my girlfriend to listen to my paper. Well I was busy doing some other things and so I let her read it while I was finishing up prior tasks. She proceeded to critic my grammar errors and marked up my entire paper. As a result of not being exactly obedient to the assignment this took us about 20 minutes to get to analyzing the essay for the Mormon Literature it is trying to become.

I am not down playing the lack of grammatical proficiency because she was right. I had a lot of things to edit and make better. Once I was able to explain how what she was looking for such as
the kind of imagery she gets from the essay, the personal connection, the fluidity and relation to the Book of Mormon we were able to get on track. Its amazing how being on the same page makes a difference.

She mentioned how as she read about the relationship with the missionaries she did feel a connection because I have talked about them and the experience before. She has meet many missionaries from my mission so she was able to put faces to this experience, even though many of the missionaries she knows were not apart of this experience.

It was mentioned the desire to have more detail in the story not to create imagery, but to have more information. Guess it left her wanting to read on about it in more depth. When we talked about the Book of Mormon portion she expressed how I should make sure I am clear if I am talking about the missionaries or the Book of Mormon characters.

Overall this was a good experience. I was enlightened to my lack of grammatical skill. Recognizing the importance of that, it was good to know she could be connected to my essay. Detail is something I struggled with my first essay so I am anxious to revisit the idea of offering more information. Also being able to clarify who I am talking about. Lots of work still left to do